The Kinks Greatest Hits!

The Kinks Greatest Hits! (also spelled The Kinks' Greatest Hits!)[lower-alpha 1] is a compilation album by the English rock band the Kinks. Released in the United States in August 1966 by Reprise Records, the album mostly consists of singles issued by the group between 1964 and 1966. The band's first greatest hits album, it remained on the Billboard Top LPs chart for over a year, peaking at number 9, making it the Kinks' highest charting album in the US. The album was in print for decades and was the Kinks' only gold record in America until 1980.

"Greatest Hits!" redirects here. For other uses, see Greatest Hits (disambiguation).
The Kinks Greatest Hits!
A photo montage of the Kinks is beneath the album's title and a listing of its songs
Greatest hits album by
the Kinks
Released10 August 1966
RecordedJuly 1964 – February 1966
StudioPye and IBC, London
Genre
Length23:54
LabelReprise
ProducerShel Talmy
The Kinks US chronology
The Kink Kontroversy
(1966)		 The Kinks Greatest Hits!
(1966)		 Face to Face
(1966)

Release

Reprise Records released The Kinks Greatest Hits! in the US on 10 August 1966.[lower-alpha 2] The band's first greatest hits album,[5] it mostly consists of singles issued by the group between 1964 and 1966,[6] ranging from "You Really Got Me" to "Dedicated Follower of Fashion", recorded in mid-July 1964 and February 1966, respectively. All the tracks were recorded at Pye or IBC Studios in London and were produced by Shel Talmy.[7] "Something Better Beginning" is the only non-single on the album, first issued on Kinda Kinks (1965).[8]

The album's liner notes include one of the earliest instances of Ray Davies, the Kinks' principal songwriter, being characterised as a genius.[9] Author Thomas. M. Kitts suggests the description of Davies as "a brooding-faced, long-haired genius"[10] was an attempt to connect him to the English poet Lord Byron.[11] Eder writes that Ed Thrasher's cover art for the album, depicting the band in several concert photographs, further added to its collectibility.[12][13]

Commercial performance and reception
Retrospective professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[12]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music[14]
The Great Rock Discography[15]

Like subsequent British compilations collecting the Kinks' mid-1960s hits, the album's sales surpassed those of the band's late 1960s studio albums.[16][lower-alpha 3] It remained on the Billboard Top LPs chart for 64 weeks, peaking in November 1966 at number 9,[19] making it the Kinks' highest charting album in the US.[20] It additionally reached number 13 and 8 on Cash Box and Record World's charts, respectively.[21] RIAA certified it gold in November 1968, indicating retail sales of US$1 million (equivalent to US$8.4 million in 2022).[22] The album remained in print for around 20 years and was the Kinks' only American gold record until Low Budget's (1979) certification in 1980.[12][23]

Crawdaddy magazine critic Sandy Pearlman contemporaneously described it as among the best greatest hits albums available.[24] Authors Steve Alleman and Bruce Eder each retrospectively write that the album's joining of various styles served to indicate the Kinks' earliest musical developments, though Eder suggests the album's shortcoming is its omission of the band's later 1966 songs, like "Sunny Afternoon" and "Dandy".[12][25] Critic Robert Christgau included the album in his "Basic Record Library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings, published in his book Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981).[26]

Track listing

All songs by Ray Davies.

Side one

  1. "You Really Got Me" – 2:20
  2. "Tired of Waiting for You" – 2:30
  3. "Set Me Free" – 2:10
  4. "Something Better Beginning" – 2:23
  5. "Who'll Be the Next in Line" – 1:59

Side two

  1. "Till the End of the Day" – 2:20
  2. "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" – 2:59
  3. "A Well Respected Man" – 2:38
  4. "Ev'rybody's Gonna Be Happy" – 2:15
  5. "All Day and All of the Night" – 2:20

Personnel

According to band researcher Doug Hinman,[27] except where noted:

The Kinks

  • Ray Davies – lead vocals; electric and acoustic rhythm guitars; piano ("Something Better Beginning", "Ev'rybody's Gonna Be Happy")
  • Dave Davies – backing vocals, electric lead guitar
  • Pete Quaife – backing vocals, bass
  • Mick Avory – drums; tambourine ("You Really Got Me", "Till the End of the Day", "All Day and All of the Night")

Charts and certifications

Notes
  1. The title includes the apostrophe on the spine of the album sleeve, but it is omitted on the LP's label and on the sleeve's front and back.[3]
  2. Author Thomas M. Kitts wrote in 2002 that the album was released on 12 August 1966, while Kinks researcher Doug Hinman wrote in 2004 that it was the 10th.[4]
  3. The album sold over 200,000 copies by 1969.[17] By comparison, Something Else by the Kinks (1968) and The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (1969) sold a combined 25,000 copies in America.[18]
  4. Hinman writes a guitarist from Edward Kassner's office played additional rhythm guitar on "You Really Got Me", "likely Harry, possibly Bob or Vic, surname unknown".[28]

References

Citations
  1. Gross 1967, p. 10: "The repackaged product currently clicking in the pop field include[s] ... 'The Kinks' Greatest Hits' (Reprise)".
  2. Santosuosso 1966, p. 23: "Another well-wrapped package of R 'n R hits is 'The Kinks Greatest Hits!' (Reprise)."
  3. Anon.(a) 1966.
  4. Kitts 2002, p. 12; Hinman 2004, p. 88.
  5. Rogan 2015, p. 721.
  6. Hinman 2004, p. 88.
  7. Hinman 2004, pp. 31, 38, 46, 50, 51, 56, 66, 70.
  8. Hinman 2004, pp. 50, 88.
  9. Kitts 2008, p. 115.
  10. Anon.(a) 1966, quoted in Kitts 2008, pp. 11, 115.
  11. Kitts 2008, p. 11.
  12. Eder, Bruce. "The Kinks' Greatest Hits [Reprise] – The Kinks". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 29 June 2022. Retrieved 29 June 2022.
  13. Anon.(a) 1966: (Ed Thrasher's cover art).
  14. Larkin 2011, chap. "Kinks".
  15. Strong 2004, p. 840.
  16. Hinman 2004, p. 121.
  17. Christgau 1969, p. 31.
  18. Hasted 2011, p. 147.
  19. Hinman 2004, pp. 88, 92.
  20. "The Kinks Chart History". Billboard. Archived from the original on 21 February 2023. Retrieved 21 February 2023.
  21. Anon.(b) 1966, p. 29; Anon.(c) 1966, p. 29.
  22. Hinman 2004, pp. 88, 121.
  23. Barnes 2000, p. 76; Hinman 2004, p. 236: (Low Budget certified gold on 7 January 1980).
  24. Pearlman 1968, p. 38, quoted in Gunton 1982, p. 89.
  25. Alleman 2002, p. 46.
  26. Christgau 1981, p. 455.
  27. Hinman 2004, pp. 29–30, 38, 46, 50, 51, 56, 66, 70, 77, 88.
  28. Hinman 2004, p. 29.
  29. Anon.(d) 1966, p. 50.
  30. Anon.(b) 1966, p. 29.
  31. Anon.(c) 1966, p. 29.
  32. Anon.(e) 1966, p. 34.
  33. "American album certifications – The Kinks – The Kinks Greatest Hits". Recording Industry Association of America.

Sources
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