The Great Lost Kinks Album

The Great Lost Kinks Album is a compilation album by the English rock band the Kinks. Released in the United States in January 1973, it features material recorded by the group between 1966 and 1970 that had mostly gone unreleased. The compilation served to satisfy Reprise Records after executives determined that the Kinks contractually owed them one more album, despite the band's departure from the label in 1971.

The Great Lost Kinks Album
A painting of dozens of blue-clad masked figures standing and facing forward, beneath stylized font spelling "Kinks"
Compilation album by
the Kinks
Released25 January 1973
Recorded1966–1970
StudioPye, Riverside and Morgan, London
GenrePop[1]
Length36:08
LabelReprise
Producer
The Kinks US chronology
Everybody's in Show-Biz
(1972)		 The Great Lost Kinks Album
(1973)		 Preservation Act 1
(1973)

The Great Lost Kinks Album offered the debut of many previously unreleased tracks, while others had only been released as non-album singles. Most of its songs date to the sessions for the 1968 album The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society and were delivered by Ray Davies to Reprise in July 1969 out of a contractual obligation. Musician John Mendelsohn wrote liner notes for the album which extensively derided Davies' contemporary songwriting in comparison to his late 1960s work. Both contemporary and retrospective critics have generally described the compilation as uneven. Several suggested that its joining of strong and weak tracks meant it would only appeal to devoted Kinks fans.

The album's sales were driven by fans of the band's late 1960s work, peaking at No. 145 on Billboard's Top LP's & Tape chart, additionally reaching No. 78 and No. 74 on Cash Box and Record World's charts, respectively. The Kinks had no involvement in the album's preparation and Davies only learned of its existence after its release. He initiated legal action against Reprise over the album, resulting in its 1975 deletion from the label's catalogue, though it remained popular among Kinks fans into the 2000s for its inclusion of rare and otherwise unobtainable tracks. Several of its songs were later made available as bonus tracks on the 2004 CD reissue of Village Green.

Background

On 2 July 1969, Ray Davies and manager Robert Wace delivered numerous tracks to Reprise Records's offices. Most of them were for the Kinks' 1969 studio album, Arthur, as well as a potential Dave Davies solo album. They delivered an extra reel of twelve songs, marked as "spare tracks" and not assigned a master tape number, indicating they were likely not planned for an immediate release.[2][nb 1] Author Doug Hinman suggests the additional songs' delivery was likely due to a contractual obligation that the Kinks provide the label a set number of songs over a scheduled period. Ray Davies later expressed he was hesitant to deliver them because he did not feel they were up to standard and wanted to include a note explaining, "please, we're just fulfilling our contract, just put it in a vault somewhere."[2]

In 1971, the Kinks' seven-year contract with Reprise was set to expire. Disappointed with several clauses in the band's contract, Davies opted to instead sign the band with RCA Records.[3] The same year, Reprise rejected the Percy soundtrack album for US release, finding it lacked commercial potential in the American market.[4] Because they did not release Percy, executives at Reprise determined that the Kinks contractually owed the label one more album.[5]

Song selection

The Kinks recently began recording on RCA Records. How is it possible for them to have a "new" album on Reprise? Well ... Reprise apparently has a number of old songs the Kinks recorded and never released. ... They're doing the same thing with tapes Jimi Hendrix made: the recordings weren't good enough before, but now that that's all Reprise has, they're suddenly all right.[6]

– Critic Chuck Lowery on The Great Lost Kinks Album, 1973

In 1972, without Davies' knowledge or approval, Reprise began assembling a compilation album of mostly unreleased Kinks material. The label's working title for the project was Son of Kink Kronikles, a reference to the company's March 1972 compilation The Kink Kronikles.[7] In the early 1970s, compilation albums collecting previously unreleased material had become increasingly common among record labels seeking to undermine bootleg recordings.[8] Reprise later re-titled the project The Great Lost Kinks Album, a reference to the Kinks' unreleased 1968 album, Four More Respected Gentlemen, though the content of the two was mostly unrelated.[7]

