Summer Favorites, 2024

The Kinks were one of the most influential bands of the British Invasion. Early singles "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night" were brutal, three-chord ravers that paved the way for punk and metal while inspiring peers like the Who. In the mid-'60s, frontman Ray Davies came into his own as a songwriter, developing a wry wit and an eye for social commentary that culminated in a pair of conceptual LPs, The Village Green Preservation Society and Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), that proved enormously influential over the years.

Squirrel Nut Zippers had the good fortune to make it to the big leagues at the same time the swing revival of the 1990s crested. Although the group's roots stretched far beyond the Rat Pack – they were informed by New Orleans jazz, hot dance music, Harlem jazz, and other jumping music of prewar America – they nevertheless benefited from the lounge revival, which helped lift their 1996 album, Hot, and its accompanying single, "Hell," into the Billboard charts. Squirrel Nut Zippers kept touring into the early 2000s, after which they went on hiatus. Leader Jimbo Mathus revived the group in 2008 for a live album but it wasn't until 2018 that they released a new album, Beasts of Burgundy.