With the 1980s in their infancy, it was not difficult to view the bittersweet career of The Kinks as being in the midst of its third and (by some margin) most lucrative act.
Through the first, from 1964 to 1970, they had moved from making the most dynamic singles yet heard in the pop medium to producing short and long form work that was exceptional for its wit and wisdom. The resonant material of Ray Davies, initially decorated by the strident electric guitar work of younger brother Dave, became more melodic as time passed, developing into sublime, often satirical pieces – Ray viewing the Swinging 60s with wry suspicion from the North London enclave of Muswell Hill.
On both 45s and albums Ray Davies conjured Kinks music that could be sharp-eyed character studies or vivid urban imagery, (on occasion within the same three minutes, such was his genius), often taking inspiration from curious anomalies within the English class system.
Beginning with their move to the RCA label in 1971, (having previously recorded for Pye), Ray led The Kinks through a series of diverse concept albums where more often than not the parts were greater than the sum, Davies defiantly sticking to this course well after diminishing sales had made clear a distinct lack of interest among the record buying public.
But the switch to Arista in 1977 ushered in a third chapter and with it a turn of the tide. At the insistence of the new label, conceptually themed affairs were no longer an option, Davies given the brief of populating future Kinks albums with the keenly-observed vignettes at which he pretty much bested everybody.
The dividends were virtually instant. ‘Sleepwalker‘ (1977) and ‘Misfits‘ (1978) brought rapid improvement to their commercial standing, particularly from a Stateside perspective, where the band were playing a long game of catch-up after being banned from performing in the United States between 1965 and 1969.
Meanwhile, as the 70s drew to a close, The Kinks were held up as standard-bearers by emerging acts in the punk and hard rock fields, several of whom rushed to incorporate edgy songs from the early days of Ray’s writing career into their repertoire.
This latter-day kudos combined with ringing cash registers reached a crescendo in 1979 when just about every emerging new wave act sounded derivative of The Kinks. The original entity themselves, now consisting of founding members Ray (guitar and vocals), Dave (lead guitar) and Mick Avory (drums), along with recently recruited bassist Jim Rodford, subsequently released the most successful album, barring compilations, of their career – ‘Low Budget‘ (September 1979), climbing to number 11 on the U.S. charts where it enjoyed a two month stay in the Top 20.
But whereas landmark Kinks L.P.s of the 1960s and (very early) 70s were essential in defining contemporary culture, at best ‘Low Budget‘ was a blustering reaction to where the band suddenly found themselves, Ray coming up with several boisterous numbers that were short on his trademark finesse, but with their rowdy, shout-along choruses sounded fantastic in the arenas the band now filled on a nightly basis.
From the start Davies had never been slow to spot ironies as they attached themselves to The Kinks journey that was now in its 17th year, yet this latest came with connotations as panoramic as any Waterloo sunset. While the thematic albums, for all their creative intent had not struck a chord, slashing stadium-sized guitar riffs attached to leery lyrics resulted in the group attaining the enormous success that had so long eluded them.
To consolidate the gains, a double live-set ‘One for the Road‘ (1980) was quickly issued, the four sides indicative of their new found status as a big-time, big-venue rock act – and while brother Ray might have suspended his sense of innovation, he still recognised an irony when it came along, the next Kinks album entitled ‘GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT‘ (August 1981).
While not so overtly bombastic as ‘Low Budget‘ (and all the better for it), the 19th studio release from The Kinks still makes plenty of concessions to the ‘make ourselves heard in the big concert hall’ approach Ray and by definition the band (now augmented by a fifth member, keyboard player Ian Gibbons) had adopted – seven of the 11 songs that comprise ‘Give the People What They Want‘ on the set list when five weeks after the album appeared, The Kinks played Madison Square Garden for the first time.
Indeed, aggressive, punk-tinged material such as ‘Around the Dial‘, Add It Up‘, ‘Destroyer’, ‘Back to Front‘ and the title track were all evocations of the lean, high energy touring machine they had become. None are an embarrassment by any means, but there more to serve a purpose than stand amongst the most purposeful inclusions in The Kinks illustrious catalogue.
That said, Ray remains a keen observer of the cultural landscape, although for the much of the record he finds it hard to shift his gaze from associated ills of society – serial killers, domestic abuse, the paranoid, discontented and disillusioned all depicted in compositions that for the most part receive tenacious, road-tested Kinks treatment.
