rank the kinks' 4 "great" albums

1 something else
2 village green pres socy
3 face to face
4 arthur

vgps is probably a more consistent album than something else, but something else overwhelms on the strength of its blockbuster songs ("waterloo sunset," "david watts," "lazy old sun," "no return," "love me till the sun shines," "two sisters," "harry rag," jesus christ i think i'm about to name the whole album, maybe vgps isn't really more consistent, it just sounds that way) ... face to face is the toughest sounding album they've ever made and has some moments of real beauty too ("rosie won't you please come home" is a fave album cut of that era for me) ... arthur has some huge moments but drags in places.

there is some consensus, though, that these four kinks albums
but c'mon, Lola and Muswell Hillbillies > Face to Face and at least = Arthur
Consensus be damned!!

not quite, though. the lost kinks album of that period was four more respected gentlemen, which was never released, but about half of which showed up on vgps. so there's not an entire missing album there. the album that was released a few years later under the title the great lost kinks album compiles recordings from both before and after that period. and is an amazing album, as well as the missing four more respected gentlemen stuff, plus some stuff that was originally intended for an also-unreleased dave davies solo album.

the album that was released a few years later under the title the great lost kinks album compiles recordings from both before and after that period, as well as the missing four more respected gentlemen stuff, plus some stuff that was originally intended for an also-unreleased dave davies solo album. and it's an amazing album.

To be honest, I don't really know 'face to face' that well, though I do have it. Actually these are the only four kinks albums I have. I think you're right about the consensus.

and that IS a stellar album. it's just not an album they ever planned to release in 1967 or 1968, but rather a compilation of miscellaneous tracks from roughly that period, released in the early '70s. that's all i was trying to say.

I've always preferred Face to Face to Something Else. So far it's just Yancey-pants and I against the world.

Also, can anyone tell me why none of these records are available on the iTunes store but they have 20 other ones?

Village Green
Face To Face
Arthur
Something Else

Some of my favorite songs are those bonus tracks so hell if I know if I'm judging the full-length itself.

Early Stones' is a mess I don't bother wading into. I have a couple greatest hits collections on tape (High Tide and Green Grass and Through the Past, Darkly), some weird things on vinyl (a Russian copy of some comp called "Sing This All Together" for ex.). Which is fine, cuz I really don't give much of a shit about their stuff up until "Let it Bleed".

The Kinks tho... they were a big headache, tracking down all the random singles, proper albums, etc.

Shagnri-La's a masterpiece.

I can't believe that, for example, "Berkley Mews" was left off the Castle CD of Lola, and now it's on that 3 CD thing. I love that album so much but I really don't feel like I should have to buy that bloated thing.

Revolver is better than Pep. F2F is better than Something Else. Upon further review, there is not incontrivertable evidence which would overturn the call on the field. The call stands, and Tim Ellison is charged with his first time out.

Kind of. It was supposed to collect every single A & B from 60's London period, but on the last disc they cheat and add stuff not from the London period rather than compress the stuff that were b-sides or rarities from that time frame. It's basically just a scam to ensure that you STILL have to buy Flowers.

"WHO CARES IF YOU'RE JEWISH AND YOUR BREATH SMELLS OF GARLIC"

No, of course not, but in the case of Sgt. Pepper vs. Revolver, what ARE the factors that make the latter record better, IYO?*

* IYO = in your opinion

that's not the whole lyrics, though. the next line is "and your nose is a shiny red light," and later he adds, in case anyone missed the point, "your nose may be bulbous."

i don't think ray's an anti-semite, but those lines play on very obvious, very old and very deep-seated jewish stereotypes. it's an intentionally offensive line (either that, or ray is an idiot, and i don't think ray's an idiot). as a jew, i'm not bothered by it any more than i'm offended by something randy newman or, say, eminem might say. good writers say offensive things sometimes, and most good ones are reluctant to censor their own thoughts and observations, and as far as i'm concerned, that's a good thing. i'm pretty sure i laughed the first time i heard this song. but if ray really can't understand why some people are offended, even though some of his best friends are, ya know, jewish, then maybe he IS an idiot.

Less sucky tracks. No stupid concept and thematic warblings. Better cover. "Tomorrow Never Knows. Better George Harrison Indian song. McCartney being less annoyingly daft and addled.

Peter Blake for fuck sake!!!

