Re: The Byrds Vs. The Kinks
I like the Byrds very much but it will always be the Kinks for me. In some ways, I reckon they were more important, musically than the Beatles in the 60s. While the Beatles were still being, in effect, a British band playing American music, Ray Davies was inventing English rock music. Without the Kinks, Britpop would never have happened.
Listen to the early Beatles stuff (and, in some cases, less early) and it sounds of its time, a lot of the early Kinks stuff is timeless and, production aside, it could have been recorded yesterday.