The Kinks, Muswell Hillbillies

When you think about best bands of the British Invasion you start with the Beatles. After they opened the door, the next two mentioned are The Rolling Stones and The Who.

When you get to the next level, things start getting fuzzy. Who's next?

The Yardbirds? No. You can probably name more guitarists than songs from the Yardbirds.

The Hollies? No. The Zombies? Nope. Hermans Hermits? Who?

How about the Kinks?

They always seem to be forgotten. Why? For one, they don't have any lasting A+ rock song. Where's their "Won't Get Fooled Again" or "Sympathy For the Devil" or "A Day in the Life"?

They also don't have that classic album. In fact, can you name a Kinks album?

While their roots are sunk in American blues (like the Stones & the Who), by the time 60s ended the Kinks were running the other way, towards traditional English folk.

While the Stones & the Who were recording classic albums (Beggars Banquet, Sticky Fingers, Who's Next, Tommy) that still dominate the airways, the Kinks were taking a hard look at British society and commenting on it in a very British way. Its no wonder that just about all of their late 60s/early 70s music is ignored by American radio. [Only "Lola" is known to people, and that's only because of its content and cross-dressing main character.]

Its a shame that the Kinks records from this era are ignored because there is no reason they should. The final album of the four they released from 1968-71 might be the best of them all, Muswell Hillbillies.

The album opens with "20th Century Man", Ray Davies attack on the modernization of the British way of life. Forty years later the lyrics are almost prophetic. 'I was born in a welfare state/ Ruled by bureaucracy/ Controlled by civil servants/ And people dressed in grey/ Got no privacy, got no liberty/ Cos the twentieth century people/ Took it all away from me.'

The whole album plays like a folk-rock version of OK Computer. Instead of the droning guitars and layered loops, you get steel guitars and tubas. "Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues" find the Kinks tapping into the music hall scene as the horns sway and stagger like a New Orleans street dirge, as does the aptly titled "Alcohol."

The Kinks don't forget to rock, "Skin & Bone" and "Here Come the People in Grey" sound like 70s glam with the lead guitar replaced by an acoustic.

For such a British record, Davies name checks America often. What other album has tracks entitled "Have A Cuppa Tea" and "Holloway Jail" next to "Oklahoma USA" and "Kentucky Moon"?

Davies gets his most vitriolic near the end of the album, the title track contains the verse 'They're putting us in little boxes/ No character just uniformity/ They're trying to build a computerized community/ But they'll never make a zombie out of me.' And "Mountain Woman" follows a woman from a living in a dirty old shack drinking mountain dew (the good kind) to the 33rd floor of a man-made concrete mountain.

If you like your classic rock on the folkier side than this album is for you. Download a copy from iTunes because you sure as hell ain't gonna find it in any music store.

A Top 50 album of mine and rising.