Early artists scattered across the UK would have different album releases in the United States. It’s all to do with label expectations across the pond, a desire to have albums shorter and feature a contemporary hit. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Kinks, too, were all part of that release style. It’s why Kinkdom has been forgotten somewhat. A shorter version of what was effectively released in the UK with the albums around this, there is enough of a reason to listen in. Eleven short and sweet songs which hint at what The Kinks would do over the course of their career. Or, at least, the best bits which were just a few years off of Kinkdom. This is a sound that would be adapted and moulded well by the band over the years to come, and the kitchen sink dramas heard throughout this fourth studio album are a tough sell to Americans. Tea-stirring simplicity with the weight of debts and burdens which affect the healthy man, that’s what Kinkdom opens with.
A Well Respected Man is a nice, tongue-in-cheek start to the album. It’s that feeling of superiority which appears in the worst sorts of people. It’s those little brushes with reality that are most surprising of all. The Kinks had written loved-up rock and roll selections that proved pop-friendly but rather shallow too, and Kinkdom is where they decided to collect some of their most sincere and pointed works to date. Both A Well Respected Man and Such a Shame hint at the lyrical quality The Kinks would continue with in future. Some questionable songs feature too, naturally, like Naggin’ Woman which was dated then and is dated now, but there are also short stop-offs to test the waters of a new sound. See My Friends relies on a repetition which verges on trance-like, the psychedelic early years of most UK bands coming to a head there.
The B-side kicks off strong with Who’ll Be the Next in Line, the mistakes of one person projected onto another with an acoustic instrumental kick which dominates the song. It’s a tremendous track from Kinkdom, one of many that highlight the direction the band had. They were doing well to find the middle ground between the pop sentimentality of The Beatles and the blues rock of The Rolling Stones. Few could do both as well as The Kinks, let alone blur it together into songs which still speak straight to the heart, decades on from their first release. Don’t You Fret is a fantastic contrast to the moving on found on Who’ll Be the Next in Line. It’s not that The Kinks weren’t writing about romance and relationships anymore, they were just writing about that topic far better than they were on their first albums.
Complexity makes all the difference to songs like that, and The Kinks find this very clearly on Kinkdom. A few of these songs featured before the US release, some would appear on UK releases afterwards. Whatever the case, it’s an exciting time with the band, whose consistencies as instrumentalists is clear as ever. But that was always the case. You Really Got Me could show that well enough. What The Kinks do for the rest of this album, though, is profile themselves as quality writers. Their nuance and unique look at love and life in the UK hardly translates into American colloquialisms or understanding, but it’s all the better for not. It keeps the thrills of The Kinks alive and well, unwavering in the face of Stateside appeal, which many bands in the UK were already contending with.
