The Kinks - The Remasters Collection (15x SACD 1971-1986) [2004-2007] PS3 ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Although they weren't as boldly innovative as the Beatles or as popular as the Rolling Stones or the Who, the Kinks were one of the most influential bands of the British Invasion. Like most bands of their era, the Kinks began as an R&B/blues outfit. Within four years, the band had become the most staunchly English of all their contemporaries, drawing heavily from British music hall and traditional pop, as well as incorporating elements of country, folk, and blues.

By delivering a skewed, distinctly British, cabaret take on Americana, all pinned down by Ray Davies' loose autobiography and intense yearning to be anywhere else but here – or, as he says on the opening track, "I'm a 20th century man, but I don't want to be here." Unlike its predecessors, Muswell Hillbillies doesn't overtly seem like a concept album – there are no stories as there are on Lola – but each song undoubtedly shares a similar theme, namely the lives of the working class. Cleverly, the music is a blend of American and British roots music, veering from rowdy blues to boozy vaudeville. There's as much good humor in the performances as there are in Davies' songs, which are among his savviest and funniest. They're also quite affectionate, a fact underpinned by the heartbreaking "Oklahoma U.S.A.," one of the starkest numbers Davies ever penned, seeming all the sadder surrounded by the careening country-rock and music hall. That's the key to Muswell Hillbillies – it mirrors the messy flow of life itself, rolling from love letters and laments to jokes and family reunions. Throughout it all, Davies' songwriting is at a peak, as are the Kinks themselves. There are a lot of subtle shifts in mood and genre on the album, and the band pulls it off effortlessly and joyously – but it's hard not to hear Dave Davies' backing vocals and have it not sound joyous. Regardless of its commercial fate, Muswell Hillbillies stands as one of the Kinks' best albums.

Tracklist:

01. 20th Century Man
02. Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues
03. Holiday
04. Skin & Bone
05. Alcohol
06. Complicated Life
07. Here Come the People in Grey
08. Have a Cuppa Tea
09. Holloway Jail
10. Oklahoma U.S.A.
11. Uncle Son
12. Muswell Hillbilly
13. Mountain Woman
14. Kentucky Moon

Uncompressed SACD ISO size > 2,07 GB

Everybody's in Show-Biz is a double album with one record devoted to stories from the road and another devoted to songs from the road. It could be labeled "the drunkest album ever made," without a trace of hyperbole, since this is a charmingly loose, rowdy, silly record. It comes through strongest on the live record, of course, as it's filled with Ray Davies' notoriously campy vaudevellian routine (dig the impromptu "Banana Boat Song" that leads into "Skin & Bone," or the rollicking "Baby Face"). Still, the live record is just a bonus, no matter how fun it is, since the travelogue of the first record is where the heart of Everybody's in Show-Biz lies. Davies views the road as monotony – an endless stream of identical hotels, drunken sleep, anonymous towns, and really, really bad meals (at least three songs are about food, or have food metaphors). There's no sex on the album, at all, not even on Dave Davies' contribution, "You Don't Know My Name." Some of this is quite funny – not just Ray's trademark wit, but musical jokes like the woozy beginning of "Unreal Reality" or the unbearably tongue-in-cheek "Look a Little on the Sunnyside" – but there's a real sense of melancholy running throughout the record, most notably on the album's one unqualified masterpiece, "Celluloid Heroes." By the time it gets there, anyone that's not a hardcore fan may have turned it off. Why? Because this album is where Ray begins indulging his eccentricities, a move that only solidified the Kinks' status as a cult act. There are enough quirks to alienate even fans of their late-'60s masterpieces, but those very things make Everybody's in Show-Biz an easy album for those cultists to hold dear to their hearts.

Tracklist:

01. Here Comes Yet Another Day
02. Maximum Consumption
03. Unreal Reality
04. Hot Potatoes
05. Sitting In My Hotel
06. Motorway
07. You Don't Know My Name
08. Supersonic Rocket Ship
09. Loko A Little On The Sunnyside
10. Celluloid Heroes
11. Top Of The Pops
12. Brainwashed
13. Mr. Wonderful
14. Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues
15. Holiday
16. Muswell Hillbilly
17. Alcohol
18. Banana Boat Song (Trad.)
19. Skin & Bone
20. Baby Face
21. Lola
22. Till The End Of The Day
23. She's Bought A Hat Like Princess Marina

