Probably the single most overused song title of all time. If you add up all the ones spelled in this manner with all the ones spelled "It's All Right" in the Whitburn index, you'll find that there are something like ten that have charted. Adam Faith would have his sole American hit with a song with this title a few months later, and a year earlier, Gerry & The Pacemakers had also had this B-Side:
That, to me at least, is one of the really interesting things about these threads. We both hear the same thing, but see it from different angles.... I like the main part of the song, and the bridge on it's own would be... pretty good, but that change, with the two sections smashing into each other, kind of lifts the song up for me. The thing that sets it off though, is the rave up, tacet, run up, new part.... that is made all totally cool, by the smoothness of the transition back. If they hadn't stuck the transition back, different story. Having said that though, I like a lot of music that incorporates those kinds of elements
I get where you are coming from. Although I hate the bridge and transition, I have come to admire Ray for the bravery to throw something so different in there. Even at that early stage in his songwriting career he is consciously attempting something different to set him apart from other songwriters. Really, I'm hard pressed to think of someone else--maybe only McCartney, perhaps, but there may be others--who would be so daring in 1964 British pop. So while I don't think Ray pulls it off on this song, I applaud the effort.
It's Alright is pretty great for me. I like the energy and very cool how he switches to wing,wing in the second and third verses. Maybe Them could have covered it?
IT'S ALL RIGHT Is alright. In fact it's actually better than just alright since it's a very good B side. It's true that the title was originally always written as ALL RIGHT not ALRIGHT. I came across this useful chart about the usage of these two possible spellings. Alright is steadily on the increase (shorter to write in text messages?) but all right is resisting extremely well.
Van Morrison did his own "It's All Right" on his first album, or is it the outtakes, it's a slow burner but i like it Kinks version does it's best with kind of a generic song, turns into a pretty fun rave up (is that the right word) ill go with it
Always been a fan of "It's Alright," but yeah, not much of a song. I could swear I heard this used in a car commercial some years back, but can't find any evidence. Did I dream this?
It's All Right is a fantastic b-side, and would probably get noticed more if it hadn't been released as the flip side of That a-side. Because really, why would you ever think to turn the 7" over?
“It’s Alright” is the first in a long line of worthy Kinks B-sides. Nothing earth shattering, but they pull it off with an energetic rocking performance. There is a swagger here that they would still struggle to pull off on certain tracks on the next two albums (and other contemporaneous recordings.). That Shindig video is great .... never seen that one before.
Just jumping in on this awesome thread! As a means of introduction as I'm sort of new to this forum, I was exposed to the Kinks throughout the 70s. My friend's older siblings loved the Kinks so they were constantly on. I was a young kid, so wasn't at the point where I wanted to know more about the music, I just knew I liked/loved it. and the Kinks stood out from all the other stuff being played at the time at my friend's house. Then the 80s hit and I'm a teenager and got into new wave and alternative(though I always looked forward to seeing the Predictable video on MTV). Rediscovered them again in the 90s. Named my first daughter Victoria. And in the last 5 months I'm doing a DEEP DIVE into the Kinks and here I am. I really enjoy I'm Alright. Other than the ever-awesome and untouchable You Really Got Me, it's the best song so far. I'm a sucker for harmonica, so it's pretty simple.
It interesting to me that in the mid-60's I loved the early songs of The Kinks but yet when it comes to albums these are the ones I really like best... The Kinks – Misfits Label: Arista – ARCD 8069 Format: CD, Album, Reissue Country: US Released: 1988 The Kinks – Low Budget Label: Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab – UDSACD 2008 Series: Original Master Recording – , Ultradisc UHR – Format: SACD, Hybrid, Album, Remastered Country: US Released: 2003 Something Else, Lola, Kink Kronikles and the MFSL 2-fer with Kinks (You Really Got Me) & Kinda Kinks are the rest of what I have.
Great thread, sorry a day late on YRGM comments. I've seen the Kinks 3 times and this song was played every show. Ray and Dave will always play this song if they have a show to do. Guaranteed!!
Over 100 cover versions of YRGM. Some bands I've heard of, some not. Shows the endurance of this classic cut. Cover versions of You Really Got Me by The Kinks | SecondHandSongs
The least accurate part is that Grimshaw is in Muswell Hill. Hornsey is the art school Ray attended after Grimshaw. The other conceit is that Dave would have actually shown up for class, not to mention Ray’s gapless countenance.
