The Kinks are legends, icons, whatever. There’s no questioning that, of course. The gnarly opening riff of “You Really Got Me has been leaking its influence into other artists’ music since the first time that song ripped through the tinny speaker on some kid’s tiny transistor radio. Yet, the Kinks are so much more than just the savage riffage of “You Really Got Me”. They are the night-life storytelling of “Lola”, they are the twee-pop of “Dedicated Follower of Fashion”, they are the soft heart of “Waterloo Sunset”, and the pastoral-pop of “Picture Book”.
Yet all of these iconic Kinks styles come from just their first decade. Depending on how you count, the group released nearly 20 albums after 1970, yet none of this work has managed to stick to their legacy. The Rolling Stones have Some Girls, “Start Me Up”, and “Emotional Rescue”. The Beach Boys have Surf’s Up and then, unfortunately, “Kokomo”. Pink Floyd arguably made some of their best work in the 1970s. The Kinks, in contrast, have “Come Dancing”? The Kinks’ later years are actually quite interesting and, depending on your endurance, fun, at least for a quick visit. The group’s new retrospective, The Journey, Pt. 3, adds a little bit of context to an oft-ignored era of the Kinks.
The first two installments of the retrospective collection, The Journey – Part 1 and Part 2, were essentially an extended greatest hits collection. There is not much attention paid to chronology, and there is just a smattering of tracks from after 1970. It all feels like an excuse to make a few extra dollars and flex how great this band were in their prime. Ray Davies (with the occasional pen from his brother Dave) was on an absolute tear of songwriting during the latter half of the 1960s, so filling up 70 slots with excellent studio tracks was not an issue in the slightest.
The Journey – Part 3 throws the conversation all in a tizzy, though. It covers 1977-1984, but only has 12 studio tracks? Then attached to the end of the release is a live show from 1993? You couldn’t find even ten more good tracks from the era? Were the Kinks that bad at this time, for real?
The Kinks reached a critical low by the mid-1970s. To his credit and detriment, Ray Davies does precisely what he wants when he wants to do it, so the entirety of the early 1970s was spent on heady concept albums. There are two convoluted musical dramas about dystopia. One album, Soap Opera, features body swapping and symphonic production. The other was written as a throwback to the 1950s of their childhood and has a horrid image on the cover of a kid mooning the viewer.
Even some hardcore fans tend to roll their eyes when discussing this era. So, whether on another one of his trademark whims or because he felt it was time to pivot towards an audience for once, Ray Davies moved the Kinks towards the more in vogue hard rock on 1977’s Sleepwalker. This compilation begins here, encompassing six studio albums and ending with 1984’s Word of Mouth. For a casual fan, it may be a rocky journey.
With only 12 tracks, each of the six albums released during this period gets paltry representation. Yet, the compilation does a decent job showing the different modes that the Kinks worked in during this time. Their hard rock pivot dominated this period, with songs like the caveman fun of “Low Budget” or perfect-for-a-1980s-Action-Flick “Living on a Thin Line”. However, there’s also the disco diversion of “(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman”, the unusually tender for the Kinks “Better Things”, and the absolutely bonkers why-would-you-do-this of “Destroyer” (seriously, what is this song?).
They are all fun enough to deserve a listen for the interested fan, but arguably only the closing track, “Misfits”, meets the standards of the Kinks in their first decade. Oddly enough, this often overlooked era of the band coincides with a resurgence in the popularity of the group in America. Look at their American chart history, and notice how many of these inclusions are from the back half of their career. “You know what they say. Every dog has his day,” Ray Davies sings in “Misfits”.
Toward the end of the excellent career-spanning 1993 live show, confusingly attached to this compilation, Ray Davies begins to do some crowd work by talking about the culture of individuality the Kinks have lived by: “We signed to a record company and they said we want you to make records like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. I said, ‘No! We are the Kinks. We are not like everybody else!” Ray Davies thought of the Kinks as misfits for their entire career.
While the back half of their career saw them filling up arenas and playing career-spanning victory laps for shows, the songs of this era have been hiding in the shadows, collecting dust in bargain bins for the last 40 years. These songs are the misfits of their legacy, but as the song says, “Every dog has his day.” The Journey – Part 3 brings us back to that particular day just for a quick visit. No need to stick around for too long, though.