Uncompressed SACD ISO size > 1,27 GB

Preservation is Ray Davies' most ambitious project – a musical that used the quaint, small-town nostalgia of Village Green as a template to draw the entirety of society and how it works. Or, at least that's what the concept seems to be, since the storyline was so convoluted, it necessitated three separate LPs, spread over two albums, and it still didn't really make sense because the first album, Preservation, Act 1, acted more like an introduction to the characters, and all the story was condensed into the second album. Davies intended all of Preservation to stand as one double-album set, but he scrapped the first sessions for the album, which led to record company pressure to deliver an album before the end of 1973 – hence, the appearance of Preservation, Act 1 in mid-November. Stripped of much of the narrative, Preservation winds up playing like an explicitly theatrical Village Green, this time with specific characters – a bit like a novella instead of short stories. There are moments where everything clicks on Preservation and they're the ones that are closest to typical Davies – the stately "Daylight," the endearingly lazy "Sitting in the Midday Sun," the fairly rocking "Here Comes Flash," "Where Are They Now?," and the absolutely gorgeous "Sweet Lady Genevieve," a real candidate for Davies' forgotten masterpiece. Then, there's the rest of the record: unfocused attempts at story, showtunes, and characterizations, some of which are interesting, but the whole of it is rather tedious. Preservation, Act 1 winds up as listenable due to the strength of those five songs, which form the core not only of this record, but the musical drama as a whole. The rest plays as artistic hubris, which is exactly what swallows Preservation, Act 2 alive.

Tracklist:

01. Preservation (single)
02. Morning Song
03. Daylight
04. Sweet Lady Genevieve
05. There's a Change in the Weather
06. Where Are They Now?
07. One of the Survivors
08. Cricket
09. Money & Corruption / I Am Your Man
10. Here Comes Flash
11. Sitting in the Midday Sun
12. Demolition
13. One of the Survivors (single edit)

Uncompressed SACD ISO size > 1,88 GB

Ray Davies released the "song" songs from Preservation – the character sketches, the wry observations, the lovely ballads – on the first record (or "Act") of the musical drama, leaving the narrative for Preservation, Act 2, a double album released six months after its companion. Simply put, the record is a mess, an impenetrable jumble of story, theater, instrumentals, "announcements," unfinished ideas, guest singers, and, on occasion, a song or two. There may have been a workable theatrical production hidden somewhere in Preservation, but it was utterly lost on record (reportedly it was better live), due in no small part to how it was unevenly divided, a practice that revealed Davies' lack of realized songs for the project, plus his unfinished story. It was later revealed that Ray was at the end of his rope during the making of Preservation – he would have a breakdown during its supporting tour – so, perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that the album doesn't work on its own. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that he was in such a fog, that he didn't realize that "Slum Kids," a staple in the Preservation shows and a concert favorite throughout the '70s, was the best rocker he penned for the project and left it off both records. Thankfully, it was added as a bonus track to VelVel's 1999 reissue of the album, improving the quality of the album considerably. The single version of "Mirror of Love" was added as a second bonus track to this edition, as well.

Tracklist:

01. Announcement
02. Introduction to Solution
03. When a Solution Comes
04. Money Talks
05. Announcement
06. Shepherds of the Nation
07. Scum of the Earth
08. Second-Hand Car Spiv
09. He's Evil
10. Mirror of Love
11. Announcement
12. Nobody Gives
13. Oh Where Oh Where is Love?
14. Flash's Dream (The Final Elbow)
15. Flash's Confession
16. Nothing Lasts Forever
17. Announcement
18. Artificial Man
19. Scrapheap City
20. Announcement
21. Salvation Road
22. Mirror of Love
23. Slum Kids (Take 1)

Uncompressed SACD ISO size > 3,08 GB

If there ever were a testament to Ray Davies' stubbornness and ornery perversity, it's Soap Opera. Released after the draining, two-part, hopelessly muddled rock opera Preservation, Soap Opera is the grandest concept album the Kinks ever made. Davies' tackled a topic that seemed manageable compared to Preservation – how "Ordinary People" escape the doldrums with dreams of stardoms – but conceived the production as a bit of a radio play, with prominent guest vocalists and narration. Improbably, it feels larger, campier, more excessive than Preservation, even if it's considerably more focused and consistent. The main problem is, its presentation is so damn silly that it's hard to hear individual songs. Nothing here works as well as the best of Preservation, Act 1, but it holds together better as a record. Even so, Soap Opera winds up rather unsettling. Not only is it hard to get the gist of Davies' narrative, but there's not enough, musically or lyrically, to make it compelling. Then, there's the nagging feeling that this isn't really a Kinks album, but rather a Ray Davies solo project in disguise; the songs are certainly Ray's, but there's little that sounds like the Kinks, largely due to that ludicrous production. This isn't just an outsider's suspicion, either – Dave Davies and Mick Avory both mention this unease in Peter Doggett's liner notes to the 1999 reissue of the album, but the true indication of the extent of Davies' Soap Opera indulgence is that he never was allowed to go this far over the top again.

