Come Dancing With the Kinks: The Best of the Kinks 1977-1986 [Original recording remastered]

The Kinks | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 24, 2000)
• Original Release Date: 1977
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Velvel Records
• ASIN: B00004YLBN
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #187,293 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Come Dancing

2. Low Budget

3. Catch Me Now I'm Falling

4. A Gallon of Gas

5. (Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman [Disco Edit]

6. Sleepwalker

7. Full Moon

8. Misfits

9. Rock & Roll Fantasy

10. Do It Again

11. Better Things

12. You Really Got Me [Live]

13. Good Day

14. Living on a Thin Line

15. Destroyer

16. Don't Forget to Dance

17. Father Christmas

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Overview of the Kinks' Arista Years, November 9, 2000

By 

Steve Vrana (Aurora, NE) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Come Dancing With the Kinks: The Best of the Kinks 1977-1986 (Audio CD)

This is actually the third incarnation of Come Dancing with the Kinks. When first released in 1986, it was a double-LP and contained 19 songs. Arista then released it as a single CD with only 16 songs--deleting "Sleepwalker," "Catch Me Now I'm Falling" and "Misits." Now Velvel comes along and re-releases the CD with 18 tracks. Velvel drops the live version of "Celluloid Heroes," which is understandable. After all, it was first recorded for RCA. But why did they also drop "Juke Box Music," "Long Distance" and "Heart of Gold" yet keep live versions of the Reprise hits "You Really Got Me" and "Lola"? If this is an Arista retrospective, let's stick with the studio recordings the Kinks recorded for Arista. [Also, "Long Distance" was something of a rarity in that it was originally available only on the cassette version of 1983's State of Confusion.]

What Velvel DOES do is restore "Catch Me Now I'm Falling," "Sleepwalker" and "Misfits" from the orignal vinyl release, then adds "A Gallon of Gas" from 1979's Low Budget and "Good Day" from 1984's Word of Mouth.

The Kinks' tenure at Arista (1977-1986) returned the band to the Top 40 for the first time since 1970, and "Come Dancing" matched their highest U.S. chart position, reaching No. 6 in 1983. ["Tired of Waiting for You" in 1965 was the only other Kinks' single to chart that high.] Their only other hits for Arista were "A Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy" (No. 30, 1978) and "Don't Forget to Dance" (No. 29, 1983).

The Kinks released seven albums for Arista, including 1980's live One for the Road--which oddly is NOT the source for the two live cuts included here. While the Kinks' best work was recorded for Reprise, the tracks on this disc prove beyond a doubt that Ray Davies and Co. were still viable artists. Songs like "Destroyer," "Juke Box Music" and "Do It Again" show that the band could still rock. "A Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy" and "Better Things" are two of Ray's loveliest songs. And "Father Christmas" is one of the rockingest Christmas songs ever. All told, this is an excellent overview of the Kinks' Arista years. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It's The Only Thing That Gets Him By, May 30, 2003

By 

David Bradley "David Bradley" (Sterling, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Come Dancing With the Kinks: The Best of the Kinks 1977-1986 (Audio CD)

I love Ray Davies.

I know Dave Davies has always been the critic's darling--all that talk about Dave being the godfather of punk guitar isn't so far off the mark--but Ray Davies has the best heart in Rock & Roll.

But all that matters not a nit to much of the American public, who always left the Kinks sitting in second place behind the troika of Stones, Beatles and Who--maybe even behind Led Zeppelin and the over-ranked Animals--when it comes to discussions of British Rock. That's a shame, because the Kinks songwriting is as good or better than all of the above sans Beatles; Ray Davies lyrics are, at times, Dickensian.

COME DANCING WITH THE KINKS mines the Kinks most successful commercial period (In the USA, at least) from '77 to '86. The band seemed to be more intent on conquering the USA than they had been in the mid/late 1960s, and their problems with American unions, which had given the Kinks a lot of trouble a decade earlier, seemed to ease. They became known as a touring band in the States, a reputation which crumbled after a very well publicized onstage battle between the Davies brothers right here in Washington DC.

