Kinks Great

Universal’s 2011 Deluxe Edition of the Kinks’ second album, Kinda Kinks, finds the 12-track album supported by a 23-track collection of non-LP cuts, including both sides of the “Everybody’s Gonna Be Happy,” “Set Me Free,” “See My Friends,” and “Never Met a Girl Like You Before” singles; the Kwyet Kinks EP, which includes “A Well Respected Man”; no less than six demos, many of which are unreleased Ray Davies originals (“I Go to Sleep” saw the light of day on a previous CD reissue); alternate takes of “See My Friends” and “Come on Now”; and BBC sessions including the songs “This Strange Effect” and “Hide and Seek,” which never popped up on a Kinks LP. Like the group’s debut, Kinda Kinks is slightly uneven - Davies is showing strides as a songwriter and the band is tightening, but there are some slow patches - but adding all the bonus material to the album has the effect of strengthening the overall experience…

Universal’s 2011 Deluxe Edition of the Kinks’ second album, Kinda Kinks, finds the 12-track album supported by a 23-track collection of non-LP cuts, including both sides of the “Everybody’s Gonna Be Happy,” “Set Me Free,” “See My Friends,” and “Never Met a Girl Like You Before” singles; the Kwyet Kinks EP, which includes “A Well Respected Man”; no less than six demos, many of which are unreleased Ray Davies originals (“I Go to Sleep” saw the light of day on a previous CD reissue); alternate takes of “See My Friends” and “Come on Now”; and BBC sessions including the songs “This Strange Effect” and “Hide and Seek,” which never popped up on a Kinks LP. Like the group’s debut, Kinda Kinks is slightly uneven - Davies is showing strides as a songwriter and the band is tightening, but there are some slow patches - but adding all the bonus material to the album has the effect of strengthening the overall experience…

The Kinks were one of the most influential bands of the British Invasion. Early singles "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night" were brutal, three-chord ravers that paved the way for punk and metal while inspiring peers like the Who. In the mid-'60s, frontman Ray Davies came into his own as a songwriter, developing a wry wit and an eye for social commentary that culminated in a pair of conceptual LPs, The Village Green Preservation Society and Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), that proved enormously influential over the years.

Definitely one of the more obscure official releases in The Kinks' discography, these days this EP is not talked about much when it comes to the band. Anyway, what we have here are late period Kinks and they not really doing anything too special. "Did Ya" is a great song and was a single they put out from this EP but it didn't really go anywhere. "Gotta Move" is a live version of a 64 Kinks song, "Days" is a re-recording of a Kinks song from 1968, "New World" and "Look Through Any Doorway" are new songs.