“Give The People What They Want proves that The Kinks were still alive and kicking as the 80s began.” Ray Davies successfully trades music-hall whimsy for slabs of radio-ready arena rock

The Kinks’ 80s revival, which actually kicked off in the latter half of the 70s, followed several years of concept album indulgence. It began when Ray Davies stopped squinting at the village greens of Albion and embraced the neon glare of American arenas, and Give The People What They Want was the moment the band fully weaponised their legacy, trading music-hall whimsy for slabs of radio-ready arena rock.

The title track was a snarling commentary on media-fed bloodlust that felt decades ahead of its time. Meanwhile, Destroyer cannibalised the iconic riff from 1964’s All Day and All of the Night and reintroduced the title character from 1970’s Lola. It really shouldn’t have worked, but it did.

Although Ray accounted for 100% of the songwriting credits, brother Dave was the secret weapon, his guitar slashing through the mix with an intensity that suggested the band intended on going toe-to-toe with the new wave kids and power poppers who’d nicked their blueprints.

True to its title, Give The People What They Want was the sound of The Kinks giving the public exactly what they demanded: commercial, radio-friendly arena-bound rock’n’roll. Suddenly, the British Invasion had a sequel.

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Other albums released in August 1981

Torch – Carly SimonShot of Love – Bob DylanTattoo You – The Rolling StonesDark Continent – Wall of VoodooSleep No More – The Comsat AngelsPretenders II – PretendersScissors Cut – Art GarfunkelFire of Love – The Gun ClubBrothers of the Road – The Allman Brothers BandMaiden Japan – Iron MaidenNew Traditionalists – DevoShort Back ‘n’ Sides – Ian HunterTime Exposure – Little River BandWhitford/St. Holmes – Brad Whitford and Derek St. Holme

What they said…

“Throughout the record, the band kicks up a storm, rocking out with a surprising amount of precision, and although Ray Davies’ writing isn’t as strong as it was on the group’s two previous albums, he has contributed a set of professional hard rock that is distinguished by solid hooks and a clever sense of humour.” (AllMusic)

“Hook-laden and hard-rocking, this is the best-crafted Kinks album in over a decade, which means that for someone who’s found Ray Davies’s world-view increasingly mean-spirited and mush-brained, it’s also the biggest turnoff. Back when he was chairing the Village Green Preservation Society, Ray’s dotty lyricism put his nostalgia in appealing and appropriate musical perspective; his current clean-cut arena style makes him sound smug and strident, as well it should.” (Robert Christgau)

“Ray’s paranoia fires up the band on its first effort of the Ronald Reagan–Margaret Thatcher era. He may have been too old to be a real punk, but this non-concept album about selling out demonstrates he sure had the attitude for it. The spitfest is tempered by one perfect ballad (Better Things) and the most complex portrait of pedophilia ever crooned (Art Lover).” (Blender)

What you said…

Nigel Mawdsley: The UK’s record-buying public abandoned The Kinks in the early seventies. Supersonic Rocket Ship from 1972 was the band’s last sizeable chart hit before a rerelease of Come Dancing” in 1983.

The Kinks’ LP chart positioning was even worse in the UK. Their last stand-alone studio album to reach the charts was Something Else in 1967. (This doesn’t take into account the re-release of The Village Green Preservation Society in 2018). But Ray Davies never lost his songwriting ability. Indeed, The Kinks became superstars in the USA from the mid-1970s onwards.

One of the many Kinks’ LPs to deservedly hit the Billboard charts was Give The People What They Want, a top 20 smash in 1981.

Give The People What They Want is an amazing rock album from start to finish. The two opening tracks, Around The Dial and the album’s title track, state the album’s intentions, both great rocking tracks with brilliant lyrics and amazing fretwork from Dave Davies. The superb production really whetted my appetite for more when I first heard it.

The other notable rockers on the album are the punky Add It Up, Back To Front, and the minor US hit single Destroyer. The latter track cleverly intersperses the All Day And All Of The Night riff into the song and really does catch the listener between headbanging and dancing!

Elsewhere on the album, Ray Davies courts controversy with his song Art Lover, with wistful lyrics that should be listened to intently before the listener makes a judgment! Yo-Yo is an amazing song about a problematic relationship with some equally amazing lyrics.

The lyrics to some of Davies’ songs on the album dealt with difficult subject matters ahead of their time. A Little Bit Of Abuse is about domestic violence and is very powerful lyrically and musically, whilst Killer’s Eyes sees Davies seemingly taking the role of a psychiatrist trying to fathom out why his subject matter became a killer. Better Things” closes the album, a song that saw The Kinks return, albeit with a minor hit, to the UK charts. It deserved better!

Like many of The Kinks’ albums from the mid to late seventies and early eighties, Give The People What They Want gets a very rare 10/10!

