• AllMyVinyl #100
• Band: The Kinks
• Album Title: Give the People What They Want
• Release Date: ? Aug 1981
• Date purchased: Unknown
• Location purchased: Unknown
• Color of vinyl: black
• Number of discs: 1
• Links: [ Wikipedia | Discogs | Band Website | Complete album on Youtube ]

Stop! Hold on, stay in control!

The Kinks are a band known for be legends.  I found out about them originally kind of backwards.  In 1978 when the fist Van Halen album came out I (like a lot of people) discovered the song “You Really Got Me”, which I thought was a smoking Van Halen song.  Then I found out it wasn’t them, it was written by Ray Davies of The Kinks – in 1964.  That sound that Davies wrote that Van Halen did well had been around for quite awhile at that point.  News to me.  As I looked into their history, they have a stupid amount of recorded music I didn’t know about.  The album I’m doing today is their 19th studio album overall (out of 24 overall).  I’m not going to go over the entire history of the Kinks, as I’ll be here for about 25 or 30 thousand words.  Suffice it to say, these dudes are legends, and almost never get the credit they deserve for what they did musically.  I myself probably should know more of their material than I do.  I mean if you go down their catalog of songs, there’s mega huge stuff in there..  Besides the aforementioned You Really Got Me, there’s Lola, Father Christmas, Come Dancing, All Day and All of the Night, Supersonic Rocket Ship – there’s a crap ton.  That last one had a recent resurgence when it was used in the movie “Avengers: Endgame”.  Van Halen covered them a second time with “Where Have All the Good Times Gone”.

But sadly I’m with most everyone else in the “Yeah, I should play them more” category.  So I was quite pleased when I came this one in the vinyl series.  Give the People What They Want is the only studio album by the Kinks I ever bought.  They’re the definition of a band I’ve always got by with radio play and a Greatest Hits album (which I own on CD).   It’s a failing of mine that I’ve never dug deeper into them.  I always say I should. but I haven’t.  I’d like to make myself sound all good and say I will after today’s listen.  I might.  I might not.   Such is the way with me and the Kinks.

The vinyl I’m listening to today is my OG copy from the early 80’s that I bought – another survivor of my mom’s basement.  I’m pretty sure I bought this for two specific tracks.  “Around the Dial” and “Destroyer” – the two big songs from this album.  This was absolutely in the era of when I would buy entire albums just for one or two songs and never listen to the rest.   Much like the album in the series I did right before this (Police’s “Ghost in the Machine”), I know very little beyond the two I mentioned here and the title track.  The rest are ones I don’t know by name.  Might remember some when I listen to the album in a little bit (I usually write the intros to these things, take a break then come back and listen to the album itself).   The album has Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders doing background vocals on four tracks, but was uncredited on the original album.   Looking forward to this album as the Kinks are always a great in your face slab of rock & roll.  Nothing complex (usually), but it almost always works when I do listen.

So, let’s get to some tunes..

Around the Dial – I loved this one from the first moment I ever heard it, and still do.  It’s just as awesome to me in 2024 as it was when first heard it 43 (!!) years ago.  It starts off with a sound effect of scanning a radio dial for something to listen to – which at that time of my life was a thing that I did a lot.  So it was a marriage in 1981 of what I was doing already with the music I was listening to.  It starts off slow and coupled with the sound effect at the start, it takes about a minute before the main part of the song really starts – once it does, it gets faster.  I love  this sound from the Kinks a lot.  I always considered this a “Radio” song because well…  that’s what the lyrics are all about. DJ’s, records, AM, FM, “tuned in”… etc…   One of my personal playlists is made up of “radio songs” – it started with this one.  I also love how they bring the scan sound effect from the start back about 3/4 of the way into the song and make it part of the music itself, always loved that.  GREAT track – remains one of my top Kinks tracks to this day.

As a side note, the said “Radio playlist” consists of these songs:  Radio GaGa (Queen), Turn up the Radio (Autograph), Around the Dial (The Kinks), W*O*L*D (Harry Chapin), The Last DJ (Tom Petty), The Spirit of Radio (Rush), Just Push Play (Aerosmith), Radio Waves (Roger Waters), Raised on Radio (Journey), Radio Dial (George Carlin).

Give The People What they Want – This song reminds me of a Kiss riff that I can’t put my finger on.  Not that the Kinks need to rip off Kiss, but the general vibe of this song reminds me of some faster track that Kiss might do.   As I mentioned already, a faster track – good solid rock song.  Great guitar solo.   Also has some sound effects too (a crowd reacting to Ray singing the title).  Solid beat.  One of those tracks that doesn’t seem to lend itself to a wordy description of what I”m hearing, but listening to it and you get it.

Killer’s Eyes – This takes things down a bit.  A slower intro song.  Thing is, even when the Kinks go slow, they still sound “big”.  This is definitely a slower song, but if you put it up against slow songs by other bands I like, this has more of a power than most.  The Davies brothers don’t do true slow very easily.  :)    It is a nice change of pace through as the album starts off with a couple of in your face tracks.