Tracklist:

01. Everybody's a Star (Starmaker)
02. Ordinary People
03. Rush Hour Blues
04. Nine to Five
05. When Work is Over
06. Have Another Drink
07. Underneath the Neon Sign
08. Holiday Romance
09. You Make It All Worthwhile
10. Ducks on the Wall
11. (A) Face in the Crowd
12. You Can't Stop the Music
13. Everybody's a Star (Starmaker) (mono mix)
14. Ordinary People (live)
15. You Make It All Worthwhile (live)
16. Underneath the Neon Sign (live)

Uncompressed SACD ISO size > 2,12 GB

Ray Davies had indulged himself one time too often with Soap Opera, and his bandmates, namely brother Dave and founding member Mick Avory, revolted, insisting that their sixth RCA album sound more like a Kinks album (certainly, that's something RCA wanted too). So, Davies designed their next album as a return to a simpler, band-oriented sound. Of course, he didn't jettison his love for conceptual works, so Schoolboys in Disgrace was born. Working under the presumption that a return to simple rock demanded a simple theme, Davies constructed the album as a nostalgic trip through childhood, reviving '50s rock & roll (including the occasional doo wop harmony) for the album's foundation, then turning the amps up high. There's no actual story per se – it's a series of vignettes, like a coming-of-age film. As such, it's intermittently successful, on both the hard rock ("Jack the Idiot Dunce") and ballads ("The First Time We Fall in Love"), but it's way too campy for anyone outside of the dedicated. And that campiness is all the stranger when married to thundering arena rock; at least with Preservation, the vaudeville made sense in context, but here, the Kinks are pulling in two separate ways, and Schoolboys winds up as one of their least satisfying albums as a result.

Tracklist:

01. Schooldays
02. Jack the Idiot Dunce
03. Education
04. The First Time We Fall in Love
05. I'm in Disgrace
06. Headmaster
07. The Hard Way
08. The Last Assembly
09. No More Looking Back
10. Finale

Uncompressed SACD ISO size > 1,46 GB

Released in 1976, just as the Kinks ended their notoriously uneven tenure at RCA, The Kinks' Greatest: Celluloid Heroes is a summary of their time at the label. Since they didn't have many genuine hits while at RCA, this winds up being a haphazard sampling of concept albums. Occasionally, an album is accurately represented. For instance, the selections from Muswell Hillbilles are perfect, but considering that nearly half this compilation leans on that terrific record, they would have to be. Apart from that album, the selection is decidedly hit and miss. It isn't that singles are missing – their lone British hit from this time, "Supersonic Rocket Ship," is nowhere to be found – or that albums are overlooked (no Schoolboys in Disgrace), it's that highlights like "Here Comes Yet Another Day" and "Sweet Lady Genevieve" are left on their original albums.

Tracklist:

01. 20th Century Man
02. Complicated Life
03. Muswell Hillbilly
04. Alcohol (Live at Carnegie Hall, NY)
05. Celluloid Heroes
06. Here Comes Yet Another Day
07. Sweet Lady Genevieve
08. One Of The Survivors
09. Sitting In The Midday Sun
10. He's Evil
11. Mirror Of Love
12. Artificial Man
13. Everybody's A Star (Starmaker)
14. (A) Face In The Crowd
15. You Can’t Stop The Music
16. I'm In Disgrace
17. The Hard Way
18. No More Looking Back

Uncompressed SACD ISO size > 3 GB

Arista had made it clear they would not accept any concept albums from the Kinks, and Sleepwalker, their first effort for the label, makes good on the band's promise. Comprised entirely of glossy arena rockers and power ballads, the album is more of a stylistic exercise than a collection of first-rate songs. Ray Davies contributed a handful of fairly strong songs, highlighted by the exceptional "Juke Box Music," which sees him in a shockingly resigned frame of mind, claiming that rock & roll is just rock & roll, and nothing more. Unfortunately, he chose to illustrate that fact by loading the rest of Sleepwalker with competent but undistinguished mainstream rock. While that might have made the album a hit at the time, its processed sound and weak songs sound dated today, especially compared to the lively arena rock the Kinks later released.