It is a shrill, combative set where, at times, sheer energy compensates for a couple (at least) of ponderous offerings, ‘Give the People What They Want‘ on occasion sounding a second cousin to ‘Give ‘Em Enough Rope.’ But if The Kinks were going to make an album that sounded like The Clash, it was a shame ‘London Calling‘ was not the one they had in mind.
Beginning with the sound effects of a transistor radio being tuned to a preferred channel, opening track ‘Around the Dial‘ is an urgent, upbeat piece imparting the story of a maverick disc jockey out of favour with his bosses at the station:
‘I’ve been around the dial so many times/But you’re not there/Somebody tells me that you’ve been taken off the air/Well, you were my favorite D.J./Since I can’t remember when/You always played the best records/You never followed any trend.’
Decorated with abrupt power chords and suitably terse Dave Davies guitar work, the plight of the main figure comes under further scrutiny, (‘Was it something that you said to the corporation guys upstairs?’). But like many a Ray Davies character sketch emotional turmoil cannot be ruled out, (‘Somebody said you had a minor nervous breakdown’), the band so assured amidst the toned aggression it was is no shock ‘Around the Dial‘ came to open Kinks live shows for the foreseeable feature.
Strummer, Jones and co are evoked on the next up title track, the introductory drums rolls of Avory aping those of ‘I Fought the Law‘, yet rather than fighting authority Ray is railing against fuelling of public appetites for the salacious and sordid.
While he makes the argument such mindset has been around for centuries, (‘The Roman promoters really did things right/They needed a show that would clearly excite/The attendance was sparse/ So, they put on a fight/Threw the Christians to the lions and sold out every night‘), the media are being held to account for indulging viewers in a bid for higher ratings:
‘Give ’em lots of sex, perversion and rape/Give ’em lots of violence and plenty to hate/Give the people what they want.’
With the title delivered as a chant and Dave firing off punchy guitar lines, Ray summons up the most infamous and shocking news clip of all the century – the moment JFK was assassinated in Dallas:
‘When Oswald shot Kennedy, he was insane/But still we watch the re-runs again and again/We all sit glued while the killer takes aim/”Hey, Mom. There goes a piece of the president’s brain!”
Even then he is at pains to stress how voyeurism is running out of control, (‘Blow out your brains and do it right/Make sure it’s prime time and on a Saturday night’), this coincidentally (or not as the case may be), being a period when The Kinks were serving up rumbustious arena-rock for the masses while broadcasters peddled their own brand of audience gratification.
Written in the wake of the brutal assassination of John Lennon and appearing the same year as Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe was finally apprehended, ‘Killer’s Eyes‘ is topical to say the least. Ray addresses the murderer of his creation directly, but also from the perspective of the family from which he emerged, (‘Imagine our surprise when we saw you on the news/And reporters came around and asked for interviews‘), not overlooking either the sensationalism such crimes generate in the press.
More melodic than the previous two tracks, a scaling back of the all-out electric guitar assault offers room for Ray to be heard delivering a first-rate vocal, the words delivered with an air of calm contempt:
‘Life means nothing to you/At least that’s what they say/But it doesn’t mean that you have the right/To take life away.‘
In complete contrast ‘Predictable‘ is a set of whimsical observations from someone desperate to break free of a humdrum daily existence, his wistful longing set to a breezy pop-reggae melody, ‘Go to my office, sit at my desk/Predictably just like all of the rest/I sit and I dream about far away places/Away from the people with frowns on their faces’.
Despite having overtones of The Police and being accompanied by an amusing Julian Temple-directed video that features Ray in a number of guises from Teddy Boy to 60s dandy to stoned hippy, it failed to chart when issued as a single in their U.K. homeland. Such a fate, however, was avoided when they put out side two opener ‘Destroyer‘ as a 45 in the United States, this brash, belligerent affair (originally recorded for ‘Low Budget‘ but subsequently omitted), reaching number three on the Billboard rock chart.
Making reference to Kinks songs from yesteryear, namely ‘All Day and All of the Night‘ and (‘Met a girl called ‘Lola’ and I took her back to my place’), the protagonist is wracked by anxiety and self-doubt, his conflicted state of mind expressed through a yappy vocal and bruising guitar work – and while not particularly original from an aesthetic point of view, it brought more hardcore bombast to their live performances:
‘Silly boy, you got so much to live for/So much to aim for, so much to try for/You’re blowing it all with paranoia/You’re so insecure/You self-destroyer.’
Side one closer ‘Add It Up‘ and side two offering ‘Back to Front‘ keep the musical flack flying, the former an episode of bitter recrimination on a relationship that has run aground, (‘Add it up/You multiplied and multiplied/But what’s it leading to?Add it up/The only thing subtracted is the love I had for you‘).
