The Kinks' image is so strange, a group making it on the fact that they've never made it. The ultimate recording group—that's all they do, they just make records, you never see them but once a year they put out an album—a gift from themselves to their audience. The Kinks' last two albums, Something Else and Village Green Preservation Society sold a combined total, in America, of 25,000 copies—that ain't very many. I don't know whether people actually don't like their stuff or if they've just never heard it—whatever the reason, somebody's missing something, because the Kinks, since 1964, have been making some of the finest rock music this side of the Stones and the Beatles.

Things like "You Really Got Me"—really tough, grinding hardrock; and "All Day and All of the Night"—strange, stumbling, go-stop-go tempo; and "So Tired of Waiting For You"—repetition...