#298 ‘Victoria’ by the Kinks (8 July)

Album: Arthur (or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), 1969

Justification: Here’s proof, if any was needed, that sometimes your definitive songs don’t get the attention they should at the time, but get a second life thanks to other artists. ‘Victoria’ pretty much flopped on release but it’s sing-along-simultaneous-celebration-and-condemnation-of-Britishness endeared it to generations of UK artists: that conflicted love/hate spirit pretty much fuelled Britpop, the Fall had a minor hit with it in the 80s, the Kooks did a fairly average version on a War Child compilation in 2010 and Belle & Sebastian pulled it out when I saw them at Golden Plains earlier this year.

These days it’s arguably only behind ‘Waterloo Sunset’, ‘Lola’ and ‘You Really Got Me’ as The Archetypical Kinks Song, though this video shows that the band themselves were perfectly happy to play it far too damn fast and sloppy. Get a haircut, you hippies.

THIS TIME IN 2010: Eels were getting blissfully narcotic with ‘Novacaine for the Soul’.