The Kinks
Muswell Hillbillies

THE REVIEW

What a charming scoundrel, Mr. Raymond Douglas Davies. If there were an award for brass-faced cheek in rock music, I believe it would rightly be his. No one like him has been able to mock everything and everyone in over thirty years of an illustrious career, continuously angering producers, colleagues, critics, and the public from a position of shameless arrogance and Oscar Wilde-level sarcasm. He was the most revolutionary of conservatives and the most conservative of revolutionaries. A Leo Longanesi of rock 'n' roll who dipped his pen in venom to satirize the vices and virtues of society in general and show business in particular. He was excessive, mocking, insolent, and snobbish, and he straightforwardly called out beatniks, the operetta revolutionaries of '68, and punks, all derided by his skewed vis polemica. Being himself, obviously, a rogue of the highest order.

Take the lyrics of the chorus of the song at the top, the title track that closes that "Muswell Hillbillies" of 1971, the first album of phase-2 of the Kinks' career, marking their debut for the then-powerful RCA. Here, an unbounded love for America is declared, especially for the most traditional part, not for the New York intellectuals or, even worse, the sunny and fashionable West Coast. But this declaration comes precisely from the lips of someone who, until a few months prior, could have been considered English through and through, the rock equivalent of afternoon tea, strawberries with cream, and the Changing of the Guard in front of Buckingham Palace. The album in question was supposed to be their star-spangled consecration. Only in hindsight, it was the Kinks' last great album.

Obviously, the result was light years away from what the record label expected. With the recent breakup of the Lennon-McCartney duo, RCA managers thought they had struck gold by signing that impudent Englishman who was supposed to churn out chart-busting hits like "You Really Got Me", "Victoria", and "Lola". None of that happened. Ray Davies, whether consciously or not, came out with an album that offered nothing to easily please tastes or the charts. An album that skillfully mixes quiet moods and electro-acoustic sound, able to build the ideal bridge between suburban London—where the Davies brothers were born and raised—and rural America. Authentic, if I may be bold with the neologism, "Blues-collar (pop)rock".

Indeed, no album from Mr. Raymond's pen, in its lyrics and music, breathes such a "working class" air, albeit in his style, which is certainly not that of a John Lennon. It's the general mood of the album that captivates. Never overblown, yet there are tracks that "rock", like the opening "20th Century Man", straightforward rock 'n' roll that hits the mark and the almost-hard "Here Come the People in Grey". In "Skin & Bone" and "Complicated Life", the Kinks had never been so rhythm 'n' blues. And what about the left-handed pop-cabaret vein, that Made in England trademark present from "Something Else..." to "Arthur"? Rest assured, the languorous "Holiday", "Alcohol", and "Have a Cuppa Tea" fulfill that need. Towards the end, the masterpiece ballad that can never be absent from an author of such caliber: "Oklahoma U.S.A.", among Ray Davies's top ten songs in my opinion, and that's saying enough. And yet, a Rolling Stones-style outtake with a slide and organ triumph, "Uncle Son". To close it all, the brisk country-rock of the same title with the aforementioned lyrics. Green on Red and the Long Ryders born in the English countryside a decade earlier. A perfect seal.

"I'm proud of that album (he's talking about "Muswell Hillbillies", ed.). I think it's as good a record as the Kinks ever made." When talking about himself and his matters, Ray Davies was always deadly serious...