"Within You Without You" is so much better than "Love You Too" OMG.

they're all incredibly great! kinda kinks is best!

though i can't remember the title of this song, i DO know what song it is ... and it's GREAT, so OMGWTF etc. wr2 this song being "boring."

x-post

or 'got to get you into housing commission as a result of compulsory purchase'

I thought so too recently, but I just put it on now and it sounds great right now (esp. last song.)

I don't want music to wash over me. I have liquid soap for that shit.

I agree with tremendoid on Beatles: Rubber Soul> Pepper > Revolver

By coincidence, I have listened to all three albums in their entirety in the last two days. Revolver has some good McCartney tunes, but other than "I'm Only Sleeping," John drops the ball. "Dr. Robert" and "She said she said" are laughable 'ooh, look at me, I smoke pot and do acid' songs.

Sergeant Pepper has "A Day in the Life," but it also has some "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"level duds in "64" and "Rita." And the further George gets into Indian music, the further my gorge rises.

Rubber Soul, particularly the second half, is sold gold dynamite. It is crack cocaine with a tamborine.

-- Alex in SF (clobberthesauru...), February 3rd, 2005.

Then fecking get out on the dance floor for "Getting Better" the same way you're out there for "Got to Get You Into My Life." They're about the same tempo f'chrissake.

The only ones not officially available on any of the reissues are Till Death/The Way Love Used To be/Groovy Movies/When I Turn..

When I Turn.. is included on the BBC sessions.

The wierd German bootleg that Alex mentions might be this :

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:j72zefykogf5

But I have this :

http://kinks.it.rit.edu/cgi-bin/MusicSearch.cgi?album=bootleg/album-glka-neue

which has the same title and 'label' but also has some v.early stuff on it. There are two studio recdings from 1963 when they were still The Ravens, and some publishers demos of stuff that was never recorded. All Night Stand was done by The Thoughts, and I think is one the Nuggets 2 box.

To answer the question I'd go for : VGPS>Something Else>Arthur>Face To Face, but there's nothing between the first three. I might place Kinda Kinks ahead of Face To Face.

Something Else >> Face to Face > Arthur >> VGPS

I played SE over and over again in high school and loved every track and moment on it, from that very first extra bit of studio talk at the beginning of "David Watts" ("This is the master, Shel(?). Nice and smooth(?)") to everbody's favorite closer, "Waterloo Sunset." (The CD no doubt has bonus tracks that dilute the effect of the ending) Face to Face and Arthur I liked fine, but they both had their longueurs here and there. VGPS I never got into at all, maybe because of that song about the cat (I prefer a similar song by Cornelius's wife, Takako Minekawa) maybe because it seemed to be a popular first stop for the latecomer Kinks fan drawn in during the arena rock Low Budget days.

this is exactly the way I'd rank those four; I think "Village Green" is, like, overrated, and I actually do not like "Arthur" at all except for "Victoria" and "Drivin'."

And I'd replace "Arthur" in that list with "Muswell Hillbillies," which I think is the fourth-best Kinks album. And I like "Kontroversy" a good bit too, probably more than I like "Village Green" (which to me is the "Pet Sounds" of the Kinks's ouvre, enough about it already!).

But I find them so...inconsistent, kind of insultingly sloppy--what the fuck is this? What are they doing? And I like them. But really, those four-five albums, a few B-sides, things I don't know where they came from like the great "Berkeley Mews," the early singles and a few album tracks offa "Kinda" and "Kontroversy." That's really about it, and the one about Lola. I pretty much abhor their RCA '70s material, maybe "The Hard Way" and "I'm in Disgrace" are OK. Pretty fucking spotty for such a supposedly great group. So I don't rank them with the Stones, Beatles, Beach Boys, or even Love or Moby Grape, the last two whose output was so much smaller but who really got it, I think. My affection for them has kind of diminished over the years.

Four best Beatles albums:

A Hard Day's Night
For Sale
The Beatles
With the Beatles.

But then I still listen to Preservation Act 2 semi-regularly. Not sure why.

Lola vs. Powerman ranks ahead of them all

(Prefer Kinks Kontroversy to the last two and maybe even to Something Else. Rocks harder. VGPS had very poor production; "Wicked Anabella" should have been crushing, but was merely "spooky." My favorite song on that alb is the cat one.)

(Thought the best songwriting on Beatles albs was on The Beatles Second Album and on Help! Combined the gritty and the gorgeous, much like Face To Face, come to think of it.)

