Kinda Kinks (1965)

The ever-amorphous state of mid-‘60s British Invasion LPs applies to the Kinks too. There are UK and US versions of Kinda Kinks, their second UK album, as well as at least two deluxe package editions that are equally close to essential. It seems likely, by the way their discography goes, that the Kinks were also bound like the Beatles and many others to an industry convention that frowned on releasing a single and then including it on the next album, whereas it was somehow OK to release singles from an album. Another significant factor is that EPs sold well in the UK but did not in the US. Because of these and other factors, and even though UK and US Kinks releases were identical as of late 1965 with The Kink Kontroversy, there are strange gaps all over their catalog. Songs like “All Day and All of the Night,” “Who’ll Be the Next in Line,” and “I’m Not Like Everybody Else” don’t have proper album homes now except on the CD deluxe package editions that started arriving in the ‘90s. In many ways the best version of Kinda Kinks is now found there. I know at least two on my streaming service, one of 53 minutes with 23 songs, and another of 80 minutes with 35 songs. I prefer the shorter one—many of the extra dozen on the 80-minute edition are redundancies, alternate versions, more b-sides (experiments that don’t always come off but usually have at least one interesting point), and/or are associated with live recordings and/or radio interviews (admittedly charming). Both playlists kick off with the 12 songs from the original UK release, which includes “Naggin’ Woman” and “Tired of Waiting for You,” neither of which are on the US version. It’s somewhat amazing when you consider “Tired” was one of their biggest hits in the US, #6 in early 1965. But that song instead wound up on a US-only release, Kinks-Size, where “All Day and All of the Night” also landed (admittedly a pretty good album!).

The nine songs on Kinda Kinks shared by the UK and US versions are as good as anything on the first album, notably in their lively jolting mode of ecstatic racket typified by “You Really Got Me.” With perspective, we can see it was rock ‘n’ roll transmogrifying into rock in front of our eyes and as early as 1964. But that’s not all the Kinks were up to. Elements of skiffle and music hall show up here as well and the songwriting is often ingenious, musical, distinct in style from song to song, and infectious. I may finally be tired after all these years of singing along with “Tired of Waiting for You,” but it remains an irresistible singalong even in my latter-day zombie variations. There’s more ecstatic racket in the cover of “Dancin’ in the Street,” which is exciting and surprisingly not that far off the Motown original by Martha & the Vandellas. Convincing tender exercises show up here as well, such as “Nothin' in the World Can Stop Me Worryin' 'Bout That Girl.” To cap it off, there’s “Something Better Beginning,” with its delicate baroque air and dense lyrical shadings: “Is this the start of another heart breaker / Or something better beginning / Something better beginning / Something better beginning.” I could do without the bawling “Naggin” Woman,” but even the stripped-down concentrated original UK 27-minute version of Kinda Kinks is quite enjoyable, standing up to close scrutiny and daily play, a pretty darned good album of itself. But there’s more, as they say on the late-nite shows, much much more.

What follows in the 23-song version (available on youtube here) is restoration of the non-UK tracks, starting with “Ev’rybody’s Gonna Be Happy,” which kicks off the US side 2 and would no doubt be a crowd-pleasing opener in live shows (cf., the Velvet Underground’s “We’re Gonna Have a Real Good Time Together”). Then “Who’ll Be the Next in Line,” a particular favorite of mine because it was on top 40 AM radio about the time I started listening to top 40 AM radio, a slightly scary song with a snarling, sneering singer and a sour message. It only made it to #34, but wow. I caught up with “You Really Got Me” and “All Day and All of the Night” on oldies weekends and was mad for all of it. Next, another non-UK restoration with another great singalong, “Set Me Free,” which reached #23 (and me) in summer 1965. I was inclined to complain about all the “little girl” use in this one, but then I remembered these were songs marketed specifically to teenagers. Next is “I Need You,” which was not a hit but I know it from somewhere because I can sing along with every word. The Kinks were good at these chanting appealing singalongs. After that we are more into b-side type of material. “See My Friends” feels like early rudimentary psychedelia. “Never Met a Girl Like You Before” (“girls like you are very hard to find”) raves off up-tempo skiffle. Another familiar Kinks song with no album home, “A Well Respected Man” (#13 in the US early in 1966), is also included. It was somewhat controversial for them at the time—some DJs and programmers complained because it departed so much from all the ecstatic racket that came of “You Really Got Me,” when really it was pointing the way ahead for the Kinks, who would follow with “Dedicated Follower of Fashion,” “Sunny Afternoon,” and “Waterloo Sunset.” More great singalongs in similar vein. This string of 10 songs on the CD package, while tailing off some toward the end, is an amazing annex to Kinda Kinks, arguably rivaling the original LP.

But they were still not done, as what follows and finishes off the 23-song package is what may well be my single favorite song by the Kinks, judging by how much I have played it in the past year or so since discovering it. I might still just be in the daze and flush of infatuation. Ray Davies’s 1965 demo of “I Go to Sleep” was intended for Peggy Lee’s ears only and not released publicly until 1998. It’s far and away the best version of this lush, ambiguous story of a missing lover, a tale on which almost anything may be projected (including Ray Davies’s own situation when he recorded it, waiting for news of his wife giving birth to their first). Peggy Lee went for it and recorded it and so did Cher, in 1965, and Chrissie Hynde (of course) on the second Pretenders album, and a handful maybe of others. But the cream is from Davies accompanying himself on piano and taking the song down to its essentials, where he makes it shine. You can practically feel it coming into being. It is abjectly beautiful to its core. What Davies can do on the piano in this recording may more accurately reflect what he can’t do, that is, his limitations as a player, but it’s all to the good. The trills turn out to be the right choice, and all you need, all anyone ever needed on this song are the two notes he plays after “I go to sleep (/ And imagine that you’re there with me).” The Kinks katalog is konfused by all the many different versions, but the Davies brothers and crew are so good they’re owners of an auspicious streak of great albums from 1964 to 1969 (or maybe 1970) that arguably rivals anyone in the business short of perhaps only Bob Dylan.