Your Ten Best Kinks Songs Please

[buntyman]

This thread is great. I really like The Kinks but have never really strayed much from the well-known songs. I've just created a 40 song playlist of songs from this thread that I don't think I've heard before :-)

[Kankurette]

I am also going down a Kinks rabbit hole.

[daf]

It wasn't in my Top 10 list, but Come Dancing, (along with KC and the Sunshine Band's Give it Up), was the first song that I can remember making a big dent on my musical consciousness.

(As they only performed it once on Top of the Pops, I can pinpoint the exact date : 18 August 1983 - I'd have been 12 at the time)

[Kankurette]

I think Lola was the first Kinks song I heard. Either that or Apeman. I used to get Lola and Apeman mixed up and when MOTD had a feature on Gianfranco Zola, I thought they were playing Apeman in the background. It was Lola because it rhymes with Zola. I wish it HAD been Apeman, li'l Gianfranco is quite simian.

[jamiefairlie]

All my favourites already mentioned bar this one:

[kalowski]

Shangri La
Brainwashed
Some Mother's Son
The Village Green Preservation Society
Big Sky
This Time Tomorrow
Waterloo Sunset
Autumn Almanac
I'm Not Like Everybody Else
Till the End of the Day



I could easily write another ten.

[BlodwynPig]

This thread is great. I really like The Kinks but have never really strayed much from the well-known songs. I've just created a 40 song playlist of songs from this thread that I don't think I've heard before :-)

Could you not have done that without the thread?

[ajsmith2]

Imagine there was a Kinks podcast done by two members of this forum and  the whole 14 episodes of series 1  had been recorded and the whole thing was nearly ready for release, just in time for the 60th anniversary.

[DrGreggles]

Imagine there was a Kinks podcast done by two members of this forum and  the whole 14 episodes of series 1  had been recorded and the whole thing was nearly ready for release, just in time for the 60th anniversary.

If only...

[buntyman]

Could you not have done that without the thread?

What do you mean? I'm sure I could have created a playlist of kinks songs that I didn't know but not ones that come recommended in people here's top 10

[BlodwynPig]

What do you mean? I'm sure I could have created a playlist of kinks songs that I didn't know but not ones that come recommended in people here's top 10

Probably getting the kinks whole discog if you collate everyone's top 10.

I prefer discovering things without relying on strangers opinions. Its more organic and can lead to unexpected joys.

[daf]

I have always relied on the Kinkness of strangers

[BlodwynPig]

Even I, who has never listened to a The Kinks song, knows that Octopuses Garden is their best song.

[daf]

Autumn Almanac

Whoops - how could I forget this one!

I read about it years before I actually heard it - thanks to Andy Partridge's glowing testimonial in ... probably 'Limelight' ... while talking about the Dukes of Stratosphear influences. Couldn't find that, but this is probably on the same general lines:

It's a miniature movie, basically, that unravels itself as you are listening to it, and it has all these little movements or scenes. And they all seem to take place in the kind of mythical cozy London that the Ealing studios always had in their films, like The Lavender Hill Mob. The song just keeps turning and changing; you see a new facet every few seconds. But there's nothing unsettling about the fact that there are so many parts. Normally that would just be the death of a song, it would just scramble peoples brains.

The lyrics are very everyday. There's no "calling occupants of interplanetary craft" in it. All the language in it is what you'd say over a cup of tea. It's like a roller-coaster, but it's not a high-speed chromium-plated space-age roller-coaster - it's this slow creaking wooden baroque kind of roller-coaster. There are some lovely moments in it, like that sections that starts "Friday evening....." It starts off in this mournful minor thing, and you think, "Oh dear, Friday evening, the end of something," and then suddenly: "People get together" - it clicks into major, and becomes very optimistic. It just lifts your heart up another rung. And there's something very plain and uplifting about [from the chorus] "yes, yes, yes," this repetition of the affirmative.

The woodiness of "Autumn Almanac" is really appealing. Everything sounds like sticks and branches and planks. The whole song is wallpapered in dead leaves, as far as I'm concerned. The [the Kinks] touched on this same sort of thing later on, in "Shangri-La" and "Lavender Hill," but it was more mannered, a bit more ponderous.

Damn, I wish I'd written this song. I'll probably spend my life trying to. It's such a huge ghost; my entire songwriting career has been trying to exorcise it.

https://kindakinks.net/misc/articles/almanac.html

[Emotional Support Peacock]

I considered myself quite a fan of the Kinks but lots of people are including songs I've never heard of. Definitely going to be doing a bit more digging now.

