History Music / TheKinks

* LyricalDissonance: They do this quite a bit, but the prime example may be "Victoria", a cheerful, uptempo song (featuring an UnreliableNarrator) about how dysfunctional Britain was in the 19th Century (BritishStuffiness, sexual repression, class inequalities, militarism, imperialism).

* PunkRock: ''The'' primary influence along with The Who. Best seen in their up-tempo version of "All Day and All of the Night", which pretty much was fully formed punk.

* HaveAGayOldTime:

!!Principal Members (Founding members in '''bold'''):

* '''Pete Quaife''' - bass, vocals (1964–69, died 2010)

* Ian Gibbons - keyboard, piano, vocals (1979–89, 1993–96, died 2019)

* [[Music/TheZombies Jim Rodford]] - bass, vocals (1978–96, died 2018)

The Kinks were an English rock band, one of the "Big Four" [[UsefulNotes/TheBritishInvasion British Invasion]] bands of TheSixties (along with Music/TheBeatles, Music/TheRollingStones, and Music/TheWho) and also LongRunners, having experienced a career's worth of highs and lows before finally throwing in the towel in 1996. While they have had many members, their most famous line-up consisted of vocalist-guitarist-songwriter-[[IAmTheBand mastermind]] Ray Davies, his vocalist-guitarist kid brother Dave Davies, bassist Pete Quaife (left in 1969, died 2010), and the former (albeit briefly) drummer of Music/TheRollingStones, Mick Avory (who left in 1984).

* NiceHat: The woman in "She's Bought a Hat Like Princess Marina" sports one of these, which she wears to clean the windows and scrub the stairs.

* BittersweetEnding: Arthur. OH GOD, [[UpToEleven ARTHUR]].

* NiceHat: The woman in "She's Bought a Hat Like Princess Marina" sports one of these, which she wears it to clean the windows and scrub the stairs.

The band changed once again in TheSeventies, exploring more of an archly theatrical, campy sound. This only worsened their declining popularity; however, the resulting {{concept album}}s are starting to garner some reappraisals. They then restyled themselves as an {{arena rock}} band in 1976. Lucky enough to be synchronised with the {{punk rock}} explosion and some successful covers of their songs by punk and {{New Wave|Music}} bands, The Kinks rode their second wave of popularity until the early '80s, culminating when their single "Come Dancing" became a worldwide smash in early 1983. They then went back to being a cult band before calling it quits in 1996. However, in 2018, Ray Davies [[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/06/26/ray-davies-kinks-officially-getting-back-together/ announced]] plans for a new Kinks album with Dave Davies and Mick Avory.

* AlasPoorVillain: Seen in "Artificial Man" on ''Preservation Act 2''. Is Flash a greedy womanizer willing to ruin countless lives for the sake of profit? Undoubtedly. Did he deserve to be [[spoiler: imprisoned, tortured, brainwashed, and converted into an automaton? Probably not.]]

** David Watts' use of "so gay and fancy-free" sounds like this at first, but is a [[SubvertedTrope subversion]]: It was inspired by a man who flirted with Dave Davies, so the use of "gay" is actually a DoubleEntendre.

* HeavyMeta: ''Lola versus Powerman...'' is about the music industry as a whole. Furthermore, there's "Session Man" (which is about session musicians, and how no one treats them like "real" musicians) and "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" (which is more aimed at the Mod scene as a whole rather than just the music). For an extra slice of meta, consider the fact that quintessential "session man" Nicky Hopkins plays piano on "Session Man", which was song reportedly inspired by him.

The Kinks were an English rock band, one of the "Big Four" [[UsefulNotes/TheBritishInvasion British Invasion]] bands of TheSixties (along with Music/TheBeatles, Music/TheRollingStones, and Music/TheWho) and also LongRunners, having experienced a career's worth of highs and lows before finally throwing in the towel in 1996. While they have had many members, their most famous line-up consisted of vocalist-guitarist-[[IAmTheBand mastermind]] Ray Davies, his vocalist-guitarist brother Dave Davies, bassist Pete Quaife (left in 1969, died 2010), and the former (albeit briefly) drummer of Music/TheRollingStones, Mick Avory (who left in 1984).

The Kinks were an English rock band, one of the "Big Four" [[UsefulNotes/TheBritishInvasion British Invasion]] bands of TheSixties (along with Music/TheBeatles, Music/TheRollingStones, and Music/TheWho) and also LongRunners, having experienced a career's worth of highs and lows before finally throwing in the towel in 1996. While they have had many members, their most famous line-up was composed of vocalist-guitarist-[[IAmTheBand mastermind]] Ray Davies, his vocalist-guitarist brother Dave Davies, bassist Pete Quaife (left in 1969, died 2010), and the former (albeit briefly) drummer of Music/TheRollingStones, Mick Avory (who left in 1984).

The Kinks began their career as a bluesy, hard-edged mod-rock band, gaining success with their loud, memorable hits "You Really Got Me", "All Day and All of the Night" and "Tired of Waiting for You", which set them up as a band to contend with and provided endless inspiration to future genres like GarageRock and PowerPop. Their rowdy live shows got them banned from America until 1969, although arguably this served them well in the long run, encouraging [[IAmTheBand Ray Davies]] to write songs that emphasised the band's essential Englishness and tended to a more nostalgic and pastoral feel than their States-struck contemporaries.