*my favorite Kinks album, and sometimes, my favorite album by anyone, of all time
** Ditto above, but substitute 'favorite' for '2nd favorite', and please understand that if Arthur doesn't inhabit the no. 1 spot, as a rule, this l.p. does not take its place.

Just curious as to whether you could imagine those songs having been done for Revolver and whether you would like them more then.

So little love for Face to Face - can't stop playing it at the moment; all sorts of things - the sadness of Too Much on my Mind, the rage of House in the Country, the precise dissection of class and its injuries there and in Most Exclusive Residence, Sunny Afternoon, Waikiki, Rosy..... and that thing he does in Sessionman where he breaks diphtongs up 'mus-ish-ee- an' 'chord pro-gresh-ee- an' on which Liam Gallagher launched a career....

Face to Face is amazing. Rosie is prob my favourite Kinks song.

Oh, and 'Mr. David Davies' costumes by Gail of Blackburn' is superb

I prefer "Something Else". Then it's "Village Green" and "Face To Face". Ahead of "Arthur" which is still great. The two 1965 ones are also quite nice, while their 70s output is generally much weaker.

I think I like "Something Else" - if that's the one with Apeman on it.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ea/The_kinks_lola_versus_powerman_album.jpg

for me:

ftf-vgps-se-a

all terrific.

"Apeman" is on the one that represented the beginning of the end. By the time of "Lola Vs. Powerman & The Moneygoround", The Kinks were starting to develop a more "American" and "rock" oriented style, which didn't fit them much.

They signed to RCA, had one hit single immediately, then vanished, chartwise.

Did any othere act from the sixties, that had considerable chart success, disappear so completely while still making albums/singles as before?

I guess they were having big US success, but still...

and Ray's lyrics veered ever more towards the obviously prosaic (title track notwithstanding, natch).

xp

Despite calling myself a fan and regularly defending them in pub arguments about underrated bands of the 60s etc, it shames me to admit I only own
Village Green and a 2-CD best-of comp.

With the above facts in mind, I'm thinking of investing in this. Good call? Or should I cherry-pick a choice selection of albums?

Ten albums, forty quid...

I saw an ad on some other for this set, £25. So I went for it, even though it had a long lead time. Of course, closer to the release date, they said it was 'unobtainable'...

I've seen it around ont' web for £35 but ...

Not a good buy I reckon. You lose the bonus tracks from the re-releases, most of which are available for a fiver or less. Actually FOPP had them for £3 the other day.

Re : cherry-picking. Get the 4 'greats' then Kinda Kinks>Kontroversy>debut>Powerman (all great btw)

these four "greats", though - who decided this? ilm? damon albarn? uncut readers? or 35-odd years of precedent?

Well these 4 probably are the best, most people would say. I rarely agree with that sort of canonization, but in this case I think I do. What I *don't* agree with is any kind of talk that the first 2 albums are crap, which lots of people seem to think.

oh hey look i was otm 3 years ago. well, i might not go so far as to say Lola & Muswell are better than F2F, but imho they stand tall as any on this "great" list.

it does get real spotty after that...

college = hits from the bong and listening & playing along with Lola v PM & MGR

kontoversy killed it as well.

waht about Misfits?? I constantly see the vinyl for fairly cheap but haven't ventured there yet. i recognize nary a title on it, but still v curious

How have I managed to get this far in life without ever listening to VGPS?

Of the other 3 I'd go Arthur>Something Else>F2F

I think Kink Kontroversy's a bit underrated here. xpost!

Looking at all the Beatles talk above, it occurs to me how appallingly served by theire record company the Kinks were - when i was growing up, just after the fact (early 70s) the Beatles canon was already established; jolly pop up to 'for sale', getting 'important' by Rubber Soul, essential thereafter and Pepper was the best thing evah. Similarly with the Stones; everything from BB onwards was 'classic'. This was a time, remember, before Q and Uncut and when stuff got forgotten quickly - it was damn hard to find a copy of Trout Mask or Forever changes even 5 years later. Nevertheless, Beatles and Stones and the Who to a lesser extent, were already embedded in the history that was only beginning to be written.