Tracklist:

01. Life on the Road
02. Mr. Big Man
03. Sleepwalker
04. Brother
05. Juke Box Music
06. Sleepless Night
07. Stormy Sky
08. Full Moon
09. Life Goes On
10. Artificial Light
11. Prince of the Punks
12. The Poseur
13. On the Outside (1977 mix)
14. On the Outside (1994 mix)

Uncompressed SACD ISO size > 2,41 GB

The Kinks became arena rockers with Sleepwalker, and its follow-up, Misfits, follows in the same vein, but it's a considerable improvement on its predecessor. Ray Davies has learned how to write within the confines of the arena rock formula, and Misfits is one of rock & roll's great mid-life crisis albums, finding Davies considering whether he should even go on performing. "Misfits," a classic outsider rallying cry, and "Rock and Roll Fantasy" provide the two touchstones for the album – Davies admits that he and the Kinks will never be embraced by the rock & roll mainstream, but after Elvis' death, he's not even sure if rock & roll is something for mature adults to do. Over the course of Misfits, he finds answers to the question, both in his lyrics and through the band's muscular music. Eventually, he discovers that it is worth his time, but the search itself is superbly affecting – even songs like the musichall shuffle "Hay Fever," which appear as filler at first, have an idiosyncratic quirk that make them cut deeper. Although Ray would return to camp on their next album, Misfits is a moving record that manages to convey deep emotions while rocking hard. The Kinks hadn't made a record this good since Muswell Hillbillies.

Tracklist:

01. Misfits
02. Hay Fever
03. Black Messiah
04. A Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy
05. In a Foreign Land
06. Permanent Waves
07. Live Life (UK Album version)
08. Out of the Wardrobe
09. Trust Your Heart
10. Get Up
11. Black Messiah (Single remix)
12. Father Christmas
13. A Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy (US single edit)
14. Live Life (US single mix)

Uncompressed SACD ISO size > 2,23 GB

Low Budget doesn't have a narrative like Preservation or Soap Opera, but Ray Davies cleverly designed the album as a sly satire of the recession and oil crisis that gripped America in the late '70s – thereby satisfying his need to be a wry social commentator while giving American audiences a hook to identify with. It was a clever move that worked; not only did Low Budget become their highest-charting American album (not counting the 1966 Greatest Hits compilation), but it was also a fine set of arena rock, one of the better mainstream hard rock albums of its time. And it certainly was of its time – so much so that many of the concerns and production techniques have dated quite a bit in the decades since its initial release. Nevertheless, that gives the album a certain charm, since it now plays like a time capsule, a snapshot of what hard rock sounded like at the close of the '70s. Perhaps not so coincidentally, Davies' songwriting fluctuates throughout the album, since it's dictated as much by commercial as artistic concerns, but the moments when he manages to balance the two impulses – as on the disco-fueled "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman," the vaudevillian "Low Budget," "A Gallon of Gas," the roaring "Attitude" (possibly their best hard rocker of the era, by the way), and "Catch Me Now I'm Falling," where Davies takes on the persona of America itself – are irresistible. Low Budget may not have the depth of, say, Arthur or Village Green, but it's a terrifically entertaining testament to their skills as a professional rock band and Davies' savvy as a commercial songwriter.

Tracklist:

01. Attitude
02. Catch Me Now I'm Falling
03. Pressure
04. National Health
05. (Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman
06. Low Budget
07. In A Space
08. Little Bit Of Emotion
09. A Gallon Of Gas
10. Misery
11. Moving Pictures
12. A Gallon Of Gas (US Single Extended Edit)
13. Catch Me Now I'm Falling (Original Extended Edit)
14. (Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman (Disco Mix Extended Edit)

Uncompressed SACD ISO size > 1,06 GB

The Kinks' scattershot U.S. career never fully flourished like that of their British Invasion peers. The most quintessentially British of British bands – especially in the increasingly nostalgic songs of vocalist/rhythm guitarist Ray Davies – the Kinks enjoyed a spike in popularity in America in the late '70s and early '80s. The gold-selling 1980 double-live album One for the Road is a fascinating document of trailblazing elder statesmen who paved the way for heavy metal and punk, but never felt a glorious pop song was out of their grasp. It also proves that Dave Davies is a criminally underrated lead guitarist. Brothers Dave and Ray Davies, bass guitarist Jim Rodford, drummer Mick Avory, and guest keyboardists Ian Gibbons and Nick Newell recorded One for the Road at several concerts in 1979 and 1980. "Lola" is the best-known track from this album, and this live reading was a minor hit single; Ray Davies' teasing intro shows his playful side. "The Hard Way," "Low Budget," a raw, stripped-down "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman," "Celluloid Heroes," and "You Really Got Me" are the other standouts.

