The Kinks. (L-R) Dave Davies, Ray Davies, Peter Quaife, and Mick Avory, wait on the set of a television show, ready to perform, 1968/Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Qalam strives to explore the interpenetration of different cultures. To this end, we have decided to launch a series of playlists in which music mediates between different geographical and ideological spaces. Our first playlist is called ‘West to East: One Hundred Best Songs’. It will be updated several times a week, and its curation will focus on how Western pop culture has reflected the realities of the East, whether they are musical, geographical, religious, or political. (The terms ‘West’ and ‘East’ should be taken as broadly and arbitrarily as possible.)
From the late 1960s on, the Indian sitar became quite a common element in Anglo-American pop music, featuring in the music of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Mamas & the Papas, and even the King, Elvis. However, the Kinks were the first to use this sound well before it became trendy. The Kinks—a band just as talented as the Beatles though less prominent—chose not to directly use the sitar but rather to emulate its sound with an electric guitar and a partially nasal vocal style in their 1965 track ‘See My Friends’. A year later, they ventured into Indian-inspired territory again with the enchanting, pseudo-Eastern track ‘Fancy’ on their fourth album, once again using only guitars. While dozens of similar compositions emerged in that era, the Kinks’ approach remains the most elegant.