The best of The Kinks

A few weeks ago I realised that I did not have any Kinks songs in my IMusic collection except for a copy of Waterloo Sunset on a compilation. A search in a few charity shops and bob's your uncle for 50p the whole Greatest Hits collection was mine. I once met Ray Davies and a thoroughly nice chap he was too. When I mentioned I was from Hastings he talked about the Kinks playing the pier there in the late 1960s. There is something uniquely English about the Kinks and about the Davis and although their influence is perhaps greater than their fame the whole canon of their work has a kind of timeless quality. The Kinks first gained prominence in 1964 with the hit single "You Really Got Me", written by Ray Davies. The band's name came from their "kinky" dress sense of leather capes and boots worn on stage.[3] The group's original line-up consisted of Ray Davies on lead vocals/rhythm guitar/keyboards, Dave Davies on lead guitar/vocals, Pete Quaife on backing vocals/bass guitar, and Mick Avory on drums and percussion. Following Quaife's departure in 1969, the band centered around the three remaining original members and frequently changed bassists and keyboardists, until 1984, when friction between Dave Davies and Mick Avory resulted into the latter's departure, leaving only the Davies brothers from the original line-up. The band has been inactive since 1996. The relationship between the Davies brothers seemed to deteriorate completely around this time, and both have since embarked on successful solo careers. Rumours of a Kinks reunion are persistent but still vague. Whatever the band's fortunes, however, their influence on emerging artists has been a constant. During the New Wave era, groups such as The Jam, The Knack, and The Pretenders covered Kinks songs[3] and Britpop acts such as Blur, Oasis and Supergrass have cited them as a major influence.[1] Many modern bands as The Killers and Franz Ferdinand also acknowledge The Kinks and Ray Davies' expert songwriting skills. As self-professed Kinks fan Pete Townshend said for 'The History of Rock 'n' Roll': "The Kinks were much more quintessentially English. I always think that Ray Davies should one day be Poet Laureate. He invented a new kind of poetry and a new kind of language for Pop writing that influenced me from the very, very, very beginning."