Of the twelve "spare tracks" delivered to Reprise in 1969, three – "This Is Where I Belong", "King Kong" and "Berkeley Mews" – were dropped after having been already included on The Kink Kronikles. The instrumental "Easy Come, There You Went" was also dropped.[9] Songs added included "Misty Water", recorded in May 1968 and originally planned for release on Four More Respected Gentlemen;[10] "I'm Not Like Everybody Else", the non-album B-side to the 1966 single "Sunny Afternoon"; "The Way Love Used to Be", a ballad from the Percy soundtrack album; and "There Is No Life Without Love", "Groovy Movies" and "This Man He Weeps Tonight" from the unreleased Dave Davies solo album.[9] The album's fourteen tracks range chronologically from "I'm Not Like Everybody Else" to "The Way Love Used to Be", recorded in May 1966 and October 1970, respectively.[7] Most of the songs were recording during the sessions for the 1968 album The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society.[11][12] Almost all of the songs were recorded in the basement studios at Pye Records's London offices; "When I Turn Out the Living Room Light" was recorded at Riverside Studios, West London, and "The Way Love Used to Be" at Morgan Studios, North West London.[13] Ray Davies produced every track, except for "I'm Not Like Everybody Else", which is credited to Shel Talmy.[7]

Release and commercial performance

Reprise released The Great Lost Kinks Album in the US on 25 January 1973.[14] The album's cover features the painting Proliferation by Belgian artist Jean-Michel Folon, while the rear sleeve includes a picture of Davies taken by American photographer Bob Gruen.[9] Musician John Mendelsohn, who had assembled the track listing to The Kink Kronikles, wrote liner notes for The Great Lost Kinks Album which extensively derided Davies' contemporary songwriting when compared his 1966–69 period.[15] For example, Mendelsohn writes that the Kinks' 1972 album Everybody's in Show-Biz features "a bitchy, egocentric Davies ... whose primary interest is making clear to his listener the agony he must endure to stay on the road entertaining us."[16] The album's liner notes do not include writing credits for several songs, something Kitts ascribes to sloppiness in the LP's manufacturing.[17] There are additionally discrepancies between song titles, which sometimes vary between the album's sleeve and central label, the lyrics as sung and the spelling used by later authors.[nb 2]

The Great Lost Kinks Album, a US-only release, may not qualify as the rarest [Kinks release], but it remains one of the most sought-after Kinks Kollectables for the right reason – the music.[25]

– Author Andy Neill, 2000

The album's sales were driven by fans of the Kinks' 1960s work who were excited over the rarity of its contents.[26] It debuted at No. 165 on Billboard's Top LP's & Tape chart on 24 February 1973.[27] It remained on the chart for five weeks,[17] peaking at No. 145,[28] and additionally reached No. 78 and No. 74 on Cash Box and Record World's charts, respectively.[29] Davies remained unaware of the album until after its release; Hinman writes Davies first read about it in Billboard magazine,[7] while author Thomas M. Kitts writes an American fan brought it to his attention after mailing him a copy of the LP.[17] Davies initiated legal action against Reprise over its release, resulting in its 1975 deletion from the label's catalogue.[30]

Despite the album's 1975 deletion and lack of a subsequent official CD release,[31] it has remained popular among Kinks fans for its inclusion of rare and otherwise unobtainable tracks.[32] The album received multiple bootleg releases in Japan in the 1990s.[33] Into the early 2000s, the LP remained the only way of hearing several of its songs without resorting to bootlegging,[34] before many were made available as bonus tracks on the 2004 CD reissue of The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society.[35]

Critical reception

Contemporary reviews

Contemporary reviewers generally found the compilation uneven.[36] A reviewer in Crawdaddy! magazine wrote it consisted of both "barrel-scraping" material and songs that would make the album a worthwhile purchase for Kinks fans. The reviewer negatively compared it to Reprise's 1972 compilation, The Kink Kronikles, writing that while both albums seemed similarly intentioned, The Great Lost Kinks Album "lacks both the bountifulness and dramatic highlights [of Kronikles]".[36] Another magazine's reviewer wrote that the album's main value was for Kink fans who "don't mind wading through second-rate material to get to the occasional highspots."[36] Writing for Rolling Stone magazine, Jim Miller says the album "basically represents dregs", while providing "a surprising number of undeservedly esoteric Kinks classics" that would satisfy fans unhappy with Davies and the Kinks' recent work.[36][37] In Circus magazine, Ed Naha wrote that the album captures the band during their mid- to late 1960s peak, and that while it is generally not on the level of the band's best work, such as "Waterloo Sunset" (1967) or "Lola" (1970), its contents provides great insight into Davies.[38] The Los Angeles Times's critic Terry Atkinson mentioned the same songs and "Victoria" (1969), writing that where The Kink Kronikles contained classics, the songs on The Great Lost Kinks Album are instead "trifling", while still better than the Kinks' most recent releases on RCA.[39]

