Face Kinks

Sony's 2016 Legacy edition of Everybody's in Show-Biz turns the 1972 double-LP into a double-CD set by mining the March 1972 Carnegie Hall recordings that provided the album with its live second disc. Thirteen of the 17 songs on the second CD come from these live tapes, the exceptions being the unreleased completed outtake "History" – a slightly dreamy, wry look back at the past that feels like a gateway to Preservation – the backing track to "Sophisticated Lady," and alternate mixes of "Supersonic Rocket Ship" and "Unreal Reality." These are nice footnotes, but the story lies in the live tracks, which offer more of the same from the original record.

The Kinks are an English rock band formed in Muswell Hill, North London, in 1964 by brothers Ray and Dave Davies. They are regarded as one of the most influential rock bands of the 1960s. The band emerged during the height of British rhythm and blues and Merseybeat, and were briefly part of the British Invasion of the United States until their touring ban in 1965 (as a result of constant fighting between the brothers). Their third single, the Ray Davies-penned "You Really Got Me", became an international hit, topping the charts in the United Kingdom and reaching the Top 10 in the United States…

Everybody's in Show-Biz is a double album with one record devoted to stories from the road and another devoted to songs from the road. It could be labeled "the drunkest album ever made," without a trace of hyperbole, since this is a charmingly loose, rowdy, silly record. It comes through strongest on the live record, of course, as it's filled with Ray Davies' notoriously campy vaudevellian routine (dig the impromptu "Banana Boat Song" that leads into "Skin & Bone," or the rollicking "Baby Face"). Still, the live record is just a bonus, no matter how fun it is, since the travelogue of the first record is where the heart of Everybody's in Show-Biz lies.

Released in late 1986, "Think Visual" is the first album the Kinks did for MCA Records. Arista Records seemingly sensed that the Kinks period of commercial renaissance was over following the dropoff in sales of 1984's "Word Of Mouth". Indeed, the sales dropoff continued with "Think Visual", but don't let that fool you. "Think Visual" is an engaging, spirited rock record that no Kinks fan should be without.

The Kinks’, Muswell Hillbillies and Everybody’s In Show-Biz – Everybody’s a Star released through BMG in celebration of the 50th Anniversary. It combines two of the Kinks’ classic 1970’s albums - Muswell Hillbillies, the album the band toured in America; and helped define them as a rock band in the U.S.. And Everybody’s In Show-Biz – Everybody’s a Star; the album that was written in reflection of the tour.

This box set delivers both a little more and a little less than it promises – though the packaging is so cryptic that it's difficult to say precisely what it does promise. Billed as The Pye Album Collection, it contains ten nicely packaged mini-LP sleeves (each with an appropriate inner sleeve to protect the CD – are you listening, Sony Classical, Rhino Handmade, and Hip-O Select?) representing the group's ten original albums for Pye Records.