“The tempo was all wrong”: The Kinks album Ray Davies admitted he hated
Anger has always been a significant source of inspiration for musicians. Throughout history, countless artists have channelled their rage into their art, whether it concerns societal injustices, personal mishaps, or more instinctual roots, like unattainable desires. For The Kinks‘ Ray Davies, anger was always his most defining driver, mostly because many of the things it came from pushed him to wish for clarity despite the disillusionment.
However, that was never actually the endgame, at least not in the sense of finality. After all, most artists air their disdain in a more provocative sense, sowing the seeds for initial conversations rather than providing a solution or cure-all. In the case of The Kinks, therefore, Davies’ push came more from a desire to expose society’s shortcomings and navigate everything which made him feel frustrated.
This is why 1968’s The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society became one of their most career-defining releases and, incidentally, why Davies viewed it as a turning point for the band. “I was angry,” he later explained, “And I repressed the competitive instincts that had made me write hit singles.” Thus, instead of pandering, he wrote about how he felt, which provided a moment of stark reflection in the haze of a fast-moving society.
This authenticity is what Davies always strived for, so whenever he let the standard slip somewhat or fell victim to the one thing many musicians face—pressures from labels—it meant losing everything he deemed credible about his own artistry. According to him, this was the case with Phobia, the final record they made in 1993 under Sony. In his view, it faltered because it instinctively didn’t feel right.
As he explained to Hot Press, “I hated Phobia, the album we did for Sony, because now I see the tempo of all the songs was wrong.” While his remarks were in the context of whether he gets bored performing the same songs, he reflected on how different songs facilitate a certain atmosphere, noting how Phobia didn’t just feel wrong because of its pacing but because it didn’t have a place among the other, more Kinks-esque compositions.
At the same time, however, he also noted elsewhere that he still felt a positive connection with songs like ‘Only A Dream’, because that’s where he felt he “found my voice again”. That said, his reason why aligns with his broader issue with Phobia, showing that he felt a more overarching and deep-seated inclination to remain honest and authentic even in the chaos of trying to appease the label.
“I wrote [it] on a plane to England after I decided that the album needed to have a little more humanity,” he told Pulse Magazine. “It’s odd that an artist who’s supposed to have been around still gets intimidated by certain things, but I do, and I had to really get myself prepared to do that vocal. The night before I did, I went out and got rat-arsed drunk on wine. I was still shaking when I got to the studio the next morning, and I did the vocal in one take. It’s only a pop song, but there’s a lot of emotion in it, and there’s a lot of me in it.”
Also explaining that The Kinks’ story and discography still feel like a “work-in-progress” despite their longevity, it’s clear that his despair towards Phobia stems from his incessant need to dig as deep as possible on any creative project. Phobia might have its moments, but generally, it ranks immensely low in Davies’ handful of favourites, making it feel a product of something more akin to an obligation than flourishing with the same creative flair as some of his more revered works.