Kinks Studio album by the Kinks Released 2 October 1964 (UK) November 1964 (US) Recorded 24 January–August 1964 Studio Pye Studios No. 1 & 2 IBC Studios Genre Proto-punk[1] R&B[2] rock and roll[3] Length 32:54 Label Pye (UK) Reprise (US) Producer Shel Talmy UK release (Pye NPL 18096 mono: NSPL 83021 stereo) Side one 1. "Beautiful Delilah" Chuck Berry 2:07 2. "So Mystifying" 2:58 3. "Just Can't Go to Sleep" 1:58 4. "Long Tall Shorty" Herb Abramson, Don Covay 2:50 5. "I Took My Baby Home" 1:48 6. "I'm a Lover Not a Fighter" J. D. "Jay" Miller 2:03 7. "You Really Got Me" 2:13 Side two 8. "Cadillac" Bo Diddley 2:44 9. "Bald Headed Woman" Shel Talmy 2:41 10. "Revenge" Davies, Larry Page 1:29 11. "Too Much Monkey Business" Chuck Berry 2:16 12. "I've Been Driving on Bald Mountain" Talmy 2:01 13. "Stop Your Sobbing" 2:06 14. "Got Love If You Want It" James Moore 3:46 US Release You Really Got Me (Reprise R-6143 (mono) RS-6143 (stereo)) track listing Side one 1. "Beautiful Delilah" Chuck Berry 2:04 2. "So Mystifying" 2:49 3. "Just Can't Go to Sleep" 1:58 4. "Long Tall Shorty" Herb Abramson, Don Convay 2:48 5. "You Really Got Me" 2:13 Side two 6. "Cadillac" Ellas McDaniel 2:41 7. "Bald Headed Woman" Talmy 2:41 8. "Too Much Monkey Business" Chuck Berry 2:14 9. "I've Been Driving on Bald Mountain" Talmy 2:02 10. "Stop Your Sobbing" 2:05 11. "Got Love If You Want It" Slim Harpo 3:49 In 2011 there was a deluxe edition that had the stereo album on the first disc, and the Mono album on the second. 2011 Sanctuary Records deluxe edition Disc 1 (stereo) bonus tracks 1-14 stereo album 15. "I Believed You" (mono demo as the Boll-Weevils) Ray Davies, Dave Davies 1:56 16. "I'm a Hog for You Baby" (mono demo as the Boll-Weevils) Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller 17. "I Don't Need You Any More" (mono demo) 2:12 18. "Everybody's Gonna Be Happy" (mono demo) 2:21 19. "Long Tall Sally" (mono single) Penniman, Blackwell, Johnson 2:09 20. "You Still Want Me" (mono single) 2:00 21. "You Do Something to Me" (mono single) 2:26 22. "It's Alright" (mono single) 2:38 23. "All Day and All of the Night" (mono single) 2:21 24. "I Gotta Move" (mono single) 2:15 25. "Louie Louie" (Kinksize Session EP) R. Berry 2:58 26. "I've Got That Feeling" (Kinksize Session EP) 2:43 27. "I Gotta Go Now" (Kinksize Session EP) 2:54 28. "Things Are Getting Better" (Kinksize Session EP) 1:53 2011 Sanctuary Records deluxe edition Disc 2 (mono) bonus tracks 1-14 mono album 15. "Don't Ever Let Me Go" (recorded Sept 1964) 2:19 16. "I Don't Need You Anymore" (recorded January 1964) 2:12 17. "Bald Headed Woman" (US mono mix) Talmy 2:41 18. "Too Much Monkey Business" (alternative take) C. Berry 2:10 19. "Got Love If You Want It" (alternative take) Moore 3:35 20. "Meet the Kinks" (BBC interview) N/A 0:33 21. "Cadillac" (recorded live at the BBC) McDaniel 2:36 22. "Ray Talks About 'You Really Got Me'" (BBC interview) N/A 0:14 23. "You Really Got Me" (recorded live at the BBC) 2:13 24. "Little Queenie" (recorded live at the BBC) C. Berry 1:46 25. "I'm a Lover Not a Fighter" (recorded live at the BBC) Miller 2:01 26. "All Day and All of the Night" (recorded live at the BBC) 2:22 27. "Ray Talks About the USA" (BBC interview) N/A 0:40 28. "I've Got That Feeling" (recorded live at the BBC) 2:44 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- After the success of You Really Got Me, UK - 1, US - 7, Aus - 8, Canada - 4, Germany - 39, Ireland - 6, Netherlands - 23, New Zealand - 2, the logical thing to do was put out an album. Obviously, due to the way things were done at the time, the US and Uk albums were quite different. The US album removed three tracks, and to some degree I assume there will be a lot of different ideas as to whether they were the right ones, or if that should have happened at all. The sessions for the album took place in August at the Pye studios, and Shel Talmy sat in the producer's chair. When the album was put together we get a series of songs that were recorded between January and August, and a good portion of them were cover songs. We end up with five originals on the album, and for the most part, I think I tend to prefer the original songs. It is really very difficult, in some ways, to have the 1964 perspective, as I was born four years after it was released, and it would have been sometime in the seventies before I was even aware of the band at all, so I can only go from