Zak Browne: I just listened to the whole album for the first time in quite a while. I heard a lot of songs that sound like they could be found on albums by The Replacements. I think Better Things is a great closer, and Predictable and Yo-Yo were my other two favourites. 8/10.

John Davidson: Like many rock fans in the UK, I pretty much ignored everything created by the Kinks after Lola.

This album from 1981 sounds very new wave mixed with American pop-rock. The Knack, XTC, Elvis Costello, The Pretenders, etc., may all have taken inspiration from The Kinks, but this album seems to be a case of the masters aping their apprentices.

On Add it Up, for example, it sounds like Andy Partridge is singing lead for Blondie. Destroyer recycles All Day And All Of The Night and references back to Lola without being quite as good as either of their previous hits.

My first impression was that I wasn’t keen, but I think it has enough quirky charm that with more listens, I might be won over. A 6/10 just now, but that might go up.

Greg Schwepe: The story goes that Dave Davies took a razor blade to the speaker in his amplifier so it would rattle and distort more as the volume was increased. And the rest, they say, is history. And if it’s good ol’ distortion and power chords you want, along with a dose of witty and incisive lyrics you’ll pay attention to, then Give The People What They Want does just that.

This was The Kinks’ first studio album after the highly successful live album One For The Road. That one got lots of airplay here in the US in my area, and for many (me included), hearing new, recharged, revved-up versions of many of their classics led to an increased interest in new material from an established classic rock band.

The album kicks off with an ode to their favourite DJ in Around The Dial. And the title track after that, um, yes, gives the people what they want. You get the idea. Fun, bouncy, driving rock that has you reaching for the volume knob. It’s radio-friendly 80s Kinks! And it’s like they were saying, “Yeah, we want to be played on the radio again… so here it is.”

Destroyer is a mashup of The Kinks’ history. You get a mention of “Lola” in the lyrics and the riff of All Day and All of the Night. Double bonus.

Overall, this is a great collection of songs that ushered in a new era of the band that would result in newfound popularity from exposure on the radio and MTV. They wouldn’t “come dancing” until the follow-up to this one, but this opened the door to a great run of 80s albums. 8 out of 10. I got what I wanted.

Mike Canoe: For the past few years, I have haphazardly tried to find the right Kinks album to suggest to the group. The one with Lola on it? One of the first two albums, even though they were more than 60 years old? Wait, All Day and All of the Night was a non-album single? #@%&!!! Definitely not Preservation Society or Muswell Hillbillies, which were severely lacking in power chords and did not rock.

Give the People What They Want was probably the strongest contender, but, with its 1981 release date, it made me feel like a Johnny-come-lately Kinks fan, which, of course, is exactly what I was because that’s the album I came in with, thanks to the brilliantly paranoid Destroyer. The full album holds up well as a rock album and quite possibly their last one, once the nostalgia-fueled Come Dancing changed everything.

It also shows how influential the Kinks were to bands not named Van Halen. A Little Bit of Abuse sounds like the Kinks covering Elvis Costello covering the Kinks. Around the Dial, Back to Front, Killer’s Eyes and Add It Up could all be on any number of albums by second-wave UK punk bands. The creepy yet beautifully sad Art Lover makes me think that we’ll get to a Stranglers album someday.

Give the People What They Want is fun but still has bite, clever but not too artsy and pretentious about it. And it even has a cameo by Lola.

Philip Qvist: My views about the Kinks: When asked to pick my favourite songs from the year when I was born (1964, yes, I’m that old) then You Really Got Me is my standout track.

I would rate them as one of the most underrated bands from the 60s. There was so much brotherly love between Ray and Dave Davies that they always guaranteed a punch-up or two in the recording studio.

The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society is a masterpiece of an album. That all said, they did come out with some great songs throughout the 60s and early 70s.

I knew their early 70s hit Lola was one of their last big hits until the rather excellent Come Dancing hit the charts in 1983, and I was also aware of their Live 1980 record One For The Road, but what I didn’t realise was that they had been releasing more than a few studio albums between those two hits, including this one, Give What The People Want.

I gave it a couple of spins, and while I don’t think it quite matches their 60s output, it isn’t a half-bad record. Ray Davies’ songwriting is still top-notch, brother Dave’s lead guitar still rocks out as and when required, while the songs all have that distinct Kinks sound.

The title track, the mash-up of Lola and other tracks that is Destroyer, Yo-Yo and Predictable were my favourite tracks on this record. I don’t think the band created new boundaries with Give The People What They Want, but it did prove that The Kinks were still alive and kicking as the 80s began, and that definitely wasn’t a bad thing. A 7 from me.

Final score: 7.82 (57 votes cast, total score 446)

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