The 1981 Listening Post - The Kinks - Give the People What They Want

 The Kinks - Give the People What They Want

#379

By Craig Fitzgerald

August 15 1981

The Kinks

Give the People What They Want

Genre: Post-British Invasion

Allen’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Craig’s Rating: 5 out of 5

Highlights

Around the Dial

Give The People What They Want

Destroyer

Killer’s Eyes

This is The Kinks’ 19th studio album.

Nineteen by 1981. That’s far beyond the output of The Who, The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. Not that you measure good rock and roll in volume, but it’s insane that they’d push out this many records by 1981, and have this one and the one before it that were this fucking good. 

By this point, the Beatles had been gone for a decade, The Who released Face Dances (easy listening), and the Glimmer Twins had completely quit communicating.

Meanwhile, Dave Davies was turning out riffs that were just as flat out badass as he was in 1964, and Ray was at the absolute peak of his writing talent.

About six months ago, after a discussion about the last Kinks album reviewed here, I was on my way home and listened to “Lola” for the first time in a long time. 

Really listened to it. 

Its the most unlikely rock and roll anthem of all time. Sure, on the surface, it’s got the twist of a young man being picked up in a bar by a trans woman. Shocking in 1970, for sure. But what’s really remarkable about it, and what actually choked me up a little when I really listened to it was how empathetic Ray Davies was to the characters he invented. A lesser songwriter — and a lesser human being — would’ve wound it up with a knockout punch and a round of pints with the lads, but no. “It’s a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world EXCEPT for Lola.”

That’s what’s going on in GTPWTW, from one end of this record to the other.

Empathy. 

Empathy for the DJ from the Alan Freed era, who finds himself made redundant because he’s uninterested in the corporate bullshit required to be on the radio.

Empathy for the people who’ve had to watch the horrors of the world play out on increasingly violent newscasts.

Empathy for a mass murderer, pushed to psychosis by a world that treated him like shit.

Empathy for the woman who gets the shit beaten out of her on the regular, but doesn’t have the support system to leave. 

Empathy for a father who’s had his daughter taken away.

Ray Davies packed this record with themes that we barely have the tools to deal with today, let alone in 1981.

Nobody in popular music other than the Kinks could’ve produced an album like this. It is disgraceful that this record isn’t up there with Abbey Road, Exile on Main Street and Tommy as one of the best records of all time. 

It’s the Kinks record that holds together above all others. It’s not a “concept record” or a “rock opera.” It’s a collection of songs with a common theme: empathy for the outsider. 

To me, it’s one of the best rock and roll albums of all time.

https://open.spotify.com/album/7BhoCWOn9mXzn9Z63nYZ7Y?si=tOEAjQgnQTmibVi2GR2hwA