The Kinks - Greatest Hits! (1966)
Artist: The Kinks
Author: Sarah
Date: 12/05/2024
I've been thinking that, in addition to indiepop itself, it might be neat if I wrote about something the predecessors whose music helped in forming indiepop without themselves being examples. And so, as my first entry into this series, I have chosen to write about the Kinks' first greatest hits compilation, which has songs that look forward towards nearly every strain of indiepop I can think of (well, maybe not electronic, but you get what I'm saying). Without further ado, here's Indiepop Influences #1.
The past couple weeks, I've been listening to this a whole lot. It's not quite a perfect compilation (not sure why they have "Who'll Be Next in Line" or "Ev'rybody's Gonna Be Happy" instead of like "See My Friends" or "I Need You", for example), but it's short and for the most part filled with all those songs you already know. And as I've been listening to this over and over, the thought occurred to me that this compilation really is pretty much ground zero for indiepop in all its forms (well, maybe not electronic, but you get what I'm saying).
Obviously, there's the beginnings of Ray's witty lyricism in "A Well Respected Man" and "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" paired with some rickety instrumentals, with the result being not that far removed from a Belle and Sebastian type song. But that's not really telling you anything you wouldn't get from an indiepop-focused review of one of their later albums. Actually, the thing that struck me the most was how twee even their noisier songs can be.
Take, for example, "You Really Got Me". Traditionally, it's considered to be the first hard rock song. It's not really hard to understand why; it's based around a power chord riff, and Dave's playing with an insane amount of distortion for 1964. But pay closer attention to Ray's vocals: he sounds small, he sounds meek, he even sounds (let's face it) cute. It's an approach that isn't too dissimilar from songs like Black Tambourine's "Throw Aggi off the Bridge" or Henry's Dress's "Winter 94", to name a couple. And even as someone who can be a real snob when it comes to what is and isn't "noisy", I can't help but admit that "All Day and All of the Night" is still fairly impressive in that respect, even if we didn't take into account that it's 60 years old as of the time of writing.
The remainder of this ends up falling into a power poppy type vein that fits more closely with what other bands were doing at the time, but that sort of song still works as a prototype for like jangle pop, of course. In any case, this is probably an essential release for anyone who's been wanting to learn a bit about indiepop's influences (or anyone who wants to get into the Kinks but has heard that their early albums are truly abysmal). I'd even go so far as to say that this might even be the most essential Kinks release.