The Kinks Albums; Best, Worst, Overrated, Underrated

pick your Kinks

Best : Muswell Hillbillies
Worst : Percy
Overrated : State Of Confusion (It’s still tremendous though!)
Underrated : Everybody’s In Showbiz / Think Visual / Phobia / Soap Opera

Go....!!!

 

Best: Village Green
Worst: The Live Kinks
Overrated: Muswell Hillbillies
Underrated: Soap Opera

 

Blasphemy, but I love latter day Kinks:

Best: Low Budget (my first, and still favorite)
Worst: UK Jive
Overrated: Arthur or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire
Underrated: Word Of Mouth

 

Best: Something Else
Overrated: Arthur
Underrated: Muswell Hillbillies

 

Best: VGPS
Worst: Think Visual
Overrated: Low Budget
Underrated: Word of Mouth

 

Best: Kinks Kronikles
Worst: Soap Opera
Overrated: Give The People What They Want
Underrated: Arthur or The Decline and Fall of The British Empire

 

Best: VGPS
Worst: The Road (not One for the Road, but the 1988 MCA album)
Overrated: To the Bone
Underrated: Word of Mouth

 

Best: Something Else
Worst: UK Jive
Overrated: LOLA
Underrated: Schoolboys in Disgrace

 

Best: Face to Face
Worst: Think Visual
Overrated: Arthur
Underrated: Kontroversy

 

Best - Something Else/Village Green/Arthur/ Muswell Hillbillies
Worst - .....
Overrated .....
Underrated - All of them quite frankly

 

Best: Low Budget
Worst: Phobia (way too long, too much bloat.)
Overrated: VGPS (a fine album, but its reappraisal in the 21st century is nearing obsessiveness.)
Underrated: Schoolboys in Disgrace (a masterpiece whose cover sadly doomed it to obscurity.)

 

I can't make an informed choice because I haven't heard more than half the Kinks' albums, but what the hell:
Best: Lola
Worst: The Live Kinks (Love To The Bone, though).
Overrated: VGPS
Underrated: Lola

 

Best: Something Else by the Kinks
Worst: Phobia
Overrated: Low Budget
Underrated: Word of Mouth

 

Best - Village Green
Least play at my hove - Live Kinks
Underrated - School Boys or Preservation 2
Overrated- Soap Opera

IMO- worst equates to bad and there is no bad Kinks lp.

 

The EP of Percy is the greatest!
God's Children
The Way Love Used to Be
Moments
Dreams

 

It is, but the rest of the album is well ropey

 

I don't think there's any album after 1973 they put out with four songs that strong.
My humble opinion.

 

Best - Sleepwalker
Worst - None really, although I really don't like Muswell Hillbillies at all
Underrated - Preservation 1&2, UK Jive
Overrated - Muswell Hillbillies

 

Percy is worst if I had to choose one...but still not bad enough to ignore.

 

These kinds of threads are so pointless and silly, so:

Best: Preservation Act II
Worst: Preservation Act II
Underrated: Preservation Act II
Overrated: Preservation Act I

 

Almost precisely this - though I’d put VGPS at top, with Something Else and Muswell near contenders. Just can’t get much enthusiasm going for Arthur, and I’ve tried for decades.

 

Best: Village Green (IMHO, this album is deserving of all its long overdue accolades, and could be better still if expanded to a 2 or even 3 disc set like McCartney's Red Rose Speedway recently was)
Worst: Percy (works better as an EP as noted above, and perhaps even more so as a bonus disc on the deluxe Lola; as a standalone LP, well...not so much)
Overrated: Sleepwalker (more a return to charts, at least stateside anyway, than a true return to form, the latter of which I'd say Misfits came closer to achieving)
Underrated: Kinks (yes, the covers bring it down, but when I listened to this debut recently I was [Mr.] pleasant[ly] surprised by its sheer exuberance and overall enjoyability)

 

Best: Arthur
Worst: Phobia
Overrated: Something Else
Underrated: Preservation Acts 1 and 2

If it weren't against the rules, I'd say Americana 1 and 2 belongs on Underrated. What an amazing career comeback from Ray.

 

Best: Something Else
Worst: UK Jive
Overrated: Everybody's In Showbiz
Underrated: Preservation Act II (sometimes it seems everything post Muswell Hillbillies is underrated)

 

Best AND underrated: Muswell Hillbillies. Such a fantastic album.