Several reviewers took notice of the Mendelsohn's liner notes and his criticism of the Kinks' contemporary work.[36] Chuck Lowery of the newspaper The San Diego Door writes that The Great Lost Kinks Album is "really good", but considers it lesser than the band's 1972 album, Everybody's in Show-Biz, writing that Mendelsohn's attack on that album discredits his own writing.[6] In his review of the album for Creem magazine, Ken Emerson characterised Mendelsohn's liner notes as querulous. In contrast to other reviewers, Emerson found the album a "marvelously" coherent package, evoking the same sadness heard on most of the Kinks' albums since 1966, with the happy songs instead "wistful thinking, pathetically evanescent fantasies."[40] In a May 1974 interview with Circus, musician Lou Reed declared his love for the album and said he listened it any chance he could.[41]

Retrospective assessment
Retrospective ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[12]
Christgau's Record GuideA–[42]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music[43]
MusicHound Rock4/5[44]
The New Rolling Stone Album Guide[45]

Among retrospective reviewers, Robert Christgau declared that though the album consists mostly of B-sides and outtakes, it is the Kinks' best album to be released in the 1970s, something he thinks speaks to "the limitations of the Kinks' professional renaissance". He writes the album's "[f]ragile, unkempt, [and] whimsical" content focuses on the "harmless eccentrics" which made up Davies' best songwriting.[42] Richie Unterberger of AllMusic opines that much of album would have fit well on The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. He finds The Great Lost Kinks Album lyrically weaker than the band's other late 1960s work, but counts "Rosemary Rose" "Misty Water" and "Mr. Songbird" as the highlights.[12] Unterberger concludes that the album would prove "quite worthwhile" to Kinks fans,[12] as does Rob Sheffield in The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), who describes several of its tracks as "essential cult items", including "The Way Love Used to Be", "Rosemary Rose" and "When I Turn Out the Living Room Light".[46] In a Rolling Stone piece ranking the band's albums, Sheffield categorises it as for "further listening", just below the level of "must-have".[47]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Ray Davies, except where noted.[nb 3]

Side one

  1. "Til Death Do Us Part" – 3:12
  2. "There Is No Life Without Love" (Dave Davies, R. Davies)  – 1:55
  3. "Lavender Hill" – 2:53
  4. "Groovy Movies" – 2:30
  5. "Rosemary Rose" – 1:43
  6. "Misty Water" – 3:01
  7. "Mr. Songbird" – 2:24

Side two

  1. "When I Turn Out the Living Room Light" – 2:17
  2. "The Way Love Used to Be" – 2:11
  3. "I'm Not Like Everybody Else" – 3:29
  4. "Plastic Man" – 3:00
  5. "This Man He Weeps Tonight" (D. Davies) – 2:38
  6. "Pictures in the Sand" – 2:45
  7. "Where Did the Spring Go?" – 2:10

Notes

  • Song titles vary between the album sleeve, the LP's central label, the lyrics as sung and the spelling used by later authors. The titles are listed above as they were on the rear of the album's sleeve.[nb 2]

Personnel

According to band researcher Doug Hinman,[51] except where noted:

Charts
Weekly chart performance
Chart (1973) Peak
position
US Billboard Top LP's & Tape[28] 145
US Cash Box Top 100 Albums[56] 78
US Record World Album Chart[57] 74

