They were the founding fathers of riff rock. Later, they’d become obsessed with album-long artistic statements. But in 1967, The Kinks delivered an LP with an identity all its own, one that gained separation, in both style and quality, from much of the other music released at that time.
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The title, Something Else, cleverly suggested both a modest undertaking and a major piece of work. It’s now renowned as one of the finest albums of an era heavy with all-time classics.
Creating Something
Perhaps more than most bands in the British Invasion era, The Kinks were a group in perpetual transformation. The massive singles they released early in their career threatened to define them as raucous but simplistic. Ray Davies wasn’t having any of that.
Davies’ songs soon began to dig deeper than your average two-minute basher. Even with an ace guitarist in brother Dave at his disposal, the hits Ray began to pen in the mid-‘60s were unburdened with heavy instrumentation, all the better to get across his subtle, satirical, and moving messaging.
Something Else came about during a period where Ray Davies was already starting to think about album-length, thematically sound statements. He began writing about topics that were sometimes old-fashioned, often sentimental, and increasingly germane to British listeners and not so much the rest of the world.
The music on the album reflected that otherness as well, as the rocking guitars gave way in many instances to antiquated styles such as music hall. Ray Davies had largely taken on the band’s production duties by this point, which allowed him to serve his artistic vision well without worrying so much about how the songs might play for the masses.
Perhaps that’s why Something Else was something of a letdown in terms of its commercial impact. It probably didn’t help the music was somewhat out of step with the Summer of Love-styled psychedelia so many other bands were espousing. But that might also be why this collection of songs has held up so much better than many of its peers.
Exploring the Music of Something Else
Something Else gets a big boost from the fact Dave Davies was also starting to round into top form as a songwriter and lead singer. The changes of pace he delivers on the album, from the bouncy but somber “Death of a Clown” to the swaggering, insistent “Love Me Till the Sun Shines,” make a huge difference in the overall effect.
Meanwhile, brother Ray’s writing was reaching a peak few of his contemporaries were approaching. Only three of the songs he alone wrote on the album range past three minutes, yet he tells complete, touching stories, such as the kitchen-sink drama “Two Sisters,” that stick with you.
The churning “David Watts” is one of his finest examples of a character sketch that somehow says more about the narrator doing the sketching. “Afternoon Tea” delivers a preview of the “veddy” British bent Ray would bring to albums like The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. And “Waterloo Sunset,” as lauded as it has been over the years, still feels as if it doesn’t get enough praise for capturing life in all its bittersweet magnificence.
It would be almost a decade before Ray Davies and The Kinks would completely commit to another album of songs without a theme tying them together. By then, they were in their arena-rock phase, where the heft of the music occasionally outweighed the nuance of the stories being told. As a result, Something Else is a sweet-spot album for the band, too unique and good on its own to be faintly praised as just a stepping stone.
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