More Kinks: Live and Compiled

The Kinks: live albums and compilations

Before I move on to other things, just a couple other notes to wrap up this look at the Kinks albums and songs. Regarding their Live albums: They have released 5 Live albums over their history (6 if you include the BBC recording compilation album) from various periods, with those being

Live at Kelvin Hall (1967)
Everybody's in Showbiz, disc 2 (1972)
One For the Road (1980)
Live: The Road (1987)
To The Bone (1996)
BBC Sessions: 1964-1977 (2002)

The best of these, by far, is One For the Road, a great live recording of the Kinks during their resurgent rock period and covering songs from throughout their catalog. One of the better live rock albums out there. The Everybody's in Showbiz live set would be next as a great document of their middle period. The early Live at Kelvin Hall is fine, but since it is so early in their career just doesn't have enough of their greatest songs, and The Road really only features songs from their eighties albums and not even the best ones at that. To the Bone is an interesting addendum to their career, in that it was their last album released and contains some stripped-down, unplugged style versions of some classic songs, as well as a more full-blown concert recording. This album (at least the US, 2-disc version) also includes the last 2 original studio songs ever released by the Kinks, Animal and To The Bone, both quite good songs (especially To the Bone) that are rarely ever heard or known about. Of course, there are also many great unofficial live show recordings available right here on this blog, covering virtually all of their different eras.
 
Lastly, there are the numerous compilation albums from over the years. If you are new to The Kinks, and with a catalog this big, it is certainly tempting to start out with a greatest hits-type collection and go from there. Not surprisingly though, none of the available compilations can put together truly the best songs from this great band, and generally disappoint, but they can be a good starting point. Because of the several different record labels The Kinks recorded for over the years, these collections each tend to cover only the specific albums and years from that label. Thus, it can be very frustrating and confusing when there are several ‘Best of’ or ‘Greatest Hits’ collections that each have different songs, and may or may not have any of the ‘hits’ you were looking for. There are only a couple of collections that even attempts to cover the entire recording career of The Kinks, the first is the 2-CD, 44-track compilation titled The Ultimate Collection (TUC), released in 2002, and this is a great place for newcomers to The Kinks music to start. TUC does a great job of covering the early years of the Kinks, including virtually all of the most essential tracks from 1964 to about 1967 (covering the first 5 albums and singles from this period, with 27 of the 44 tracks taken from this period). The collection is somewhat less successful in compiling the next few years (1968-1972), with a total of only 11 tracks coming from those years (including singles) and only 6 from their next 4 albums (Which are some of their best albums, but only 1 song each from Village Green Preservation Society and Arthur, and 2 songs each from Lola and Muswell Hillbillies). But where the collection completely falls apart is in the supposed inclusion of the rest of the band’s career. Only 6 tracks are included from 1973-1984 (including none from the 6 albums between 1973-1978, a period which covers two of the band’s best albums, Sleepwalker and Misfits), one from Low Budget (1979), and the rest (5) from the early eighties albums (Give The People, State of Confusion, and Word of Mouth). Thus, this collection is fine for the early stuff, but additional sources are needed for everything else. Note: this compilation is missing a whopping 38 songs from my list of my top 60 favorite Kinks songs.  

The best collection from the RCA years (1972-1976) is The Kinks Greatest Hits: Celluloid Heroes. But be aware that this ONLY contains songs from the 6 albums from Muswell Hillbillies to Schoolboys in Disgrace, which is not most fans favorite period, but there are still many excellent songs here. For the Arista Years (1977-1984), the compilation Come Dancing with The Kinks: The Best of 1977-1986 is quite good, containing a variety of tracks from Sleepwalker through Word of Mouth (although once again, Sleepwalker and Misfits are badly under-represented.  Also, both of these collections are available together, and sold as The Kinks Greatest 1970-1986, which includes both the Celluloid Heroes and Come Dancing collections as well as a bonus DVD of the One For the Road Live Show, in one 2-CD, 1DVD package, which is a great value. 

Since then, in 2008, Sanctuary released a comprehensive full career Box Set, called Picture Book, a 6-CD box set that supposedly is the first compilation with songs chosen by the band themselves. Certainly an interesting compilation, But in addition to songs from all their albums and singles, this collection also includes numerous previously unreleased demos and outtakes, thus not all the content is from previous albums and singles, and it still leaves out so many great songs and includes some lesser versions and songs. 

Most recently, just this year (2023), in honor of the 60th Anniversary of the band, a new collection has been compiled and released by the band, apparently the first of multiple. Titled, The Journey, Part One, this new 2-CD, 36-song compilation features songs from 1964-1975 and is broken up into sections of songs with different themes, such as 'Songs about becoming a man, the search for adventure, finding an identity and a girl:' and 'Days and nights of a lost soul, songs of regret and reflection of happier times:' It contains most of their hits from this period as well as a few less well-known songs. Presumably this compilation will be succeeded by an additional installment, a Part 2 (not yet released) and possibly beyond, that will contain songs from later periods. 

For those wishing to put together their own Kinks collection (without buying all of the individual albums), I previously posted some ideas for how to do just that way back when I first posted about the Kinks 15 years ago. here's a link to that original post: https://bbchron.blogspot.com/2008/05/building-your-own-kinks-collection.html 

Whatever era is your favorite, or whatever way you want to listen to The Kinks, it's all good. Just enjoy the great music!