[Aleister Growley]

01 Big Black Smoke
02 20th Century Man
03 Berkeley Mews
04 Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues
05 Lavender Lane
06 Autumn Almanac
07 Harry Rag
08 Lavender Hill
09 Everybody's Gonna Be Happy
10 Have A Cuppa Tea

[Kankurette]

Shangri-La is an honourable mention, as is Ordinary People and Waterloo Sunset (I heard the Cathy Dennis version long before the Kinks one). Like I said, it's so hard to pick just 10.

Celluloid Heroes is definitely one of the sadder songs they've done. They weren't all wacky voices and songs about villages with dastardly capitalists plotting to blow up the cricket ground or whatever.

[SteveDave]

Whoops - how could I forget this one!

I read about it years before I actually heard it - thanks to Andy Partridge's glowing testimonial in ... probably 'Limelight' ... while talking about the Dukes of Stratosphear influences. Couldn't find that, but this is probably on the same general lines:
https://kindakinks.net/misc/articles/almanac.html

And there's the way the middle 8 played backwards says "Autumn Almanac"

https://twitter.com/davedavieskinks/status/1254536991426908160?lang=en-GB

[Angst in my Pants]

And there's the way the middle 8 played backwards says "Autumn Almanac"

https://twitter.com/davedavieskinks/status/1254536991426908160?lang=en-GB

♫ Fuck my hat
That's a fas-cin-at-ing fact ♫

This is completely new to me. From Dave's tweet I thought he just meant the tune, but you phrasing it as 'says' made me think there might be more to it. This person has done an mp3 of the normal & reversed section, for anyone who was equally oblivious to this little gem:

https://twitter.com/mitch_friedman/status/1256350664998957056

Genuinely, thanks for posting this @SteveDave - I can't wait to tell my Dad as it might just be the first time I've told him something he didn't already know about The Kinks!

[Kankurette]

Little Miss Queen of Darkness is now my official snooker theme song. If only because I associate it with Ronjo and Selby.

[scarecrow]

1. Sweet Lady Genevieve
2. Better Things
3. No More Looking Back
4. Waterloo Sunset
5. Days
6. Sitting in My Hotel
7. Oklahoma USA
8. Village Green
9. I'll Remember
10. Autumn Almanac

[IsavedLatin]

♫ Fuck my hat
That's a fas-cin-at-ing fact ♫

This is completely new to me. From Dave's tweet I thought he just meant the tune, but you phrasing it as 'says' made me think there might be more to it. This person has done an mp3 of the normal & reversed section, for anyone who was equally oblivious to this little gem:

https://twitter.com/mitch_friedman/status/1256350664998957056

Genuinely, thanks for posting this @SteveDave - I can't wait to tell my Dad as it might just be the first time I've told him something he didn't already know about The Kinks!

Just want to second my thanks. My hat is absolutely fucked after listening to that mp3!

Edited to add: while I'm here, no one has yet mentioned one of my own deep cut faves:

[IsavedLatin]

1. Sweet Lady Genevieve

Oh. As you were!

[ros vulgaris]

People Take Pictures Of Each Other
Do You Remember Walter?
Victoria
Waterloo Sunset
David Watts
Lola
Sunny Afternoon
A Well Respected Man
Shangri-La
Phenomenal Cat

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Imagine there was a Kinks podcast done by two members of this forum and  the whole 14 episodes of series 1  had been recorded and the whole thing was nearly ready for release, just in time for the 60th anniversary.

This will be great, I reckon.

[Nowhere Man]

That sounds ace, aj!


It'S lovely to see all of you beautiful Kinks people in one place. This thread reminded me that a couple of years ago, I collated a bunch of data over a couple months to see what the most popular Kinks songs were across different music nerd forums i.e Stevehoffman, Bcb-board, rym-board, acclaimedmusic-forum. (I also did the same for Beatles, Elvis, Prince ect. Had a lot of free time lol)

I'll add all the new ones from this thread and then post the list of the top Kinks songs, just for bants ect. Tbf it is mostly results from the stevehoffman forum as they have by far the most 'top Kinks song' threads.

[Nowhere Man]

Alright here is the collated list I pulled out of mothballs, of the top 100 Kinks most regarded songs, as mentioned by music nerds across a very limited part of the internet:

