The very British Kinks

It’s been 60 years since Muswell Hill brothers Ray and Dave Davies – then 19 and 15 respectively – formed The Kinks. What is now known as the ‘catalogue’ division of record companies love an anniversary, particularly when fans of the band are likely to be edging into pensionable disposable-income territory. And so, a new compilation titled The Journey has arrived, with 36 tracks curated by the brothers from across The Kinks’ 30 years of active service, which have been scrubbed up to sound better than ever. It’s fitting that a band which sang a lot about heritage and preservation – very unusually for the young men that they were at the time – should, in turn, be added to that heritage and preserved. 

Listening to these songs again, I’m struck by how vital and varied they are, and how, unlike most pop music (which rightly lives only for its moment), The Kinks transcended their time to capture the British character more completely than almost anything and anybody else.