The Kinks began as the toughest of the British Invasion bands, a North London Mod quartet pitting Davies’ whine against his younger, brasher, and better-looking brother Dave’s guitar aggression. You could hear how much they hated each other–the Davies brothers would go on to a long history ... 

 BBC Sessions captures the early Kinks’ live power. But the breakthrough came with 1966’s Face to Face, one of the great albums of the Sixties. Davies refines his obsessions into his own private world, with nostalgic music-hall piano (“Sunny Afternoon”), brooding acoustic ballads (“Fancy... 

 The Kinks began as the toughest of the British Invasion bands, a North London Mod quartet pitting Davies’ whine against his younger, brasher, and better-looking brother Dave’s guitar aggression. You could hear how much they hated each other–the Davies brothers would go on to a long history ... 

 Something Else went even further, with Davies’ gentle compassion for his characters inspiring his loveliest melodies; only Lou Reed has written about city squalor with such an unabashedly romantic eye for beauty. “David Watts” is a peppy curse on childhood, setting up melancholy ballads suc... 

 The Village Green Preservation Society was Davies’ pastoral retreat, with mostly acoustic guitars, high harmonies, and self-consciously quaint small-town sentiments leaving the mad rushing crowds of the city far behind. Song for song, it might be the Kinks’ strongest, although Kinks fans will... 

 The Kinks then made Arthur, an ambitious soundtrack to a British TV drama about a working-class family, a “rock opera” that put the Who’s more famous Tommy to shame. It doesn’t quite hold together, with Davies straining too hard and starting to value his concepts higher than his individua... 

 The Kinks followed Arthur with the 1970 single “Lola,” their biggest hit in years and one of their best, a rowdy sing-along about the perverse delights that await runaway farmboys in the dark corners of old Soho. Somehow the BBC censors missed the lines, “I’m not the world’s most mascul... 

 The nostalgic Muswell Hillbillies was a last gasp. But the Kinks lost their touch in overblown concept jobs such as Preservation and Soap Opera; now a veteran rock crank, Davies was hard at work thinking thoughts, not an area of expertise for him, as his music went dry and his audience dwindled.  

 Even though it’s missing “You Really Got Me” and “All Day and All of the Night,” the best anthology is still the classic Kink Kronikles, a 1972 collection of early rockers (“She’s Got Everything,” “This Is Where I Belong”), hits (“Lola,” “Victoria,” “Waterloo Sunsetâ... 

 The nostalgic Muswell Hillbillies was a last gasp. But the Kinks lost their touch in overblown concept jobs such as Preservation and Soap Opera; now a veteran rock crank, Davies was hard at work thinking thoughts, not an area of expertise for him, as his music went dry and his audience dwindled.  

 The nostalgic Muswell Hillbillies was a last gasp. But the Kinks lost their touch in overblown concept jobs such as Preservation and Soap Opera; now a veteran rock crank, Davies was hard at work thinking thoughts, not an area of expertise for him, as his music went dry and his audience dwindled.  

 The nostalgic Muswell Hillbillies was a last gasp. But the Kinks lost their touch in overblown concept jobs such as Preservation and Soap Opera; now a veteran rock crank, Davies was hard at work thinking thoughts, not an area of expertise for him, as his music went dry and his audience dwindled.  

 Later in the Seventies, the Kinks straightened out and had their biggest U.S. success yet as a mainstream arena band, dumbing down for macho hard-rock hits like Misfits and Low Budget. Davies could still write great songs–“Sleepwalker,” “Better Things,” “Around the Dial”–but he co... 

 Later in the Seventies, the Kinks straightened out and had their biggest U.S. success yet as a mainstream arena band, dumbing down for macho hard-rock hits like Misfits and Low Budget. Davies could still write great songs–“Sleepwalker,” “Better Things,” “Around the Dial”–but he co... 

 The last of their good songs, along with quite a few terrible ones, are on Give the People What They Want; “Come Dancing” was a fluke MTV hit in 1983. But by the time the final breakup came, hardly anyone noticed. 

 Since then, Davies has toured as a solo singer/songwriter, putting on inspired “Storytellers”-style shows or rocking out with his awful backup band; he and his brother Dave both published books about the rock life. There are many overlapping Kinks anthologies, most focusing on the original Si... 

 BBC Sessions captures the early Kinks’ live power. But the breakthrough came with 1966’s Face to Face, one of the great albums of the Sixties.  

 Picture Book is a somewhat confusing six-disc box; it covers the band’s whole career and tosses in rarities, but several selections are piffle–who needs a half-finished rehearsal version of “Come on Now”?