Customer Reviews

The Kink Kronikles

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Between the peaks of their major hits "Sunny Afternoon" (1966) and "Lola" (1970) the Kinks were recording great music, most of which went virtually unheard, particularly in the United States. In 1966 the band was barred from performing in the U.S., and this situation wasn't rectified until 1970. In addition, their sound became more distinctly British and less commercial, although "Dead End Street" and "Victoria" did get some airplay stateside.

This two-disc set contains these hits, album tracks from "Face to Face", "Something Else by the Kinks", "The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society", "Arthur," and the comeback "Lola vs. Powerman and the Money-go-round," along with a number of single-only tracks that until very recently were available nowhere else.

Of the "British Invasion" bands the Kinks are unique in that their sound is fundamentally English rather than American. The Beatles were inspired by Elvis, Little Richard and Chuck Berry; the Rolling Stones drew their sound (and their name) from Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. Ray Davies' songs, with their focus on "simple people" and "ordinary lives", their nostalgia for the village green and small-town England, are rooted in the traditions of English music-hall pop and British folk music.

Most of the songs here are not in the hard-rock tradition of the early Kinks ("You Really Got Me", "Tired of Waiting for You",) or the later Kinks ("Low Budget", "Rock and Roll Fantasy") but have a softer touch. The satirical trend evident in "A Well Respected Man" and "A Dedicated Follower of Fashion", which skewered contemporary English life, give way to longing for the village green and the old steam-powered trains. Ray Davies's brilliant, catchy melodies and superb lyrics are something unique in music.

This set is the best way to get acquainted with the Kinks. Once you get to know these songs you may want to buy all five albums, but you'll want the singles anyway.

I grabbed this double LP set up with much gusto from a record shop at Christmas time, 1972. I had been a fan of the Kinks since the first blast of: "You Really Got Me" was heard over a crappy transistor radio, on a beach in 1964. I needed more Kinks, as at this time the only record by the band that I had purchased was: "Arthur".

Well, this double LP: "The Kink Kronikles", was and still is one of the greatest records of music from the sixties. The music of Ray Davies (and brother Dave) in all it's glory is found here and in 1972 all that it cost me was $5.99 and I cannot think of a greater bargain than that. For me these two records stand as THE greatest hits of the sixties and early seventies.

The songs of Ray Davies are British anthems: "Dead End Street" "This Is Where I Belong" "Waterloo Station" "Victoria" and "Days". A previously unissued track is here as well: "Did You See His Name?". I played these two records until they melted. This kollection opened a huge door of music into my world, and I was buying a lot of Kinks records after hearing the wonderful music found here.

This is the DEFINATE look into a period {1966-1971} of some of the greatest music to have come forth from England during those years. The Kinks have never gotten their due. Without these fantastic songs the 1960's still would have gone on...BUT, There would have been a real huge hole right in the middle of that decade, that where this timeless music, would have been.

If you wanna find out, what all the fuss was about and just why this type of rock music gets folks my age up and outta their easy chairs and rings all the right bells and whistles more than forty years on. This disc will set it all into place. This is the sixties, some of the greatest music that you will ever listen to is on this CD and that (as they say) is a fact!
FIVE STARS !!!

I may not be qualified to judge the quality of this compilation, as I do not own any Kinks albums besides this one. But as a newcomer to the Kinks discography, I sure found this an enjoyable listen that ages well in my collection, even if the sound quality is a little thin (for lack of a better word). This album reminds me of the satisfying experience of getting into Big Star's first two albums.

I especially enjoy Side One. Being a working stiff, "Get Back Into Line," literally brought tears to my eyes - you'll see what I mean. Also, tunes like the whimsical "Waterloo Sunset," the exuberant "This is Where I Belong" and many others deserved to be radio standards but apparently never were: I never heard many of these great songs before buying this disc. I was lucky to have found this as an inexpensive discount bin cassette. Though I imagine it would be better to buy all the individual albums, I'd pay ten times the Amazon price based on how much cathartic listening pleasure this album actually delivered to me.

