There’s maybe no band that captures the imagination of speculative music historians than the Kinks. In the early days of the British Invasion, they had a raw energy that propelled their songwriting beyond their peers. Many have made the claim that had they not been blacklisted by the American Federation of Musicians on their first US tour for the exact sort of destruction people loved the Who for a year later, they would have surpassed even the Beatles (I have made this before).
This could have destroyed a lesser band. Instead, The Kinks, led by brother duo Ray and Dave Davies, put their heads down and made several of the best pop rock albums in their native UK, not finding much success across the pond until “Lola” in 1970, when the ban had run its course.
It’s a personal policy of mine that if I find any of their records from this period in a record store, it’s an instant buy. It’s never steered me wrong before, and in the case of Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), it paid off exceptionally well.
In college, I frequently visited a French music site called 