Relations in the Kinks—Familiar but not Fully Familial

Battling brothers. Sibling rivalry. The animosity between the Kinks' singer/songwriter Ray Davies and guitarist Dave Davies has been the band's requisite tag‐line for journalists. It may have been a useful promotional celebrity text, but it has served to obscure and distort the actual relations among members of the group. The paper focuses on a complex of factors that have determined the pattern of relations in the Kinks. Structural factors play a leading role in the analysis, particularly the tensions among performing and creating positions and the contrasting musical temperaments of the occupants of these positions. Exacerbating the tensions created by structural factors are the band's business problems. Adding to the volatility of the preceding factors is the complicated ambivalent relationship between the Davies brothers.