The Kink Kronikles is one of those albums included on my 'if I ever was trapped on a desert island' list(providing I happened to have a cd player and plenty of batteries!!) I think if I had a choice it would be my favorite album- at least as a compilation- of course in 1972 when it came out, most of the songs were unknown to most Americans, and there are b-sides, a-sides that never made it on an album, etc. There is a theme to this wonderful collection, and that tends to make it a coherent, solid hand-picked-from-the-vault collection, not just a run of the mill 'greatest hits' number. Furthermore, it doesn't include 'You really got me' or 'All day and all of the night' or 'Tired of waiting', or 'Well respected man' etc, etc!!what band in their right mind would not include the most commercially successful American releases? Why the Kinks of course! Anyhow, this album contains a full cast of Ray Davies' characters- Lola, Apeman, Polly, Wonderboy, King Kong, Mr. Pleasant, David Watts, and some of Dave Davies' characters as well- Susannah, Death of a clown, Mindless child of motherhood. The theme of side A tends to be more situational, the things Ray wants, needs, desires, or is just plain stuck in the middle of (whether it's really him or a person he becomes for the role!) Side B is more about other people- that he knows(Lola) or is just weaving a story about. I guess you could say that this album is a very personal album- and rivals any other bands' compilation albums (Beatles and T.rex are the only competition in my view) These guys had something in the order of 17 top ten hits in Britain from 1964-1971. The greatest modern songwriter in a band- Ray Davies!! bar none!!Great lyrics, great music! every song- and more prolific in this period than almost Lennon and McCartney put together!(John and Paul wrote about 200 or so songs together from 1963-1970(1969 technically), and Ray wrote about 200 songs from 1964-1970 alone. This album is the first a new fan should listen to. It changed this Beatlemaniac (and beatle lovers are the hardest to convert to anything else, because if you like the best, there is no other!) This album is the best!!! buy it.

This collection of overlooked Kinks songs from the late 60's and early 70's leaves me wondering why Ray Davies and co. were such an overlooked part of the British Invasion. Although "Lola" is the only song most people will recognize, the quality of the other tracks is comparable, if not superior. The songwriting is sometimes silly, on occassion deadly serious, and always delivered with the wry sense of humor that has always defined this group. Overall this is a first rate distillation of several classic albums and homeless singles.

Aside from "Lola", great songs include "Victoria", "Village Green Preservation Society", "Get Back in Line", "She's Got Everything", "Polly", "Fancy", and "Apeman". I do agree with other reviewers that the inclusion of "Celluloid Heroes" would have really hit the spot, but I suppose you can't have everything. Also, the lyrics can be a tad inexplicable for audiences outside the UK as they contain a great deal of slang and British expressions that mean nothing this side of the Atlantic. Still, missing a quip here and there does nothing to diminish my enjoyment of this music.

Again, as others have noted, the lack of a 5th star is due entirely to the sound quality of the recording, not at all to the quality of the music itself. It's rare in 2003 to see such a classic collection in such dire need of remastering, but remastering is essential in order to do full justice to this set of recordings. Until then though, this 2 disc set is a great way to enjoy an often unnoticed and misunderstood group of gifted musicians.

Most people are probably most familiar with The Kinks circa either 1965 ("You Really Got Me," "All Day and All of the Night") or 1983 ("Come Dancing," "Don't Forget to Dance"). In between those two periods of peak popularity, however, The Kinks put out a ton of great eclectic music. The one well known song from this period, the surprise 1970 hit "Lola" is about a transvestite and is not at all out of character for the period. "The Kink Kronikles" is two discs loaded with songs of similar quality, many with the same witty humor and storytelling as "Lola." For instance, there are "Victoria" (a nostalga trip to England's Victorian period), "Apeman" (revealing a desire to return to the jungle), "Waterloo Sunset" (Napoleon in Paradise) and "Village Green Preservation Society" (another in the band's ode to show business). The one missing track from the period is "Celluloid Heroes," inclusion of which would have upped the rating by an additional star.

Kinks leader Ray Davies was sort of a British Bruce Springsteen without the bombast. This is one of the finest collections of his stories.

More than any of their British Invasion contemporaries, the Kinks' music of 1966-1971 simply holds up better today; other than the somewhat...cheap "sound" (thanks,Pye Records, for your penny-pinching!)of some of the 66-67 tracks (Holiday in Waikiki, This is Where I Belong), the SONGS...the ARRANGEMENTS....get better with age.

