Give the People What They Want

The Kinks - "Give The People What They Want" (1981) - Arista

Hello Friends,

Its amazing how good this record is considering it was the Kinks' 18th record and one would think that after 18 years of putting out songs that Ray Davies and company would grow redundant and stale.  Quite the opposite.  This record, along with 1979's Low Budget, would mark the band's renaissance (especially in the U.S. where they spent most of the 70's way under the mainstream radar!)

Its a hard rocking, arena rock-sounding record from the first track, the punky "Around the Dial" through the last, the absolutely perfect power pop song, "Better Things".

After the opener, Side One contains the title track, the creepy "Killers Eyes", the single, "Predictable", and the New Wave-sounding, "Add it Up" (featuring Davies' wife-at-the-time, Chrissie Hynde on sultry background vocals!)

Side Two opens with the album's lead single, "Destroyer", a nod to two earlier Kinks' classics, "All Day and All of the Night" (the guitar riff) and the protagonist from "Lola"-- who since that fated rendezvous has sunk into a deeply paranoid state! 

Side Two continues with "Yo-Yo", "Back to Front" and the super-super creepy, "Art Lover" about a guy who sits in the park and watches young girls frolicking claiming he's an artist and has to study their nubile forms for purposes of his "art".  Nice!

I'm not a flasher in a rain coat

I'm not a dirty old man
I'm not gonna snatch you from your mother

I'm an art lover, come to daddy
Ah, come to daddy, come to daddy

The album closes out with the sad, but hard-rocking "A Little Bit of Abuse" (which may or may not be about Ray & Dave Davies' sister) and the aforementioned "classic", "Better Things". 

Overall a great-- and terribly underrated-- rock & roll record! 

RATING: 4.5 Pretty little legs like a Degas Ballerina out of 5