Notes
  1. The twelve were "Til Death Us Do Part", "This Is Where I Belong", "Lavender Hill", "Plastic Man", "King Kong", "Berkeley Mews", "Rosemary Rose", "Easy Come There You Went", "Pictures in the Sand", "Mr. Songbird", "Where Did My Spring Go?" and "When I Turn Out the Living Room Light".[2]
    • "Til Death Do Us Part" is spelled as such on the album sleeve and on the LP's central label,[18] but the film for which it was written is titled Till Death Us Do Part.[19] Authors Andy Miller, Rogan and Hinman use the film's spelling in discussing the song.[20]
    • "When I Turn Off the Living Room Light" is titled as such in Reprise's tape log and this is the lyric Davies sings in the song. The album instead lists the song as "When I Turn Out the Living Room Light", which Miller suggests was likely a clerical error on Reprise's part.[21]
    • "Where Did the Spring Go?" is written on the album's rear sleeve, while the LP's label omits the question mark.[18] Mendelsohn titles the song "Where Did My Spring Go?" in his liner notes,[22] and this title is also used by Miller.[23] Hinman and Kinks author Johnny Rogan use the "My" titling but alternate between including and omitting the question mark.[24]
  3. Writing credits are per Doug Hinman.[48] When "There Is No Life Without Love" was first released as the B-side to "Lincoln County", it was credited to Dave and Ray Davies.[49] On the 2011 compilation album Hidden Treasures, it is instead credited to only Dave Davies.[50]
  4. Hinman writes Hopkins "possibly" played organ on "Misty Waters", but raises the possibility Ray Davies played it.[7] Miller writes both "Misty Water" and "Pictures in the Sand" include organ but he does not specify who played the instrument in either case.[54]

References

Citations
  1. Anon.(b) 1973, p. 62.
  2. Hinman 2004, p. 130.
  3. Rogan 1984, pp. 117–118.
  4. Rogan 1998, pp. 81, 170.
  5. Hinman 2004, p. 170; Rogan 1998, p. 170.
  6. Lowery 1973, p. 12.
  7. Hinman 2004, p. 170.
  8. Segretto 2014, chap. 19.
  9. Neill 2000, p. 47.
  10. Miller 2003, p. 122.
  11. Rogan 1984, pp. 201, 207.
  12. Unterberger, Richie. "The Kinks – The Great Lost Kinks Album". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 22 November 2021. Retrieved 27 April 2022.
  13. Hinman 2004, pp. 125, 145, 170; Miller 2003, p. 21: (basement studios).
  14. Hinman 2004, p. 170; Kitts 2002, p. 15; Miller 2003, p. 145.
  15. Hinman 2004, pp. 162, 170.
  16. Mendelsohn 1973, p. 1, quoted in Hinman 2004, p. 170.
  17. Kitts 2008, p. 94.
  18. Anon.(a) 1973.
  19. Miller 2003, p. 123.
  20. Miller 2003, p. 123; Rogan 1998, p. 170; Hinman 2004, p. 170.
  21. Miller 2003, p. 124n39.
  22. Mendelsohn 1973, p. 2.
  23. Miller 2003, pp. 132–135.
  24. Rogan 1998, p. 172; Hinman 2004, pp. 124, 130, 170.
  25. Neill 2000, p. 46.
  26. Hinman 2004, p. 171; Kitts 2002, p. 15.
  27. Anon.(c) 1973, p. 68.
  28. Anon.(d) 1973, p. 68.
  29. Anon.(e) 1973, p. 35; Anon.(f) 1973, p. 36.
  30. Hinman 2004, pp. 170–171; Rogan 1998, p. 170.
  31. Rogan 1998, p. 170.
  32. Kitts 2008, p. 94; Hinman 2004, p. 171.
  33. Neill 2000, p. 49.
  34. Miller 2003, p. 145.
  35. Hasted 2011, p. 303.
  36. Hinman 2004, p. 171.
  37. Miller 1973, p. 56, quoted in Gunton 1982, pp. 94–95.
  38. Naha 1973, p. 52.
  39. Atkinson 1973, p. II-7.
  40. Emerson 1973, p. 59, quoted in Gunton 1982, p. 95.
  41. Cohen 1974, p. 46, quoted in Neill 2000, p. 48.
  42. Christgau 1981, p. 213.
  43. Larkin 2011.
  44. Catlin 1996, p. 391.
  45. Sheffield 2004, p. 458.
  46. Sheffield 2004, p. 460.
  47. Sheffield, Rob (20 June 2019). "The Kinks Album Guide". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 29 November 2021.
  48. Hinman 2004, pp. 119, 132, 170.
  49. Hinman 2004, p. 119.
  50. Smith 2011, p. 23.
  51. Hinman 2004, pp. 126, 129, 151, 170.
  52. Miller 2003, p. 121.
  53. Miller 2003, p. 124.
  54. Miller 2003, pp. 121, 122.
  55. Miller 2003, p. 123; Rogan 1998, p. 170.
  56. Anon.(e) 1973, p. 35.
  57. Anon.(f) 1973, p. 36.

Bibliography

Books

Liner notes

Magazine and newspaper articles

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