124. The Kinks - Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)

Do you know how many great songs this band had? It's really a shame that so few people mention them when making lists of the greatest rock bands of all time. Look over their catalog - they tried a little of everything; fast, hard, mellow, groovy, conceptual - and almost all of it worked. They were really a brilliant band whose work spanned almost 20 years before I started to wish that they would stop.

The most well known song on this album, Victoria, is everything that was great about 60's music, with none of the bullshit. It's groovy and funky and it's got great harmonizing laid over some cool rock and roll.

I had this awesome babysitter back in the early 70's. Linda let us watch horror movies and made us pancakes for dinner and she always brought her records over and made me listen to them. She talked about the songs as if she was teaching my the meaning of life, and maybe she was. One night she played this album for me and I was so completely taken with Mr. Churchill Says that I decided right then and there that when I was a little bit older I would form a band and I'd be the songwriter and I would write an awesome song like that and one day some girl would be babysitting and play my album for the kids and they'd hear my awesome Kinks-like song and they'd be inspired to......well, you know how that goes. I set my standards for myself way too high. Very few people write songs like Ray Davies.

Favorite song: Mr. Churchill Says
The Kinks photo project