Though there is one minor bow to the then-omnipresent Disco--"Wish I Could Fly Like Superman," COME DANCING WITH THE KINKS is mostly full of nostalgia for the old ballrooms, desperate pleas for the band to stay together, and Rays infatuation with psychological oddities. Included are some of my favorite Kinks tunes, including "Do It Again," "Destroyer," "Come Dancing," "Don't Forget to Dance," and my All Time Favorite Kinks Record, "Sleepwalker." There's never been a better melding of Rays lyrics, Daves guitar, a great Ray vocal, and hot Kinks backing vocals. "Father Christmas" is perfect, the exact Christmas tune you'd expect from Ray Davies, and is played to perfection. The live renditions of "Lola" and "You Really Got Me" don't match up to the studio versions, I think, but they were hits, so somebody liked them.

"Misfits" and "Rock & Roll Fantasy" are classic Davies. The first looks at a fading eccentric--it's easy enough to imagine the tune as autobiographical--and gives a McCartneyesque pat on the head, with a real Ray Davies twist: "You've been a misfit all your life; why don't you join the crowd and come on inside?" he says, even while pointing out that the world is filled with misfits: "They've given up living cause they just don't care. So take a good look around, the misfits are everywhere."

I completely missed the point of "Rock n Roll Fantasy" when it was released; now I consider it one of the Kinks very best. Ray sings of his brother wanting to quit the band, sings about desperate music fans who spend every night locked in their flats spinning records. On first listen I thought this was glorification of the fans, mythologizing loners worshipping wax. Now I hear the pleading in Ray's voice at the end of the song and understand that he wanted to keep the band going so he wouldn't become one of those solitary people: "You and me keep thinking our life has passed us by? I Don't want to live my life in a Rock n Roll fantasy," he sings--Ray Davies wants the Real Deal.

"Don't want to waste my life hiding away anymore--don't want to waste my life living in a Rock n Roll fantasy."

I love Ray Davies: Hero of the awkward, the lonely, the depressed, the introverted.

There is another Kinks Greatest Hits/Best Of package you should hunt down, which will fill the gaps between the British Invasion "You Really Got Me" phase of the Kinks and this album: KINKS KRONIKLES, a two-CD set, covers my favorite phase of this great band's career--the Arthur & Victoria phase.

But if you really want to 'get' the Kinks, hunt down all of their LPs released prior to '77: they were a lot more English during that phase, and their stuff really deserves to be heard in the fleshed out form of an LP, rather than on a Greatest Hits/Best Of package.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ignore the others- this is a Kinks' primer (well, one of 3), February 14, 2003

By 

Alex (Home) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Come Dancing With the Kinks: The Best of the Kinks 1977-1986 (Audio CD)

You know, I could cry and complain about my personal favorite album tracks that didn't make this, but I won't, as this CD is The Kinks' greatest hits-stuff that was played on the radio. I can't complain since that is the case. I enjoy all of these songs a great deal. Each track is almost like a different genre. I'm not gonna run through every single song (oh, 1000 word limit? never mind!) "Come Dancing," "Good Day," and "Better Things" showed listeners that yes, they could be listener friendly. "Don't Forget To Dance", "Misfits," "Full Moon," and "A Rock and Roll Fantasy" gave us proof that Ray, while aging somewhat, can still summon a lump in the throat. Then of course there's the rocking numbers (live and studio) that removed all doubt that The Kinks, while not exactly chart-toppers, weren't going to suck as they got older (as opposed to The Stones, Zappa, even The Who...) and would still be rocking into their forties (and beyond...) with little or no effort. All in all I'd say pick up first- sample their later stuff. If you already have the albums don't get it...unless you're a basketcase like me who HAD to have it. Anyway- Kinks novices, fear not! This is the Rosetta Stone of what I call their Radio Years! Rock on!