The Kinks

The Kinks formed in Muswell Hill, London in 1963, led by brothers Ray and Dave Davies. You Really Got Me (1964) — built on Dave Davies' distorted power chord riff, achieved by slashing his amplifier speaker with a razor blade — is one of the foundational recordings of hard rock and punk. Ray Davies emerged as one of rock's greatest songwriters, crafting wry, compassionate portraits of English life: Waterloo Sunset, Sunny Afternoon, Dead End Street, Autumn Almanac. The Village Green Preservation Society (1968) and Arthur (1969) are concept albums about Englishness that influenced Britpop thirty years later. Despite being banned from touring the United States from 1965 to 1969 at the peak of the British Invasion, the Kinks maintained a devoted following and influenced the Jam, the Pretenders, Blur, and Oasis.