Penn: Morning Album Reviews — the Kinks (Finale Part three, day four) (Patreon)

1/20 the Kinks’ 1967 Something Else by the Kinks

Something I have seen often across this project—especially with records from the last half of the ‘60s, but you’ll see it all the way to the ‘90s—is a record that sold poorly only to retrospectively become a classic. This is exceptionally true for the Kinks; all four of their studio albums from between ‘66, and ‘70 are listed as their “essential” records by Apple Music, despite the fact that 1966 marks the beginning of both of their meandering away from rock and roll and their decline on the UK charts. (America was a bit lukewarm on the Kinks in general, but we did like Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One. I presume that is due to the popularity of “Lola,” only one of the Kink’s songs about creeping on a trans woman. It hit top ten in both countries, because apparently the only place trans women are allowed to exist is on the radio.)

It’s hardly perplexing—we’ve been mining the past for trends in fashion, art, and, apparently, ethics for ages. It’s easy to look at the past, especially one you didn’t live through or were a child in, with the softened gaze of not having to deal with the day to day complications of that time. Equally, it’s not a new phenomenon.

This is something I talk about the last time we looked at the Kinks, with the record they would release the next year, The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. (These guys sure loved long album titles.) That one is a concept album looking longingly at an old image of rural Britain. Something Else is also a nostalgic album, but this time one with more interest in the sounds of the British past. The inevitable comparison is the Beatles, who released the game changing Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967. You’ve got songs here like “Harry Rag,” and “Tin Soldier Man,” which mirror McCartney’s penchant for bringing in the sweet, often silly sounds of the music hall, as with  “When I’m Sixty-Four,” or “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” a couple years later.  (I’ve grudgingly come to like one of these two songs, but I suspect it not being over three minutes long helps. I am, for some reason, softer on the Kinks, and find both of the above examples charming.)

It’s still an album that’s thinking about rock and roll: look to songs like “Situation Vacant,” and “Love Me Till the Sun Shines” for two variations on that structural theme, or “Funny Face,” which returns to the Kink’s old trick of predicting punk.

As a small bonus, this is one of the four records that the Kinks will make with session pianist Nicky Hopkins. (He joins the unofficial team in ‘65, and sticks around until Village Green before quitting over the fact that he was not paid or properly credited for that record.) Hopkins is the rock piano guy, used by basically everyone: the Beatles, individually and as a group, the Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane. Seriously, I love this guy. For a good time, look up “Edward,” off his 1973 solo album The Tin Man Was a Dreamer.

Perfect for: the Blur. When Damon Albarn was miserable about being on tour in America, this record, and specifically it’s single “Waterloo Sunset,” was the only positive memory he was able to conjure up