The Kinks - State of Confusion

By the summer of '83 The Kinks seemed to be everywhere (in Canada at any rate) with their quirky song "Come Dancing" and the band seemed to be on the verge of getting their second wind. At least that's how I saw it. To me they were a bunch of old has beens who wrote a couple of cool songs in the '60s, and wrote "Lola" a song that always felt like the companion piece to Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side." Considering Lou's song came out a couple years after, I suspect there was more than a passing wink and a nod to The Kinks.

State of Confusion was their twentieth album, and my first real exposure to the band. The quirky nostalgia of "Come Dancing" was actually a bit of a bait and switch. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but a piss and vinegar Ray Davies with his snarling vocals and piercing lyrics accompanied by little brother Dave's frenetic guitar parts and backing vocals caught me a little by surprise. That's the joy of being a casual discovering an established band.

From the opening salvo fired on the opening track "State of Confusion" the band takes a page out of The Clash's songbook before settling into their own groove. Ray was belting it out at the top of his range with his voice on the verge of cracking. These weren't a bunch of old guys resting on their laurels, they still had something to say, and were going to say it, dagnabbit. Now admittedly at the time, this was an album that to my twenty year old ears was hit and miss - but there was something undeniably cool about these guys. If there was a deficiency it was on my end. This kind of rough urgent power pop was just a little out of my wheelhouse. I was into the more polished and commercial "rock" and while I enjoyed the album it didn't really resonate with me. That being said, even back then there was something special to me about songs like "Don't Forget to Dance" and ""Cliches of the World (B-Movie). They were really good. Of course, time has a way of putting things in their place, and a song like "Young Conservatives" has more context than it did when I was twenty.

It's funny that this really didn't ignite in me a passion for the band. The album was good, and with time it's actually a better album than I remember it being. The Kinks were always the Rodney Dangerfield of bands. They never seemed to get any respect. When thinking of the big British imports it generally takes a bit to get to The Kinks. They have their share of classics, and oddly within the pantheon of Kinks Klassics (I couldn't resist) "Come Dancing" is up their with their best. You may not agree with that but in could be my own ... state of confusion over what constitutes classic Kinks.

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