The Kinks
Kinda Kinks

This Pink and Green Reprise original MONO pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records cannot even BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn't showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to "see" the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It's what vintage all analog recordings are known for -- this sound.

If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it -- not often, and certainly not always -- but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.

What The Best Sides Of Kinda Kinks Have To Offer Is Not Hard To Hear

• The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
• The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in 1965
• Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
• Natural tonality in the midrange -- with all the instruments having the correct timbre
• Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space

No doubt there's more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.

What We're Listening For On Kinda Kinks

Less grit -- smoother and sweeter sound, something that is not easy to come by on any vintage Kinks album.

A bigger presentation -- more size, more space, more room for all the instruments and voices to occupy. The bigger the speakers you have to play this record the better.

More bass and tighter bass. This is fundamentally a pure rock record. It needs weight down low to really rock the way The Kinks wanted it to.

Present, breathy vocals. A veiled midrange is the rule, not the exception.

Good top end extension to reproduce the harmonics of the instruments and details of the recording including the studio ambience.

Last but not least, balance. All the elements from top to bottom should be heard in harmony with each other. Take our word for it, assuming you haven't played a pile of these yourself, balance is not that easy to find.

Our best copies will have it though, of that there is no doubt.

Vinyl Condition

Mint Minus Minus is about as quiet as any vintage pressing will play, and since only the right vintage pressings have any hope of sounding good on this album, that will most often be the playing condition of the copies we sell. (The copies that are even a bit noisier get listed on the site are seriously reduced prices or traded back in to the local record stores we shop at.)

Those of you looking for quiet vinyl will have to settle for the sound of other pressings and Heavy Vinyl reissues, purchased elsewhere of course as we have no interest in selling records that don't have the vintage analog magic of these wonderful recordings.

If you want to make the trade-off between bad sound and quiet surfaces with whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing might be available, well, that's certainly your prerogative, but we can't imagine losing what's good about this music -- the size, the energy, the presence, the clarity, the weight -- just to hear it with less background noise.

Side One

• Look For Me Baby
• Got My Feet On The Ground
• Nothin' In The World Can Stop Me Worryin' 'Bout That Girl
• Naggin' Woman
• Wonder Where My Baby Is Tonight
• Tired Of Waiting For You

Side Two

• Dancing In The Street
• Don't Ever Change
• Come On Now
• So Long
• You Shouldn't Be Sad
• Something Better Beginning

AMG 4 1/2 Star Review

The Kinks' second album, Kinda Kinks, was rush-recorded on either side (and in the midst) of a world tour that took them all the way to Australia in the course of bridging the 1964-1965 New Year.

Under those circumstances, the fact that every cut but one was an original was no small tribute to the songwriting ability of Ray Davies, even if most of the songs were less than first-rate -- because what was first-rate was also highly memorable, and what wasn't also wasn't bad. In the space of two frantic late-December and mid-January sessions, and a brutal week in February of 1965, the group cut 11 songs to fill out a long-player that was already destined to contain "Tired of Waiting for You" (a product of the previous summer's work, held back by producer Shel Talmy for a single).

Also along for the ride were the latter's driving B-side "Come on Now" and "Something Better Beginning" (both cut in December 1964). So the resulting record was uneven but filled with promise, and possessed of at least three bright spots -- additionally, and equally important, this album showcased a much more sophisticated sound, Dave Davies' guitar turned down (and even switched to acoustic in a couple of spots) as Ray Daviesbegan exploring aspects of emotions and storytelling that transcended anything in the group's prior output -- "Nothin' in This World Can Stop Me Worryin' 'Bout That Girl" may have been a mouthful of a title, but it also put them right in the front of the British Invasion pack for seriousness and complexity, out in front of where the Beatles or almost any of the competition were in early 1965, but it didn't stop them from switching gears to the bluesy "Naggin' Woman."