I never did quite "get" the Kinks. While I liked tunes such as Lola, Twenty First Century man, Celluloid Heroes and even Victoria -- they sounded like Rock to me -- I simply did not relate to the more deliberately quaint and idiosyncratic British cultural references and attitudes that seemed to largely dominate their output.
By way of comparison, I have no such problem with the Folk and Music Hall elements prevalent in Richard Thompson’s songs. Somehow, he’s able to incorporate them into something more universal, or at least something I can easily relate to.