The Kinks and their mainspring, Raymond Douglas Davies, are presented [in "The Kinks' Greatest Celluloid Heroes"] in a ragtag collection of material dating as far back as 1972. Davies, who writes, produces, and arranges the group's material, seems to be making a lifelong career out of cheeky irreverence. Sometimes it works, as it does in Muswell Hillbilly, and sometimes it is woefully inappropriate, as it is in Alcohol—there's nothing really funny about that subject if you've read any of the new statistics on teenage (or any-age) alcoholism. But most of the time, as in Everybody's a Star and Celluloid Heroes, it comes across as a creaky bore. Somehow the Seventies have made a lot of pop irreverence seem more like sour brattiness than healthy fun. (pp. 100, 104)

Peter Reilly, "Popular Discs and Tapes: 'The Kinks' Greatest Celluloid Heroes'," in Stereo Review (copyright © 1976 by Ziff-Davis Publishing Company), Vol. 37, No. 5, November...