Kinks

Once upon a time in England. A neat, pastoral England, all green lawns, cottages and church spires. The England that the "Village Green Preservation Society" would like to freeze in time forever, heedless of the pressures of modernity.

It existed, or perhaps it never existed except in the mind of Ray Davies, leader of the Kinks: one of the bands most deserving of an ideal "damages settlement" from rock history. Yes, because it's one thing to have the bad luck of competing with Beatles, Rolling Stones, Who, & co., but what was perpetrated against the brothers from Muswell Hill, London, is a genuine musical crime. Everyone's guilty: the critics of the time, blinded by the stones-versus-beetles duopoly, the record label (Pye), who wanted to turn them into just another singles-churning jukebox, the managers who sabotaged them, and even the Crown, which opposed them over their irreverent lyrics.

The fact remains that the album we're about to tell you about was a flop for a group that had already placed three singles at No. 1 on the UK charts ("You Really Got Me", "Tired Of Waiting For You", "Sunny Afternoon"). Too British for the American market, not groovy enough for Swingin' London, it would only find satisfaction in the critics' posthumous reappraisal, which enshrined it as a pop masterpiece.

Pop, more than rock. Because the distorted riff of "You Really Got Me" had already laid the groundwork for the hard rock and garage revolutions. Now, among the pastures of "Village Green" and never straying from the path of the short song (three minutes tops), Davies and co. dissect pop, opening it up to an incredible variety of contaminations: from music hall to military marches, from blues to folk, from psychedelia to the languid glam-scented tones that would later increase on the following "Arthur". A miscellany that's also given the ambitious guise of a rock opera (the second ever, after the Pretty Things' "S.F. Sorrow"). With lyrics that are never banal, always sharp, often moving.

The common thread of nostalgia for lost innocence ties together the 15 sketches, faded snapshots of a British Arcadia populated by comical, anachronistic characters who play at slogans like "God save Donald Duck, Vaudeville and Variety/… God save strawberry jam and all the different varieties" (the title track), who spend afternoons taking snapshots in the garden ("Picture Book", "People Take Pictures Of Each Other"), or who pine over memories of friendships and the sunset of a utopia ("Walter, isn't it a shame the way our little world has changed?/ Do you remember, Walter, how we said we'd fight the world so we'd be free/ We'd save up all our money and we'd buy a boat and sail away to sea/ But it was not to be", from "Do You Remember Walter").

After all, we're not so far from the idealism that in those years championed the Age of Aquarius. Except here it's turned inward, disillusioned, and condensed into caustic vignettes of social commentary. Nothing to do, in short, with the rebellious-adolescent imagery that made the fortune of the era's rock bands.

The orchestral intro of the title track, with piano and festive choruses, immediately instills a deceptive sense of carefreeness: cheerfulness, in fact, is not the album's mood, but a sharp melancholy that grows as the songs go by. "Do You Remember Walter" is already an incisive essay on this, though disguised as free-wheeling folk-pop. The rock'n'roll of "Picture Book" tries to hide the nostalgia of memories within its lively hook, but when the little choruses of "Johnny Thunder" burst in to steep a mocking country-western in decadent moods, you're already lost in this bittersweet dream, in this quixotic race backwards through time. A race aboard the last steam train: "Last Of The Steam Powered Trains", a formidable bluesy shuffle branded by a harmonica riff. A race with eyes wide open across the moor, to stare at the sky (the epic "Big Sky", also covered by Yo La Tengo) or to contemplate the river from its bank (the dreamy "Sitting By The Riverside").

It's a desperate cry from Davies: "This world is big and wild and half insane/ Take me where real animals are playing" (the snarling "Animal Farm", which merges a blues gait with radiant melodic openings). And the climax of this heart-wrenching nostalgia is "Village Green", a wonderful baroque ballad for organ, clarinet and harpsichord, where the wistful memory of Old Britannia meets the bitterness over what remains of it today: a relic fed to tourists ("And now all the houses/ Are rare antiquities/ American tourists flock to see the village green/ They snap their photographs and say 'Gawd darn it/ Isn't it a pretty scene?'").

But before the curtain falls on this Spoon River of Albion's decline, there's time for a few more show-stopping numbers: the snare-drum break and mellotron of "Starstruck", the clarinet and filtered little voices of the sinister (and psychedelic) "Phenomenal Cat"; the intoxicating vaudeville march of "All Of My Friends Were There"; Dave Davies's garage riffs on "Wicked Annabella"; the Caribbean languor of "Monica"; right up to the handclapping and final chorus of "People Take Pictures Of Each Other".

Vocal harmonies, driving cadences, crystalline guitars and street-organ sounds: the band plays tight and cohesive, thanks to the steady guidance of the Davies brothers and the behind-the-scenes work of Peter Quaife on bass and Mick Avory on drums.

Village Green: at the dawn of Britpop, at the peak of Brit-wit, the British cleverness of which the London brothers would remain among the most vivid interpreters. And now bring on the hordes of more or less conscious imitators (from Blur downward), bring on the American tourists, but may God forever preserve the Village Green… God save the Kinks!

In 2018 The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society, the Kinks' pastoral record, the one that sublimated the crossing of folk aromas and Beatles-esque psychedelia, turns 50. On 26 October BMG is releasing a precious deluxe edition, which lends greater allure to the (re)discovery of one of the band's masterpieces by Ray Davies. Several formats are planned, among which the most wallet-friendly is the double CD featuring the original tracklist presented in two remasters – stereo and mono – with the addition of several bonus tracks, the previously unreleased "Time Song" and a booklet packed with photos and period artwork.

For those willing to spend a bit more there's the lavish Super Deluxe Box Set, offered with special packaging: embossed cover, aluminium-foil text and linen finish. 174 audio tracks in total, spread across three vinyl records and five CDs. Also included in the box set are a booklet with liner notes written by Ray Davies, three singles, a 52-page hardback book, tour posters, photos, concert tickets and sheet music. On top of all this, there's a photo exhibition dedicated to the Kinks on view at London's Proud Gallery until 18 November.

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20/12/2006