i have always had a lot of respect for ray davies and his songwriting ability but didnt know much other than the big hits in the 60s but ...in the last year...i listened to the picture book boxset and discovered all this varied fabulous music that he wrote ...especially in the late 60s into the early 70s...."the village green preservation society" is one of the best albums i have ever heard...just one one great pop song after another...and the endless outakes are just as compelling..

if you have never listened to the kinks back catalogue...give it a try...from "face to face" album in 1966 to "muswell hillbillies" album in 1971...they made some of the greatest pop music ever imo...

Indeed

Yup and they had a nice "comeback" in the late seventies/early eighties.

Yup, peeps should check out The Kinks old albums.

I think their run from Face to Face through Arthur is great, and probably deserves to be ranked with the other more universally accepted great runs (your sixties Dylan, your seventies Stevie Wonder, etc). Even though I consider myself a big fan, I've actually never heard the Lola album, and it's been many years since I had a copy of Muswill Hillbillies.

damosuzuki said:

I think their run from Face to Face through Arthur is great, and probably deserves to be ranked with the other more universally accepted great runs (your sixties Dylan, your seventies Stevie Wonder, etc). Even though I consider myself a big fan, I've actually never heard the Lola album, and it's been many years since I had a copy of Muswill Hillbillies.

Oh, you really ought to. If you like their stuff circa 1966-1969 it is very similar. Maybe a tiny shade not as great but still very, very good. I would also recommend that you find a copy of the Percy album. It's not really a proper album but a soundtrack and it is half instrumental but there are probably some songs on it that you would like to hear.

Does anyone have the two disc deluxe editions of their sixties albums and if so how is the sound? I've got the late nineties Castle reissues which are all mono. The albums are great but I'm not really sold on the mono sound. Some of them have stereo bonus tracks but they don't sound very good and I'm wondering if the deluxe editions stereo versions sound any better. The bonus tracks are mostly pretty unimpressive so the main reason to upgrade for me would be the stereo versions of the albums.

rialb said:

Does anyone have the two disc deluxe editions of their sixties albums and if so how is the sound? I've got the late nineties Castle reissues which are all mono. The albums are great but I'm not really sold on the mono sound. Some of them have stereo bonus tracks but they don't sound very good and I'm wondering if the deluxe editions stereo versions sound any better. The bonus tracks are mostly pretty unimpressive so the main reason to upgrade for me would be the stereo versions of the albums.

I have the three disc edition of Village Green..., but I actually don't think I've ever listened to the mono disc. The stereo version of the album sounds excellent.

I have stereo single-disc versions of Face to Face, Something Else and Arthur, and I think they all sound just fine - but again I've never heard the mono versions, so I have no base-line comparison.

[Edited 9/16/12 17:26pm]