Tracklist:

01. Opening
02. The Hard Way
03. Catch Me Now I'm Falling
04. Where Have All The Good Times Gone
05. Introduction to Lola
06. Lola
07. Pressure
08. All Day and All of the Night
09. 20th Century Man
10. Misfits
11. Prince of the Punks
12. Stop Your Sobbing
13. Low Budget
14. Attitude
15. (Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman
16. National Health
17. Till the End of the Day
18. Celluloid Heroes
19. You Really Got Me
20. Victoria
21. David Watts

Uncompressed SACD ISO size > 3,11 GB

Riding high on the success of Low Budget, the Kinks turned out another collection of hard-driving, arena-ready rock & roll with Give the People What They Want – in short, they delivered exactly what the title suggests. Throughout the record, the band kicks up a storm, rocking out with a surprising amount of precision, and although Ray Davies' writing isn't as strong as it was on the group's two previous albums, he has contributed a set of professional hard rock that is distinguished by solid hooks and a clever sense of humor. After all, there's a certain charm in hearing him rework "All Day and All of the Night" into the paranoid "Destroyer," or his pure cynicism on the title track. But the minor masterpiece of the album is "Better Things," a sweet piece of charming sentimentalism that is the only time Davies lets his guard down during the entire album.

Tracklist:

01. Around the Dial
02. Give The People What They Want
03. Killer's Eyes
04. Predictable
05. Add It Up
06. Destroyer
07. Yo-Yo
08. Back to Front
09. Art Lover
10. A Little Bit of Abuse
11. Better Things

Uncompressed SACD ISO size > 1,65 GB

The Kinks' State of Confusion had its share of glossy hard rock in the vein of "Low Budget" and "Destroyer," but the record came to life on the quieter numbers, whether it's the elegiac "Don't Forget to Dance," the wistful pop of "Long Distance," or the buoyant nostalgia of "Come Dancing," which became the group's biggest hit since "Tired of Waiting for You."

Tracklist:

01. State of Confusion
02. Definite Maybe
03. Labour of Love
04. Come Dancing
05. Property
06. Don't Forget to Dance
07. Young Conservatives
08. Heart of Gold
09. Cliches of the World (B Movie)
10. Bernadette
11. Don't Forget to Dance (original extended edit)
12. Once a Thief
13. Long Distance
14. Noise

Uncompressed SACD ISO size > 2,43 GB

State of Confusion gave the Kinks their biggest single in nearly 20 years, but they didn't try to replicate the music hall-tinged pop of "Come Dancing" on its follow-up, Word of Mouth, preferring to concentrate on straight-ahead hard rock. Most of the material was well crafted, but only a few songs were distinctive, particularly the circular, synth-spiked minor hit "Do It Again."

Tracklist:

01. Do It Again
02. Word Of Mouth
03. Good Day
04. Living On A Thin Line
05. Sold Me Out
06. Massive Reductions
07. Guilty
08. Too Hot
09. Missing Persons
10. Summer's Gone
11. Going Solo
12. Good Day (Extended Edit)
13. Summer's Gone (Extended Edit)

Uncompressed SACD ISO size > 2,13 GB

Originally released as a double-album set in 1986, just after the Kinks had their last run at chart success, Come Dancing With the Kinks (The Best of the Kinks 1977-1986) does an excellent job of summarizing their stadium rock and AOR radio favorites on Arista. It leaves no single or radio favorite behind, while adding such terrific obscurities as "Long Distance" (originally only released as a bonus track on the State of Confusion cassette; the early '80s were a completely different world than the late '80s), the non-LP single "Father Christmas," the wonderfully sentimental album track "Better Things" (a close, upbeat cousin to Dylan's "Forever Young"), and the charming "Heart of Gold." In addition to these, there are live takes of "You Really Got Me" and "Lola" taken from the fine One From the Road album. It winds up being a representative selection of the Kinks' time as stadium warriors. They may have released some good albums during this period – and Misfits and Low Budget are close to great – but listeners looking for the bare essentials from this period will not be disappointed with this first-rate collection.

Tracklist:

01. Come Dancing
02. Low Budget
03. Catch Me Now I'm Falling
04. A Gallon of Gas
05. Wish I Could Fly Like Superman
06. Sleepwalker
07. Full Moon
08. Misfits
09. A Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy
10. Do It Again
11. Better Things
12. Lola (live)
13. You Really Got Me (live)
14. Good Day
15. Living on a Thin Line
16. Destroyer
17. Don't Forget to Dance
18. Father Christmas

Uncompressed SACD ISO size > 3,12 GB


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