Robbed Hit of the Week 1/13/14 - The Kinks' "Do It Again"...

The Kinks - "Do It Again"
from the album Word Of Mouth (1984)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #41

This week's "robbed hit" is by the British Invasion rock group the Kinks, who enjoyed a "comeback" if you will in the early 80s with their 1983 album State Of Confusion, which produced a top-10 pop single with the nostalgic "Come Dancing" and a top-40 follow-up in the similar "Don't Forget To Dance". It was the first time since 1965 that they have had two top-40 pop hits in the US from an album. The time after the release of the album, though, proved to be more troubling, with singer Ray Davies' relationship to Chrissie Hynde falling apart, brother Dave's intolerance with drummer Mick Avory causing the latter's boot from the band, and even tension between Ray and Dave from Ray's film-making solo stint with Return To Waterloo in 1983. All this was swirling during the recording of their next album, Word Of Mouth. Released in the holiday season of 1984, the set's first single, "Do It Again", thankfully didn't go back to the nostalgia trough but set a simple, memorable pop song around a killer guitar hook....

"Do It Again" stopped one notch short of the top-40 on the American pop chart in February of 1985, while doing much better on rock radio, reaching #4 on the format chart in Billboard magazine. Internationally, though, it didn't barely register, stalling at #91 in Canada and not even making an appearance on the British chart.

This would be the band's final show in the US pop chart, although they continued to have eight more hits on rock radio up until their most recent album Phobia in 1993, which placed their last hit "Hatred (A Duet)" at #19. They broke up later in the 90's, with both brothers releasing solo work, and Ray reaching the top-40 on the albums chart in the UK with Other People's Lives. Also, a re-release of the band's song "The Days", reused for a Yellow Pages ad, returned the Kinks briefly to the top-40 in the UK in 1997.

The band has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, and rumblings of reunion shows have popped up, but after Dave Davies suffered a stroke in 2004 it's been a rough go.

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and here's a decent live audio of "Do It Again" from 1987, from a show I actually was at at the Riviera...