The seventies were a rough road for the Kinks. Their early proto-metal chord-crunching (see \u201cYou Really Got Me\u201d and \u201cAll Day And All Of The Night\u201d) had given way later in the \u201960s to an operatic, witty, nostalgic, and distinctly British vision that saw the group delivering one expansive concept album after another under the leadership of frontman\/chief songwriter Ray Davies and brother\/lead guitarist Dave Davies.<\/p>\n
By the mid-70s, though, after dabbling in country and music-hall stylings and delivering three straight rock operas, it seemed the band, among the most resilient of the original British Invasion era, had worn out its welcome with both the record-buying public and the group\u2019s label. After being dropped by RCA, the boys landed a new contract with Arista on the condition that they put their artsy pretensions behind them and get back to basics.<\/p>\n
Their first album for RCA, 1977\u2019s Sleepwalker<\/i>, was tighter, poppier, heavier and\u2014let\u2019s be frank\u2014noticeably less challenging than what had preceded it. Ironically, it scored a minor hit with Ray\u2019s \u201cJuke Box Music,\u201d a bitter lament dismissing his own life\u2019s work as \u201conly juke box music.\u201d Once he began to emerge from his sulk, though, things got interesting again.<\/p>\n
With 1978\u2019s Misfits<\/i>, the Kinks commenced a mid-career renaissance that was at once startlingly successful and deeply ironic. Even as Ray Davies mocked his own artistic compromises and the narrowness of the public\u2019s tastes, the songs he produced grew more focused and harder-hitting, and the broad audience he was often in the process of insulting lapped up his every snarling word.<\/p>\n
The essential argument of Misfits<\/i> is that only weirdos and freaks really care about rock and roll\u2014and by the way, they\u2019re also delusional and self-destructive. At least, that initially appears to be the message of the plaintive title track and the cautionary \u201cA Rock \u2019N\u2019 Roll Fantasy,\u201d but there\u2019s more. In the end, \u201cMisfits\u201d evolves into a gentle call to action: \u201cThis is your chance, this is your time \/ So don\u2019t throw it away \/ You can have your day.\u201d And while he spends much of \u201cFantasy\u201d deriding a unnamed third party\u2019s life of illusion, this one also finishes with a call to action, this time for Davies himself: \u201cDon\u2019t want to spend my life, living in a rock \u2018n\u2019 roll fantasy \/ Don\u2019t want to spend my life, living on the edge of reality.\u201d<\/p>\n
This album, too, is where Davies begins to figure out how to fold his penchant for odd, witty character studies into a more straightforward rock format. Yes, \u201cHay Fever\u201d is ridiculous\u2014but it rocks<\/i>. Davies takes aim at insecure trend-chasers, and scores a bullseye, with \u201cPermanent Waves.\u201d And the narrator of the jaunty road song \u201cIn A Foreign Land\u201d runs away to dodge taxes and ends up \u201call out of jack and I can\u2019t go back\u201d but seems more content to have said \u201cgoodbye to the champagne and caviar set\u201d anyway.<\/p>\n
Never one to back away from touchy subjects, Davies imagines a \u201cBlack Messiah\u201d designed to jar the sensibilities of his audience and then, having long since introduced us to \u201cLola,\u201d pulls off another brilliant ode to transvestism with the playful, matter-of-fact \u201cOut Of The Wardrobe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, the two cuts that got this teenaged rocker\u2019s blood pumping were the fiery, propulsive \u201cLive Life,\u201d a bracing reminder to live in the moment and carry on through hard times, and rollicking closer \u201cGet Up,\u201d the musical antidote to the album\u2019s despairing opener, in which Davies grabs the listener by the lapels and exhorts them: \u201cSomebody gotta get up and shout \/ Somebody gotta give us some clout \/ You\u2019re the ones who can make it all work out \/ It all depends on you.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a child of the \u201970s\u2014I was 15 when this one came out\u2014Misfits<\/i> was in fact my point of entry for The Kinks, and earned my loyal admiration through several years and albums to follow (true confession: a creature of my times, I was startled to learn after falling hard for Van Halen<\/i> that \u201cYou Really Got Me\u201d was an old Kinks song). <\/p>\n
Misfits<\/i> is the moment where Ray Davies figured out how to channel the muscular brio and cutting wit that had earned the Kinks a record contract in the first place into a punchy, modern sound. Yes, he compromised in terms of musical approach, but he never gave an inch when it came to the subject matter of his songs or the passion with which he delivered them. Misfits<\/i> is a testament to the power of change to both reinvent and rejuvenate an artist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":31588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6465],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-43293","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-kinks","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=43293"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=43293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}