There is nothing in the Kink catalogue from this period that embarasses..(unlike some unbearably tedious and overbloated Beatle tracks from the same period)or makes you wince ("Lady Jane" by the Stones, several tracks on The Who's "A Quick One" and "Magic Bus"). I hate to credit People magazine with anything, but they DID call the Kinks' music "timeless" when they gave a glowing review to "Misfits" in 1978.

"Timeless" is an apt description for "Kronikles"; "superb" is another.

Unlike the Beatles, who had two songwriters (add George Harrison, who wrote nearly 2 albums worth of material while a Beatle), the Kinks' songs were written by one man (with the exception of 5 album tracks written by brother Dave between '66 and '71), and Ray Davies handled the task masterfully.

It amazes me that B-sides like "Berkeley Mews", "This is Where I Belong", "King Kong", "Polly", "Big Black Smoke", "She's Got Everything" are of such high quality. They are all included, along with some Dave Davies' single contributions like "Susannah's Still Alive" and "Mindless Child of Motherhood" (Dave displays his remarkable, emotional vocal ability).

The top tunes are the evergreen "Victoria", "Waterloo Sunset", "Shangri-La", "Autumn Almanac", "Fancy", "Wonderboy", "Death of a Clown", and my choice for the most overlooked and sublime track on this wonderful collection, "God's Children".

Then there's "Side 4", in the parlance of us old vinyl listeners.
For my money, there isn't a finer series of 7 consecutive songs anywhere on any compilation OR studio album. Ever. Topped off by the one-two punch (originally released as B-side and A-side respectively, of the same single yet!)of "She's Got Everything" and "Days", this is simply as good as it gets.

When I picked up this collection in 1971, I had two Kinks albums - Greatest Hits and Face to Face. I'd only had Face to Face a very short time - I picked it up in a bargain bin at Woolworths for 99 cents (TRULY a bargain). I was amazed at the quality of that album, so I bought Kronikles with high expections. I was, again, totally amazed at the quality of the songwriting. It was a great introduction to what is unquestionably the Kinks' (Ray Davies') apex ('66-'70). Though he would still write the occasional really great song and the band would become more "polished," never again would Ray Davies write such consistantly brilliant songs. I vehemently disagree with the reviewer below that claims that the Kinks never turned out a really good album. During this period, they turned out one classic after another: Face to Face (66), Something Else (67), Village Green Preservation Society (68), Arthur (69) and Lola (70). Any self-respecting Kink fan knows just how brilliant each of these albums are, and how Davies' production and the bands arrangements improved during this productive period.

This is the period 'Kronikles' kovers, and tosses in some great B-sides and rarities. No doubt, the sound quality is subpar, and that is unfortunate, but the song selection (for the most part) and terrific essay by John Mendelsohn are nearly perfect. I disagree that Mendelsohn's essay should be updated; it is the perfect compliment to the package. However, if Mendelsohn wished to append the essay on a future expanded edition with beautifully remastered sound, who would I be to argue?

p.s. For the true Kink Kompletist, the original Kinks albums for Pye have been rereleased in Europe with remastered sound and a generous supply of bonus tracks. Buying the albums I mentioned above would give almost all the songs on this collection, with improved sound, great liner notes and a parcel of great album tracks not included here, for really not all that much more money. They are all 5 star albums.

this set covers the period that is by general consensus the kinks most creative period although not their most commercially successful. beginning to end this two cd set goes from strength to strength. highlighing most of the standout tracks from the kinks mid to late sixties albums and singles. several of these songs were hits in britain while obscure here in the states. several reviewers have criticized the sound quality of this set, and they make a valid point as the sound is decidedly murky. the songs are so great and the selections so well representing the peak of the kinks work, that i can forgive the technical shortcomings of this package and still give it 5 stars. so start with this set then move on to arthur, village green preservation society, something else, and lola and you are on your way to joining the kinks preservation society.

You will never know how awesome the late 1960's era Kinks were until you listen to the treasure trove of material on this cd. What a great band, capable of so many styles! Ray Davies is such a great song writer, Dave Davies always played the perfect chord/riff. It is silly to single out songs b/c this is essentially a greatest hit/should have been hit package. I love Shangra La, everything off of Lola/Moneygoround, waterloo sunset and the punkish "she's got everything"

If your a casual Kinks fan, this is the one to get. If you want to get an introduction, this is also perfect.

They were a different band in the late 70's and 80's.