Customer Reviews

Ultimate Collection

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They Really Got Me with this collection. Just to get the stereo "Coca-Cola" Lola was alone worth the price of admission. All the hits are here and more "essential" Kinks items. Well worth it. Everybodys gonna be happy all the day and all of the night with this 2 CD set.

I have been looking for a good collection of Kinks and this is it! Has all the hits and the good bits that I was not aware of. Highly Recommend.

Pete Townshend said he never understood why the Big 3 bands of British rock were always listed as the Beatles, Stones, and Who. He said he always thought they were the Beatles, Stones, and Kinks. He admitted that the early Who used to blatantly rip off the early Kinks. And it's common knowledge that the opening riff of 1964's "You Really Got Me" created the template for heavy metal, which emerged about 4 - 6 years later with Blue Cheer (1968), Led Zeppelin (1969), and Black Sabbath (1970). Anyway, after ripping themselves off with their next single, 1965's "All Day & All the Night," Ray Davies evolved into a songwriter of greater depth with "A Well Respected Man," "Sunny Afternoon," "Waterloo Sunset," "Days," and "Victoria." They're all here, as well as the "Lola"/"Apeman" period tracks. A good album with most (but not all) of the best tracks from the unappreciated Kinks. Get it.

Lots of great Kinks tunes...no clinkers.Can't beat the price if you shop on Amazon marketplace.CD#1 has the better known tunes while CD#2 the lesser.Each CD is arranged chronologically from the earliest times to the latter...making each representative of their whole output rather than splitting up the material and risking the atypical 2cd "strong/weak" anthology common when music groups cover a large span of years.

What a great idea!!! Collect ALL the Kinks great songs in one place on one album! How fabulous is it? Well, pretty fabulous, but let's talk reality for a moment. In order to have a complete set of ALL the Kinks great songs, a minimum of six discs would be necessary, and Ultimate Collection only has two. Disappointed? Yes, but only a little. Because these two discs are chock-full of more Kinks classics than you can shake a stick at, and most of the collection centers on their most creative period, the sixties and early seventies. Trendsetters? How about "You Really Got Me," which drew the blueprint for every hard rock/heavy metal band for the next 30 years? What about "See My Friends," which was one of the first "Eastern" songs in rock, predating the Yardbirds by six months and George Harrison by three years? What about "Lola," probably the first hit ever about an encounter with a transvestite? What about " Victoria", one of the first and only hit songs written about an English monarch? Or, how about such great songs as "All Day and All Night," "Autumn Almanac," the music hall treatment of "Dead End Street," the shimmering poetry of "Waterloo Sunset," "Celluloid Heroes," the best song about Hollywood ever written? Or "Superman," and "Come Dancing," two songs which proved conclusively that the Kinks could and did change with the times? Or what about a body of work so staggering that the Kinks were one of the first British Invasion bands voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame WITHOUT a number one single? What about.......well, I could go on and on. Yes, there are a few clunkers here, yes, there are some great songs missing ("Destroyer," "Catch Me Now I'm Falling," "Gallon of Gas," and most of the good songs from The Village Green Preservation Society), but there are so many tasty tunes here that this collection must be obtained without hesitation. So, get the Kinks Ultimate Collection today! Short of a few frenzied diehard fans, everybody's gonna be happy with this one!!!

This is definitely the Kinks collection to get. It's the most comprehensive collection yet, with all of their early and later hits, including You Really Got Me, All Day And All Of The Night, Tired Of Waiting, Sunny Afternoon, Waterloo Sunset (in stereo), Days, Stop Your Sobbing (in stereo), A Well Respected Man, Come Dancing, Better Things, Celluloid Heroes, and much more (a total of 44 songs). And the songs have never sounded better, especially the remastered selections from the 60s (including Lola in stereo). My only regret is that they left off Catch Me Now I'm Falling. Even so, this is the best collection out there. You won't regret buying it.

After all this time, it is amazing the number of sublime songs that were put out by the Kinks. This is not a "greatest hits" collection, as there are a few b-side clinkers in the bunch, but even these display the splendid combination of melody and chaos that made this band so interesting. The audio quality is wonderful (yes, you can listen to the quality of the studio recordings improve over time), and it is a revelation to re-listen to songs only known through 45's decades ago. OK, I'm reliving my childhood. It's great.

The texture of both the words and music displayed by this band at its best is remarkable. And they only got better. The last recordings, songs like "Better Days," "Superman" and "Come Dancing" are superb.