The Kinks and their influence

I'm a long time admirer of Ray and Dave Davies, and their band, The Kinks. They're the forgotten band of the 60's, most people concentrate on The Beatles, or The Rolling Stones, but of all the acts from that era, none were as quintessentially British nor as influential as The Kinks.
Many of the leading figures in British music have covered Kinks songs, Morrissey and The Stranglers both covered Dagenham Dave, and The Jam covered David Watts, amongst others.
Songs like Waterloo sunset, See my friends, All day and all of the night, Lola, Autumn almanack, Well respected man, stand the test of time and sound as fresh today as they did back when The Kinks first performed them. My personal favourites are Victoria and Death of a clown, both wonderful tunes, and good examples of The Kinks at their finest.
Ray Davies was also responsible for two of The Pretenders hits, whilst he was in a relationship with Chrissie Hyndes, he wrote Stop all your sobbing, and While you're sleeping, a beautiful song if ever there was one.
I'd appreciate comments from fellow fans, and from those who who want to {constructively} criticise The Kinks.

 

I like the Kinks as a band but I think get more credit than they deserve. For example, 2 of their most popular songs ("You really got me" and "All day and all of the night") were written by Jimmy Page along with others. They seem to be more an object of Pages boredom more than really a band. I still like there music though even if I have only heard a few of there songs.

 

Kinks are totally underrated group. As far as I know Page didn't participate on writing any of Kinks' songs, he just played on couple of tracks because record company thought they needed some professional musician on record. But later they devoloped to really talented musicians themselves.My absolute favourite Kinks album is fantastic Village Green Preservation Society. Another my favourites is State Of Confusion from early 80's (includes perhaps their most succesful hit single "Come Dancing". Best thing about Kinks is that they've done music longer than most other groups but they've always been evolving and discovering new musical territories.

 

I've always admired the way that The Kinks evolved musically. As far as I understood it the first few singles were cover versions of rock n roll songs, and like The Animals they helped popularise r and b in britain. However they evolved way beyond their origins, and their music covers many different styles, from the whimsical lyrics and catchy tune of Dedicated follower of fashion to where have all the good times gone, a comment on the so called swinging sixties, and the best kinks song according to david bowie.

 

I don't pretend to be infinitely familiar with the Kinks' back catalogue, but my favorite album of theirs is also The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. Whenever I listen to it I think of my own home town.

What I want to know is, when is the world going to hear something else by the Kinks?

 

For example, 2 of their most popular songs ("You really got me" and "All day and all of the night") were written by Jimmy Page along with others.

Uh, no he didn't. Both of those songs were written by Ray. Jimmy did some session work with them and played a couple of solos for songs.


You Really Got Me
Written by: Ray Davies
Published by: Kassner Music Co. LTD

All Day And All Of The Night
Written by: R. Davies
Published by: Kassner Music Co. Ltd

 

I stand corrected, but thats what I read in a Guitar World magazine and have heard from other sources. Anyways, what does everyone think of Van Halen's remake of "You really got me?" VH has covered at least 2 songs that I know of although I don't know the others name.

 

I had read that somewhere myself. Did a little research and found out it was just primarily session work. He has writing credits on two Kinks songs but they aren't very well known songs. He probably did write solos for other songs though.

I prefer the original version to the Van Halen one. Although it was done well.