While it is unlikely she and her Pretender cohorts could come up with the same inventive word play of the old master himself (‘The cost is high/But it’s not the only price you ultimately pay/Add it up/You might have got some money/But you lost me on the way‘), this sharp-edged track could have rebounded from The Kinks to The Pretenders and back again, even without the uncredited backing vocal of Chrissie Hynde to whom Ray was romantically attached at the time.
On the other hand, ‘Back to Front’ goes out of its way in pandering to the strut and stomp of their current stage act, the brute force not just restricted to the music – the lyrics while angry as another love affair goes down the drain, (‘The word is out, I’ve seen the sign/So you go your way, I go mine‘) all rather prescribed and hollow.
By the sound of things the relationship under scrutiny in the sombre ‘Yo-Yo’ is also heading for the doldrums, if not already there. Through this downbeat yet well-presented slice of power pop, the married couple at the heart of things are strangers to each other, even within their own four walls:
‘There are many different people/Living double lives/One for the office/And one that they take home to their wives/He sits in the armchair, watches Channel 4/With his brains not expected home for an hour or more/He’s still drifting to and from/His wife is in the kitchen, fixing her old man’s tea/She’s thinking to herself/”He’s not the man that married me.’
An affecting, compact piece revealing Ray had a sure touch when conjuring scenes of domestic discord, the expressive lyric says as much in four minutes than Davies spent almost the entire 1975 ‘Soap Opera‘ album trying to convey.
Things take an even more disconcerting turn on the mid-tempo rock track ‘A Little Bit of Abuse.’ The woman on whom the song casts focus subjected to acts of violence from her despicable partner.
Inspired by the London stage play ‘Chorus Girls‘, the overriding sense is one of frustration with the victim rather than outright sympathy (‘Why do you stay?/No one knows/Do you really love him, or are you too scared to go?/You’re always nervous and on the edge of tears‘) and while the song clearly has good intentions in shedding light on a serious subject, it comes across as too tentative for the desired effect to be established.
There is no less confusion attached to ‘Art Lover‘, Ray diluting the emotive subject of estranged parents having contact with their children by adopting an affected cockney accent to deliver the lyrics. In observing children, in this case a little girl, the protagonist makes it clear the child is under no threat from a pervert (‘I’m not a flasher in a rain coat/I’m not a dirty old man/I’m not gonna snatch you from your mother/I’m an art lover‘).
Through a gently lilting melody there is constant inference that drawing not depravity is at the heart of things (‘Pretty little legs, I want to draw them/Like a Degas ballerina/Pure white skin, like porcelain/She’s a work of art and I should know/I’m an art lover‘). But while the narrator is disconsolate over the daughter he is separated from (‘She’s just a substitute/For what’s been taken from me‘), the cloying nature of the vocal lessons the impact of what could be informed content on visitation rights – Ray having also sabotaged ‘A Little Bit of Emotion‘ on ‘Low Budget‘ by using similar contrived phrasing.
Given they were riding a wave of significant popularity, ‘Give the People What They Want‘, for all its inconsistencies had no trouble climbing to number 15 on the U.S. album chart (barely creating a ripple in the U.K. The Kinks would reassert themselves in Britain with the single ‘Come Dancing‘ two years later), it was something of a surprise when closing track ‘Better Things’ failed to generate much interest when issued as a single in America.
Loaded with engaging hooks, from upbeat verses through to the rousing chorus, (‘It’s really good to see you rocking out and having fun/Living like you just begun/Accept your life and what it brings/I hope tomorrow you’ll find better things‘), this unfailingly catchy piece soars above everything else on the record, Davies deftly crafting what sounds a sure fire hit, only to see it quickly vanish into obscurity.
Once again The Kinks found themselves landed with a glorious contradiction. The hardest rocking studio album on their roster finding favour with an emerging fan base, yet looked upon as something of an acquired taste by dedicated followers of long standing.
‘Better Days‘ deserved a better fate, ‘Destroyer‘ huffed and puffed in becoming a hit, the people not always taking what they were given, but knowing what they wanted.
THE KINKS – GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT – Released August 26 1981 (U.S.)/January 12 1982 (U.K.):
Around the Dial/Give the People What They Want/Killer’s Eyes/Predictable/Add It Up/Destroyer/Yo-Yo/Back to Front/Art Lover/A Little Bit of Abuse/Better Things;
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