The Singles Collection

Retrospective The 22 tracks on Retrospective deftly chronicle the best years of the Animals, who were far and away the grittiest band in the British Invasion of the mid-1960s. Eric Burdon's magnificently raw vocals and the stabbing chords of Alan Price's Vox Continental organ gave their covers...	Greatest Hits, Vol. 1: 1964-1966 While the Yardbirds graduated three of the greatest guitarists in rock history--Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page--during their 1963-68 existence, the group's best work came during Beck's '65-'66 tenure, which produced nearly all their hit singles and virtually everything f...	The Zombies - Greatest Hits This Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD) recording offers high-resolution sound and is playable on both standard CD players and SACD-compatible devices.	The Lovin' Spoonful - Greatest Hits It sometimes feels as though the Lovin' Spoonful have been reduced to a footnote in the history of rock & roll. Yet few of their contemporaries could match the likes of "Daydream," "Summer in the City," and the transcendent "Do You Believe in Magic?"--a song that can still turn J...	Kinks (The Ultimate Collection) Arguably the finest and most expansive Kinks collection on the market! The first disc of this double-disc begins with their third single and first No. 1, the insistent 'You Really Got Me', then races through the glory years with the absurdly infectious likes of 'Sunny Afternoon',...
Hollies - Hollies Greatest Hits	The Who: The Ultimate Collection \N	Arthur - Or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire Written as the score for a never-aired BBC television drama, Arthur is the story of late-'60s English working-class exhaustion. Perhaps not the most attention-grabbing subject for a rock album, but in Ray Davies's hands it's rich in texture and stylistic possibility. From the rou...	The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society Sensing that the Beatles, Stones, and Who were radically transforming rock music by turning it literate and conceptual, Ray Davies decided the Kinks should be his vehicle to explore his unusual longing for a simpler time when the English empire was not in decline. A reliance on E...	The Byrds - Greatest Hits The 12-string electric guitar may never recover. As long as there are baby boomers roaming the earth, its airy jangle will signify psychedelic innocence and optimism refracted through the peculiar light of mid-'60s Los Angeles. With Roger McGuinn leading, the Byrds kicked off Ame...

Kinks must haves
Fills the holes in the Itunes collection. All are Kinks classics that one must have to satisfy a craving for the lads. Sunny Afternoon, Dedicated follower of Fashion, Well Respected Man, Waterloo Sunset (original version-not live!) & Victoria (also original studio & not live!) A true collectors item. Great quality remastered recordings. All cuts sound great! This collection of their oldies provides the rare as well as the big hits. It is the most complete collection that I've found.

Great way to get the songs you want . . .
Let's face it: The Kinks, like the Stones and the Who, were not the producers of the most consistent LP's when they were in their prime. Until Something Else, a typical Kinks LP had a couple of singles, a couple of B-sides, and may one or two other notable tracks and then the rest could be considered relative filler (whether it be songs aping earlier experiments by the Beatles or retreads of Kinks' formulas that had worked previously). With this collection, you can get great clean versions of their early singles without having to purchase four or five albums that you generally skip past half the songs on when listening to.

If you're only going to own one Kinks CD...
...this is it. All the great hits.

Great overview of the Kinks' tenure on Pye
"The Singles Collection" is a great survey of the Kinks' singles on Pye Records, including initial Beatles facsimiles (including awkward "woo!" falsetto), successful forays into hard rock ("You Really Got Me" has been called the first heavy metal song) and psychedelia ("See My Friends" showcases this little-known aspect of the band), and finally the quirky social commentary that they're probably best known for today ("Well Respected Man," "Dead End Street," and numerous other gems). This compilation covers the albums from the debut "Kinks" through "Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround Part One," but a substantial portion of these tracks were standalone singles. That means that this collection hardly tells the whole story-- in fact, important albums like "The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society" and "Arthur or The Decline and Fall of the British Empire" are barely represented at all. But it also makes this disc a valuable resource for excellent non-album tracks like "Set Me Free" and "Autumn Almanac" that can be hard to find elsewhere with such crisp sound quality. I recommend this compilation to Kinks newbies and hardcore fans alike, because it's both a competent primer on the band's first decade as well as a great source for some hard-to-find music. Just be sure you also pick up the albums, at least from "Face to Face" onward, to get the full picture of this indispensable band.

Best Kinks Collection
George Starostin could not give the Kinks a perfect 5 on his classic rock review site (a great site!: starling.rinet.ru/music) because the Kinks lacked a "perfect" album, where every song was incredible, not just good. Arthur came close for him, but not quite. However, I believe this is the "perfect" Kinks album, even though I prefer their released albums. This is not a greatest hits compilation, just a singles compilation, the equivalent to the Beatles' Past Masters. This album has all of their singles from '64 - '71 I believe, and every song is great! The Ultimate collection offers more, but if you're new to the Kinks, start with this colection that captures their golden years. If you love this, move to the albums. You should not be disappointed with this collection. Some beautiful stuff.