KINKS TOP 100

1. Waterloo Sunset (1967) - 481
2. Victoria (1969) - 302
3. Sunny Afternoon (1966) - 288
4. Days (1968) - 272
5. Shangri-La (1969) - 268
6. Lola (1970) - 259 
7. You Really Got Me (1964) - 259
8. I'm Not Like Everybody Else (1966) - 229
9. All Day and All of the Night (1964) - 222
10. Celluloid Heroes (1972) - 214
11. Tired of Waiting For You (1965) - 203
12. The Village Green Preservation Society (1968) - 186
13. Till the End of the Day (1965) - 183
14. Dead End Street (1966) - 178
15. Autumn Almanac (1967) - 176
16. See My Friends (1965) - 174
17. David Watts (1967) - 166
18. Picture Book (1968) - 164
19. Animal Farm (1968) - 152
20. Do You Remember Walter? (1968) - 150 
21. Apeman (1970) - 149 
22. Where Have All The Good Times Gone? (1965) - 147
23. 20th Century Man (1971) - 142
24. Big Sky (1968) - 133
25. A Well Respected Man (1965) - 129
26. Death Of A Clown (1967) - 121
27. This Time Tomorrow (1970) - 120
28. Village Green (1968) - 117 
29. Strangers (1970) - 116 
30. This Is Where I Belong (1966) - 113
31. Two Sisters (1967) - 112
32. Get Back In Line (1970) - 109
33. Better Things (1981) - 108 
34. Come Dancing (1982) - 108 
35. Too Much on My Mind (1966) - 105
36. She's Got Everything (1966) - 103
37. I Need You (1965) - 100
38. Johnny Thunder (1968) - 98
39. Set Me Free (1965) - 97
40. Big Black Smoke (1966) - 96 
41. Dedicated Follower of Fashion (1966) - 96 
42. A Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy (1978) - 95 
43. Mister Pleasant (1966) - 93
44. Alcohol (1970) - 83
45. Sitting In My Hotel (1972) - 79 
46. Do It Again (1984) - 78
47. Starstruck (1968) - 73
48. Berkeley Mews (1968) - 71 
49. Fancy (1966) - 71
50. Lazy Old Sun (1967) - 71
51. Harry Rag (1967) - 70
52. Rosie Won't You Please Come Home (1966) - 69
53. Stop Your Sobbing (1964) - 69
54. Sweet Lady Genevieve (1973) - 69 
55. Some Mother's Son (1969) - 67 
56. Wonderboy (1968) - 67
57. Living on a Thin Line (1984) - 66
58. Love Me Till The Sun Shines (1967) - 66 
59. Last of the Steam Powered Trains (1968) - 65
60. Muswell Hillbilly (1971) - 64
61. Drivin' (1969) - 63 
62. God's Children (1971) - 63
63. Afternoon Tea (1967) - 62
64. Destroyer (1981) - 62
65. Oklahoma USA (1972) - 62 
66. Mindless Child of Motherhood (1969) - 61
67. Misty Water (1968) - 60
68. All of My Friends Were There (1968) - 59
69. Father Christmas (1977) - 59
70. Young and Innocent Days (1969) - 59
71. Holiday In Waikiki (1966) - 58
72. Lavender Hill (1967) - 57 
73. People Take Pictures of Each Other (1968) - 57 
74. King Kong (1969) - 56
75. Arthur (1969) - 55
76. The Way Love Used To Be (1971) - 55
77. Australia (1969) - 54 
78. I Go To Sleep (1964) - 54
79. Powerman (1970) - 54
80. Situation Vacant (1967) - 54 
81. Dandy (1966) - 53
82. End of the Season (1967) - 53
83. Juke Box Music (1977) - 53
84. Supersonic Rocket Ship (1972) - 53 
85. Did You See His Name? (1968) - 52
86. Rainy Day in June (1966) - 51
87. Yes Sir, No Sir (1969) - 51
88. Plastic Man (1969) - 50 
89. Rosemary Rose (1968) - 50
90. Brainwashed (1969) - 49
91. Phenomenal Cat (1968) - 49
92. Susannah's Still Alive (1967) - 49
93. (Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman (1979) - 49
94. Ev'rybody's Gonna Be Happy (1964) - 48
95. The Man He Weeps Tonight (1969) - 48
96. Session Man (1966) - 46
97. Sitting By The Riverside (1968) - 46
98. Who'll Be The Next In Line (1964) - 46
99. Catch Me Now I'm Falling (1980) - 45 
100. Mr Churchill Says (1969) - 45

[SteveDave]

Imagine there was a Kinks podcast done by two members of this forum and  the whole 14 episodes of series 1  had been recorded and the whole thing was nearly ready for release, just in time for the 60th anniversary.

Careful, Dave might on you for money.

[Kankurette]

I'm surprised how low Dedicated Follower of Fashion is.

All of My Friends Were There is so annoyingly catchy. It's been stuck in my head of late.

[SteveDave]

As with every Kinks thread since 2022, I have to post this in order to make people appreciate "Soap Opera" more

If "Soap Opera" gets a fancy boxset with this on a Blue Raymond with crystal clear clarity I will buy it even if the record comes with some dodgy new Ray Davies remixes.