In contrast, the only Kinks records you saw were those Marble Arch/ MFP comps, endless repackaging of the singles and random LP tracks. I don't recall ever seeing a copy of any of the big 4 (I agree with this as the golden run - Muswell Hillbillies and Lola are good, and the first three are cool too, but these are the ones you need to know) unitl much later. To my mind, they are, unarguably, the best British group of the 60s, and these 4 records epitomise the period, while being completely different- and in a different league - from most of what was around them - much the way Chuck Berry does in relation to 50s Rn'R

To my mind, they are, unarguably, the best British group of the 60s,

Agreed.

Also, yes Pye were a pretty clueless recd company - who else did they have in the mid-60s, The Searchers, Sandie Shaw, who else? Anyway a pretty parochial affair.
It didn't help that The Kinks couldn't tour the USA between 65-9 either, hence left out of the Brit-invasion frenzy and its knock-on effects in the home market.

Pye never really got to grips with the concept of "albums."

http://www.beefheart.com/datharp/albums/official/pics/yellowbrick_pyelabel67.jpg

I got this off E-bay, advertised as "totally trashed, OK for completeists" for £2, but you know what, it's nothing of the sort. Yeah, played a bit, obviously, but it's now in the kids record play box. They are good with stuff though.

Anyway, back to the kinks...

They signed to RCA, had one hit single immediately, then vanished, chartwise.

They managed a UK comeback with "Come Dancing" and "Don't Forget To Dance" in 1983. Typically, they were then sounding more English again, playing down the American "rock" sound of their 70s output.

The statement about them being the best British pop group of the 60s, surely they were great, really great in fact. But that position is occupied and will always remain occupied. And claiming otherwise is just pathetic revisionism or contrarianism for contrarianism's own sake.

And The Beatles' patchy solo output of the 70s and 80s is way better than anything The Kinks released in the 70s and 80s too.

I've got that pye box set.

Rationally Dr. C is right that the re-releases with bonus tracks is better value, but i love it as an artifact with international CD replicas of the albums.

I would still love a re-release of "Face To Face" and "Something Else" that includes the stereo versions.

(I have a Japanese stereo edition of "Something Else", but haven't managed to find "Face To Face" in stereo although I know stereo mixes exist of most of the tracks and were once released on vinyl"

Just re- reading what Marcus had to say about Davies in Mystery Train:
'He truly didn't like it here, wherever 'here' happened to be. For a long time, Davies was genuinely only at home in his fantasies of a simpler day, where class lines were clear, where everyone knew everyone else and everyone elses place; when presumably, there was a place even for Davies'

And goes onto talk about 'dull pleas for the preservation of Village Greens'

The first sentence is bang on - the rest completely wrong, I think. Ray Davies was not deceived about the past; and the hatred for the vacant upper class prick with his House in the Country and for the forces which take Rosy away from home is clear - nor is Sunny Afternoon compassionate in any real way. Ray hates that England - what sets him apart is his completely clear eyed understanding that the new one had every chance of being much worse; the same public school flotsam would run 'swinging' London, the same vacant heiresses would waft through the 'counter' culture. The moral force in Davies' songs comes from his understanding of the hydra- headed resilience of the enemy and his refusal to be deceived even by the forces that made his career possible. Marcus is right to see 'I'm Not Like Anybody Else' as key - but wrong to think he settles -ever - for a fogey-ish ressentiment. The nearest thing to reconciliation in his work is that of the observer, unable to be happy, but able to see the happiness of others as a (provisional) validation of the world - the 'I' in Waterloo Sunset or 'See My Friends'

Xpost. Come Dancing was tied for their highest Billboard chart position in the US (with Tired of Waiting for You).

Given how much I heard it growing up, I had thought that Destroyer was a bigger hit than it was. Apparently just got played a lot on the NY Classic Rock radio station that I listened to.

Anyway:

Arthur
Face To Face
Village Green
Something Else

Xpost. Come Dancing was tied for their highest Billboard chart position in the US (with Tired of Waiting for You).

I know. But that song was a rather sizeable hit in the UK too. Actually their first Top 20 hit since "Supersonic Rocket Ship" in 1972.

What a difference two years makes. Anyway, ranking of their 4 "great" albums is:

Preservation Act 1
Soap Opera
Schoolboys In Disgrace
Preservation Act 2

...but they're all fucking amazing.

The Kinks Pye Albums Box Set (10 CDs) : POLL had the result as:

The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (Pye 12 track version, 1968) 12
Something Else by The Kinks (Pye, 1967) 7
Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) (Pye, 1969) 4
Live at Kelvin Hall (Pye, 1968) 1

(nothing else got votes)