The Kinks Albums Ranked - All 24 Studio Records, Every Musician Mapped
Few bands in British rock have the range of The Kinks. From the fuzz-riffed swagger of You Really Got Me to the pastoral melancholy of The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, Ray Davies wrote it all and made it feel entirely coherent.
As someone who spends a considerable amount of time immersed in a band's full discography before committing it to a map, I find The Kinks endlessly rewarding. Their 24 studio albums tell a story of contradiction, commercial frustration, critical genius, and surprising late-era resilience.
The Kinks Discography Map Art Print charts every studio album as a station on a tube-style network, with Ray Davies, Dave Davies, Mick Avory, Pete Quaife, John Dalton, John Gosling, Jim Rodford, Ian Gibbons, and a rotating cast of session players and collaborators mapped as the lines running through them. The musician count across the 24 albums ranges from 4 on Phobia to 14 on Preservation Act 2 - and that range tells its own story about how the band's ambitions expanded and contracted across three decades.
The Kinks Discography Map
Every Kinks studio album from 1964 to 1993, mapped in order with every musician running as a tube line. A1 and A2 Giclée prints.
Explore This Art PrintHere is my ranking of all 24 studio albums covered in the map.
The Kinks Albums at a Glance
| Album | Year | Musicians |
|---|---|---|
| Kinks | 1964 | 9 |
| Kinda Kinks | 1965 | 6 |
| The Kink Kontroversy | 1965 | 8 |
| Face to Face | 1966 | 7 |
| Something Else by the Kinks | 1967 | 6 |
| The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society | 1968 | 6 |
| Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) | 1969 | 5 |
| Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One | 1970 | 5 |
| Percy | 1971 | 5 |
| Muswell Hillbillies | 1971 | 10 |
| Everybody's in Show-Biz | 1972 | 9 |
| Preservation Act 1 | 1973 | 13 |
| Preservation Act 2 | 1974 | 14 |
| Soap Opera | 1975 | 6 |
| Schoolboys in Disgrace | 1975 | 11 |
| Sleepwalker | 1977 | 6 |
| Misfits | 1978 | 13 |
| Low Budget | 1979 | 6 |
| Give the People What They Want | 1981 | 6 |
| State of Confusion | 1983 | 5 |
| Word of Mouth | 1984 | 6 |
| Think Visual | 1986 | 7 |
| UK Jive | 1989 | 7 |
| Phobia | 1993 | 4 |
The Lower Tier — Worth Hearing, Hard to Love
24. UK Jive (1989) — 7 Credited Musicians
The penultimate record and arguably the most awkward. There are moments of the old Davies wit, but the production sits uneasily between American AOR and something trying to be heavy. How Do I Get Close salvages some dignity. Ian Gibbons and Bob Henrit hold the rhythm section together, but the material is not consistently strong enough to make this an easy return visit.
23. Schoolboys in Disgrace (1975) — 11 Credited Musicians
The second and final instalment of the Percy and Soap Opera theatrical run before the band pivoted. Not without charm, but thin compared to what preceded it. The 11-musician count reflects the expanded lineup of the theatrical period, with John Gosling, Mike Cotton on trumpet, and John Beecham on trombone all present.
22. Think Visual (1986) — 7 Credited Musicians
Competent mid-eighties rock that never quite ignites. Bob Henrit's drums and Ian Gibbons' keyboards give it backbone, but Ray's songwriting feels constrained by the decade's production norms. Kim Goody contributes backing vocals, and Mark Haley adds additional keyboards on Down All the Days, two contributors whose lines are among the shorter spurs on the map.
21. Word of Mouth (1984) — 6 Credited Musicians
The farewell to Mick Avory, who appears on a handful of tracks before Bob Henrit takes over. Patchy, though Do It Again is a hook that has stuck around for four decades. Ray's drum machine credits on several tracks are one of the more unusual entries in the discography.
20. Phobia (1993) — 4 Credited Musicians
The final studio album, and with only 4 credited musicians it is the sparsest station on the entire map. There are glimpses of the classic Kinks - Dave's guitar tone, Ray's defiant eye on England - but at 15 tracks it sprawls where it should focus. A decent close to a remarkable run.
19. Soap Opera (1975) — 6 Credited Musicians
A theatrical concept record about a rock star who swaps lives with a commuter. Lyrically sharp in places but difficult to return to in the way the best Kinks records demand. The core lineup carries it without the expanded brass section that defines the Preservation albums on either side.
The Middle Ground — Solid Records With Real Moments
18. Percy (1971) — 5 Credited Musicians
The soundtrack to the 1971 film. Surprisingly gentle and melodic in parts, with John Gosling's keyboards adding real texture. Stranger and better than its premise suggests, and notable on the map as the first album to credit Gosling, whose line runs from here through to Misfits in 1978.
17. Kinks (1964) — 9 Credited Musicians
The debut. Raw, raucous, and built heavily on covers. You Really Got Me and Stop Your Sobbing are the landmarks. Bobby Graham plays drums on most of the album, with Mick Avory absent for the bulk of the sessions. Jimmy Page contributes twelve-string acoustic guitar on tracks 6 and 12 - a detail I always enjoy surfacing when building the map. Jon Lord plays organ on track 9, another short but genuinely notable spur.
16. Kinda Kinks (1965) — 6 Credited Musicians
Recorded quickly in the wake of the debut's success, it shows. But there is genuine energy here, and Ray's voice already has that world-weary quality that would define the decade ahead. The core four carry this one without significant additional support.
15. Preservation Act 1 (1973) — 13 Credited Musicians
The opening chapter of Ray's most ambitious and troubled theatrical experiment. Introduces the characters but never fully arrives. John Gosling, Mike Cotton on trumpet, John Beecham on trombone, and Alan Holmes on saxophone and clarinet flesh out the sound considerably. The 13-musician count signals the Preservation era's theatrical ambition - nearly double the count of the classic 1960s albums.
14. Preservation Act 2 (1974) — 14 Credited Musicians
More satisfying than Act 1, partly because the story has somewhere to go. The 14 credited musicians is the highest count on the entire Kinks discography map — the band at its fullest in terms of personnel, with the brass section, backing vocalists including Vicki Brown, and Mick Avory's drums creating something close to theatre. Ambitious and admirably strange.
13. Everybody's in Show-Biz (1972) — 9 Credited Musicians
Half studio, half live. The studio side contains some of Ray's warmest and most domestic writing - Celluloid Heroes stands as one of his finest songs. Dave Rowberry's organ on Celluloid Heroes is a lovely detail that I always enjoy finding in the credits. The live section captures a band having genuine fun. John Gosling brings
