The 1969 album Dave Davies called The Kinks’ rebirth: “Exciting times”
No band can continue on forever, particularly if they stick rigidly to the sound they first emerged with. After all, hearing a gang of young rock rebels belt out ‘You Really Got Me’ is revolutionary, but seeing a group of men in their 50s do the same thing is rather depressing, hence why The Kinks never stopped evolving.
A defining outfit of London’s most swinging era, The Kinks lasted for a lot longer than is often remembered. From their first impact back in 1962, it took three and a half decades before they finally threw in the towel in 1997. Inevitably, given the sheer length of that career, the band experienced a multitude of different eras and rebirths from album to album; they couldn’t remain the youthful mod revolutionaries of ‘You Really Got Me’ forever.
Nor, it should be pointed out, was that ever an aim of songwriter Ray Davies. Like every decent writer, The Kinks’ frontman boasted a consistent desire for diversity. Rather than nailing himself to one particular avenue of songwriting inspiration, then, Davies expanded The Kinks’ repertoire into bold new areas, embracing the emerging realm of concept albums and rock operas.
The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society was the greatest early example of that shift, but its follow-up marked an entirely new era for the band.
An ambitious undertaking, even for a group of The Kinks’ ilk, Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) explored the familiar themes of middle England and misguided nostalgia that denoted Village Green, but centred around the decaying British Empire and working-class identity. For Davies’ part, he took heavy inspiration from his sister, Rose, who emigrated to Australia some years earlier in search of a better life, taking her husband, Arthur, with her.
Not only did the album usher in an ambitious new age for Davies’ songwriting, but it also marked a new era in the band itself, being the first Kinks record without original bassist Pete Quaife in the line-up. “It was a different band,” Dave Davies affirmed to Ultimate Classic Rock.
“Fortunately, John [Dalton, Quaife’s replacement] brought his own energy to the project,” the guitarist went on. “When Pete left, The Kinks kind of ended in one sense. So we were starting all over again. I thought Nobby did a brilliant job in filling Pete’s shoes.”
“They were very, very different types of musicians, but it was still a very expansive and exciting time.”
Dave Davies
Those differences between the two bassists undoubtedly spurred Arthur on to sound unlike anything The Kinks had struck upon prior. Although the LP wasn’t their most commercially successful – far from it, in fact – it was inarguably one of their most accomplished works in terms of its artistic ambition and timelessness.
Bizarrely, too, the record produced a few entries into the US singles charts, despite its inherent Britishness as well as the fact that The Kinks never quite broke in America, contrary to their British Invasion-period contemporaries.