Predictable – One of the Chrissie Hynde songs.  Has an interesting sound with the traditional loud Kinks guitar mixed with something else that I can’t quite put my finger on.  Not a synth, maybe a different kind of guitar sound?  I’m tempted to say the song itself is somewhat predictable, as it doesn’t vary its sound a whole lot.  Not the best track on the album, but not bad at all.  Decent enough album track.

Add It Up – Side 1 finishes off with another one that’s in the middle range between fast and slow.  The usual loud Kinks guitar sound is here, but used as an accent, not the dominant sound of the song – a nice change of pace.   Oddly, this song crept up on me – it started off slower, and ended up faster.  Lyrics are obviously a shot at status symbols as laid out in the chorus which has “Ah, Gucci, Gucci, Gucci Cartier, Cartier Gucci, Gucci, Gucci” and “Symbols of perversion and insanity / Symbols of social immorality”.   Yeah, some definite thoughts there.   I do like the vocal delivery when saying the bit with “Gucci” in it.

Destroyer – The other song that was a super big hit from this album, and I’d wager the track that if you know anything from this album, it’s this one.  Really great track, and might be my favorite individual Kinks track of all time.   To this day when they sing the “Stop! Hold on, stay in control” bit I still put my hand up and do “Stop!”.  It’s silly, but always there when I listen to the song.  Very much in the traditional loud guitar vibe the Kinks are known for.  It’s hard for me to write about this because it’s one that I just listen go and go “Yeah, that’s fucking awesome” and find myself at a loss for words to describe WHY it’s awesome.  Another one of those “Just listen to the damn thing – you’ll get it right away”.  I do love in the parts when the guitar isn’t raging you can really get into the bass riff, too.  It was intended for release on the band’s prior album (Low Budget), but they couldn’t get it working there for some reason.  It also calls back to their song Lola and has a riff borrowed from their own “All Day And All Of the Night” song.    … “AND IT GOES LIKE THIS!”

Had to listen to that a second time.  From this point forward, I don’t remember any of the tracks by title at all.

Yo-Yo – After the punch in the face that Destroyer was, whatever followed it on the album was going to feel like a come down so it was definitely a place to put a slower song.  As is the case with the Kinks, it’s not ballad slow, but it starts off that way, builds up a bit.  It’s quite a nice track musically.  It flows from part to part a little smoother than most of the stuff on this album does.   Good track.

Back to Front – Starts off with a great guitar riff – one I didn’t remember AT ALL.  In fact, “guitar riff” is a great way too describe this song.  It OBVIOUSLY isn’t, but it feels somewhat to be a bunch of riffing with vocals.  I really liked the guitar riff here.  Great foot tapping fast beat track – definitely forgot about this one and man, I wish I had remembered it, it would have been played more.  Super awesome track.  Embedded on my blog page.

Art Lover – Once again we come down after a song that’s essentially a punch in the face.  This might be the slowest of the slow songs.  There’s NONE of the traditional Kinks guitar sound in this.  Didn’t really care for this.  I can like songs like this, but this time around I wanted to be punched in the face a bit more.

A Little Bit of Abuse – This is still a slower track, but not like Art Lover – it’s two in a row with a slower pace to it.  But like some of the others, it’s a “build up” song, because by the time it’s over, it’s a louder sound than the start of the song.  Nice track.  Not my favorite, but a decent album track.   The guitar sound is a bit restrained, but I thought serves this song well just the same.

Better Things – This is another song that started during the sessions for the prior album (Low Budget).  It was written about the then failing marriage of Ray Davies.  One would call this a “breakup song” I suppose.  It starts off with a pretty clean piano sound – not interrupted by the rest of the band.  Nice opening to the track.  Song’s got a bit of a positive outlook to life with lyrics like this..  “I know you’ve got a lot of good things happening up ahead / The past is gone, it’s all been said / So here’s to what the future brings”.  In 2010 Ray Davies released a song where he re-recorded his own stuff.  Better Things was one of those, but the novelty here is that he sung it with Bruce Springsteen.

Overall, there was a lot more to discover here beyond the two tracks that I knew well.  I liked that a lot and that I didn’t still have this album for just two songs.  Very much enjoyed this album, and of course I had to listen to Around the Dial & Destroyer twice when their turns came up.  :)

One final thing, the Kinks were at the first ever concert I attended – 19 Jun 1982 in Philadelphia.  Was a festival show, and the full lineup that day was (in order) – Huey Lewis & The News, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, Loverboy, The Kinks, Foreigner.  That’s probably the only time I’ll be at a concert the Kinks are playing, as they’ve been broken up for a long time now, and they’re in their 80’s, so they’re likely done.   So yeah, I technically did see the tour for this album.  :)