"Kinda Kinks" poll

It took me a while, but it totally clicked when I got the mono vinyl from the box. It has a punch to it that I can imagine the original pressing does. Sometimes that Pye sound, which I love, doesn't come across too well on CD. Aside from the obvious Sunny Afternoon, my favourites are Too Much On My Mind and the strange but brilliant Holiday In Waikiki. Big Black Smoke is my favourite 1966 'deep cut' (I don't like that phrase!).

 

IINM, Holiday In Waikiki and Big Black Smoke are on The Kink Kronikles -- one of the best komps ever.

Many (forgive me @Man at C&A ) deep kuts like Polly (aka Pretty Polly) and others that I've loved for years.

My older brother bought Something Else shortly after its release and I added The Kinks Greatest Hits (U.S. LP -- Mono with astonishingly good, powerful sound konsidering the Kinks less-than-stellar productions) and The Kink Kronikles to our kollection in them early days.

 

Polly's one of my favourite Kinks songs, again with that sublime 1967-68 Kinks sound. It was originally the B-side of Wonderboy.

 

Love the song Polly so much I paid a pretty penny (plus UK-to-U.S. shipping) to buy the somewhat rare UK 45 single about five years ago -- with this picture sleeve

 

Cool! The UK 45 never had a picture sleeve here. None of the UK 60s Kinks singles did. I have most of them. I'm only missing the very rare first two and the two from Arthur which are also scarce.

All the Kinks 45s are well worth turning over. Occasionally the B-side was better and often just as good.

 

Actually I just checked my "list" on my komputer and see that it was a German Pye 45 single of "Polly" (with "Wonderboy" as the A side).

Though the photo is one that I took from the internet, it's the same picture sleeve as the one that kame with my German 45.

 

I thought it had a European look about it. Ours all came in the slightly pink shade of red or light blue sleeves and labels. They have a period charm and look great when they're in excellent condition. My Kinks singles vary. Mostly excellent and none below VG.

 

My notes say that the label of my German Polly single is pink -- said notes:

LABEL: Pink Pye. GEMA in box.

 

The 2nd CD disc of the deluxe edition puts it into a good context - totally enhances the original album.
Still have my US LP of Kinks-Size, that yellow cover is cool -

 

For example, while Autumn Almanac is a great song, I prefer it's B-Side, Mr. Pleasant -- another of my All Time fave Kinks songs.

 

I'd give that one a draw! Two favourites.

The obvious one to me is the pretty crap Plastic Man with King Kong on the B-side, which I love.

 

Happy to see this thread up here again

 

And here it is again. Given The Kinks - Album by Album (song by song) thread is currently going through a 60's summation, I've been curious to see how the forum outside that excellent discussion has regarded these albums. Judging by this poll, it appears that Kinda Kinks averages around 3.5, which seems about right to me; better than the first album, but still not quite "there" yet.

As with their debut, some of the covers here (especially "Dancing in the Street") unfortunately do bring it down a notch, such that I cannot objectively give this LP a 5-star rating, despite its being an enjoyable listen for me, so I voted "4" presuming the U.K. edition is indeed the one being considered. I've never owned any U.S. variants, and would probably give that version a "3" overall, but I agree with tmwing that had the track listing been slightly tweaked between the two (i.e. drop those lesser covers in favor of "Set Me Free" and "Who'll Be The Next In Line" etc.), this could perhaps have been the first bona fide Kinks klassik.

I don't see either iteration posted above, so here they both are for illustrative purposes (basically the same picture with different borders and one including song titles):

UK


US

 

3/5 for me. A few great tracks, but they hadn't really hit their stride yet. They would start to with the next album ("Kink Kontroversy") and then really raise their game after that ("Face To Face" and the classic records that followed.

Favorite tracks:
Nothin' In This World
Tired Of Waiting For You
Come On Now
So Long
Something Better Beginning

 

4/5
A very good second album.
The band has some British invasion sound about them still here, but we start getting a little bit of movement into the idiosyncratic sound and style of the sixties version of the band.

We get Nothin in the world can stop me worrying bout that girl, Tired Of Waiting For You and the wonderful Something Better Beginning, that announce the band has more in them than previous album tracks may have suggested.

So Long and Don't Ever Change give us some more mellow flavours.
Look For Me Baby, You Shouldn't Be Sad, and a couple of others sort of look backwards, and into the mainstream Brit sound of the day.

A very good album.

 

anybody care to chime in on the SQ of a 1980 UK Pye LP in mono vs. a '80s PRT German LP in mono - I can get either for the exact same price but wondering if one was noticeably better than the other...

 

3/5
A good album, but the Kinks haven't quite made the transition to the next level yet.

 

I wanted to give it a 4/5, but that might just be because I love The Kinks, and it would devalue the actual 4/5s and 5/5s in their catalog.

It deserves a reasonable 3/5. Although I could see people that aren't fans of this type of music giving it a 2/5.

 

Not as good as what came before or after but I love the early albums, 3/5.

 

Generic Sixties pop. I reckon. Nothing to make me want to petrol bomb the stereo but nothing that screams "Play me again!" either.

2.5/5, rounded up for the purposes of this poll.