The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society

This was Ray's first credit as producer. Pye delayed a planned September 1968 release after he re-sequenced the album. He remixed several tracks on 28 October and delivered tapes for fifteen songs in November. A Scandinavian edition with twelve tracks came out on 9 October. Ray said he was angry when he made it, and that he held back the competitive instincts that had made him write hit singles. He called it one of the first indie albums. Quaife said in 2005 it was the only real album the Kinks made.

It charted nowhere on release, the first Kinks album to miss both the British and American charts, and the single "Wonderboy" sold about 26,000 copies. The record reached the British chart at number 47 in 2018, its first appearance there, and went gold the same year. Melody Maker's Bob Dawbarn called it easily their best, and Paul Williams wrote in Rolling Stone that only genius could hit him so directly. Rolling Stone placed it at number 255 in 2003 and 384 in 2020, and at number 28 on its 2022 list of the greatest concept albums. Pete Townshend called it Ray's masterwork. A five-CD set marked the 50th anniversary in October 2018, and Michael Gallucci of Ultimate Classic Rock wrote that creatively the band were never better.

When Sanctuary reissued the album as a three-CD set in 2004, Pitchfork's J.H. Tompkins noted that it was widely disregarded on release, that its following grew over the years, and that the first disc added four bonus tracks including a version of "Days". He called it one of rock's first classic, one-of-a-kind albums.