But his CD’s since then have just been more of the same mellow (put me to sleep) guitar without that funkiness. When you combine that with the continuing naivete of his lyrics, he is the musical equivalent of Forrest Gump. I know that, to many people, that would qualify as high praise (8.4 rating on IMDB.com) but I found that to be the most heinously over-rated movie ever (The Unforgiven being a close 2nd).

That may make me sound like a hopeless cynic, but that truly isn’t the case. John Lennon’s “Imagine” still gives me goose bumps when I hear it; but if I am lucky I will never have to hear more than the 30 second ITunes sample of the singer/surfer boy wonder’s abomination.

I think your comment about “as long as they don’t try to make a career out of it” is right on target. It makes me think of the ’90s band Dread Zeppelin – They made a career out of being the only band around to do ‘Reggae covers of Led Zeppelin tunes, whose lead singer is an Elvis impersonator’. Some niche, huh.

I can guarantee you, you could go to the common man on the street and hum the song and probably 8 out of 10 would say, “that’s Van Halen isn’t it?”

Thanks for commenting.

Google “You Really Got Me” and you know what you get? The first page of actual results are links to Kinks-related content.

What does this tell us? That more people who are looking for information on that song are interested in the Kinks. This isn’t my opinion, this is a statistical indicator of popularity.

Now you could argue that this is only a sampling of people who surf the Internet and not the population in general, but considering that the Kink’s version came out in 1964 and Van Halen didn’t glom on to it until 1978, this bias would seem to favor the younger VH fanbase.

I will grant you that the VH version is probably more popular among law enforcement types who still consider Burt Reynolds the biggest star in Hollywood.

As for you trivia superiority, I’m more than willing to sit out and let the Team of Four try to take on a full field of competition. Actually, we have another invitation for that night so maybe we’ll go to that one and swing by the FF club later, in time to see you collect your winnings.

Thanks for commenting,
Dan

As ridiculous as Russ, Roy, and I needing anymore help in kicking ass at trivia. The rest are just like our entourage. Who are you Dan, Johnny Drama or Turtle?

How does preferring the Kinks version put me in the minority? I dare say that more people associate that song with Ray Davies than with that pederast David Lee Roth.

The original is still played on the radio quite often, but I never hear the Van Halen version. In ten years, society will have forgotten about that bastardization and the Kinks will continue to be hailed as the geniuses that they are.

Thanks for offering inane comments,
Dan