that perspective really. So I will be very interested in the perspective of folks that were around when this album came out, because my perspective will likely be skewed somewhat by the passage of time, and also, particularly on the cover songs, the vast array of versions I have heard over the years. I bought most of my Kinks albums somewhere around 2004, when the sacd's and Sanctuary reissues came along. I had One For The Road, Low Budget and State Of Confusion from a long time prior. I was very familiar with the bulk of the singles from a lot earlier, but was never really sure if I would like the band's albums ... it seems strange now looking at that now, but The Kinks just never really got the same exposure or kudos that some of their contemporaries did while I was growing up. There seemed to be a .... kind of, taking the band for granted type of attitude through the eighties I guess, I'm really not sure, but if memory serves me well, it seems the band were pretty much painted as a singles band, and I guess I just never really considered buying their other albums until the reissues came out. I think part of the enthusiasm, when these reissues came around, was that I read some articles somewhere or other, that stated what a good catalog it was, and how well these reissues had been done, and it just sparked my attention that this is a band I really like, but I had just never bitten the bullet and bought any of the other albums. so in my typical all or nothing style, I just went out and bought them, over a period of probably six months ... when shops still existed So another interesting thing is, that until I decided I wanted to do this thread, about four to six months ago, the debut album was still in its plastic wrap .... yea, I know that makes me a bad person So a little while back I pealed the plastic off and gave this a listen. I have had a few listens now, but I don't pretend to be fully conversant on it really, but I have had enough listens to know what we are looking at. As I said earlier, I kind of feel like this would have been a stronger album if there were more of Ray's songs on here, possibly Dave's too, I'm not sure how much he had available at this stage. I like the covers well enough, but they generally seem to be songs, that from my perspective, everybody has done. They don't really capture the personality of the band, and one of the things about the Kinks that makes me like them so much is the personality of the band... Anyway, we'll get into the songs next week, so enough about that........ This is a pretty solid, if not a little patchy kind of album, but really, as a debut album for a UK band in 1964, that's pretty much to be expected. For all the talk about some of the Kinks contemporaries, through a modern lens, most of them had fairly average debut albums, in my opinion. Lots of enthusiasm, but the same old covers, or field of covers, pop up and again, through the modern lens of someone who wasn't there, they can often seem a little ho hum. So at the end of the day, I would say that for me, this is a very promising debut album, even though it may not be earth shattering. To some degree bands, and the music industry, were still coming to terms with how best to present themselves and the music, and that really only started to come together a little later in the sixties .... in my opinion. By the time we get to the seventies, the industry is more of a well built machine, and the bands had a better perspective, based on the fact that they had been able to learn from the mistakes of the bands in the sixties.... just as the bands of the sixties had managed to learn from the artists of the fifties, who really form the first wave of what would become the birth of modern music, and pretty much ruled the latter half of the twentieth century. Commercially the album actually did pretty well. Charting at Number 3 in the UK, number 29 in the US, and at number 7 in Germany. So that's probably all I have to put forward here .... Please let us know what you think of this album as a whole. If you were around at the time, What did you think when this album came out? What do you think about it now? If, like me, you came along later, let us know when you came across this album, and what your thoughts on it were, and if they have changed at all over time. Just share your heart on this album, and we will start looking through the songs on Monday. Cheers Mark