Kinks Greatest Hits CD on PRT (ugly pink/black cover)

MAN do I miss NYC. Although with the internet explosion St. Marks et al are not what they once were (I can't complain since I contribute to the downfall by shopping on line). What better way to spend a Saturday fall afternoon than wandering music store to music store around East/Grnch. Village, with maybe a few refreshment "pitstops" along the way.


Oh yeah - Nice find.

 

No the Gray UC wasn't remastered and I guess would be pretty difficult to find anyway.

The 2CD version is a completely different comp from a couple of years ago and spans the whole career (to its detriment IMHO). Different mastering. It seems that some people are very happy with it. I haven't heard it.

 

Got it - thanks. Apparently there are two "Ultimate Collections", which threw me off.

Can anyone say whether "ugly"/Complete/original Ultimate has the dry YRGM or echo abomination?

How about the "new" career spanning Ultimate? (which I'm pretty sure has a single-CD counterpart). I agree that that tries to tackle too much, especially since it skips over most of the 70's, if I recall, making for a jarring listen.

 

Thanks Steve. I thought maybe it was just good (non)mastering, despite the wrong choice of YRGM (which I thought may have been more pervasive than it actually is). Why ANY comp uses that destruction of the greatest (to me) rock song ever is beyond me and always pi$$e$ me off. It takes the otherwise great Fab Forty and Japanese Complete Singles collections down a number of notches.

Maybe one day we will get a complete Kinks 60's singles A and B side comp with the correct YRGM and good mastering. You'd think with all the remasters and compilations SOMEONE would get it right!

Come on Ray - we need them all in one spot, not as friggin' BONUS TRACKS!!

 

oops

sorry

 

That ugly pink cover CD is the first CD I ever owned. Got it with my first CD player back in the day.......unfortunately the disc suffered a major scrape which (until recently) rendered it unplayable on a few cuts, but somehow I was able to make a CDR dupe of it and - presto! The copy plays just fine! Amazing! I never bought too much more Kinks on CD after that - it's a great source for the popular tracks in mono.
-------- Chris

 

I have "bigged up" the Japanese Singles Collection in the past and despite using the echoey "You Really Got Me" it is still up there with the best sounding comps.

However, after purchasing the 3 disc Village green I compared the mono "Polly" on that set with the same track on the Essential "Something Else" CD, the 2CD PRT Japanese "Complete Singles Collection" and the 2CD PRT "The Kinks Are Well Respected Men" collection.

"Are Well Respected Men" won the shoot out. The Japanese "Singles" version came a close second, the new 3CD "Village Green" came a disappointing third and the Essential CD ended up in the dustbin....

Here are the waveforms that back up the impressions made using my ears (always the best tool ):

"The Kinks Are Well Respected Men" (PYC 7001):


"The Complete Singles Collection" (TECP-40882):


"The Village Green Preservation Society" (SMETD 102):


"Something Else" (ESM CD 480):




You may be wondering why the "Are Well Respected Men" version comes out above the "Singles" version despite the fact that the "Singles" version uses more of the available 16-bits without resorting to compression. It comes down to tonality - the "Are Well Respected Men" version sounds more like the original 7". The "Singles" version has too much bass for me and the impact of the cello line is lost as the bass takes centre stage. I guess this is a personal preference and I wouldn't say the "Singles" version sounds bad at all - it just doesn't deliver quite what I want for this track.

You may also be wondering why the Essential release comes last despite seeming to be less compressed than the new Village Green version. The answer lies in the fact that while compressed the new version avoids clipping. The Essential CD on the other hand clips all the way through making for the most unpleasant of listening experiences .

Here is an example of the clipping that occurs throughout the Essential "Polly":



Simon Heyworth has a lot to answer for.......

 

What label is it on?The pink cover G.H

Thanks,

Seth

 

Wow Malc - thanks a lot for that! And after I went and purchased the Japanese singles collection, no less! Kidding of course - the Japanese version is the only one with all the A and B sides (I hope), so I appreciate you alerting me to its existance, and I would have gotten it for the track list alone. Fab Forty doesn't have Dedicated Follower of Fashion for some reason, and Are Well Respected Men doesn't have Tired of Waiting, etc. Anyway it always feels good to get more Kinks (kind of left a void when I finally got all the songs!).

 

I think that "The Kinks Are Well Respected Men" (double CD set) has the best sounding mono for the Kinks. Of course, it only includes non-album titles.

The Complete Collection is notably duller and softer, approaching muddiness. On the other side, the "Ultimate Collection" (2002) is very loud, very upfront, accentuated bass and more aggressive. In some sense, "The Kinks Are Well-Respected Men" is exactly the middle ground between these two.

Three masterings, that use the same tapes (probably), no noise reduction, and yet sound so different.

 

Yes, correct. For me The Complete Collection pictured with the blue cover is more desirable than the pink comp because same mastering and more songs. Don't forget the long OOP PRT 2 CD Kinks are Well Respected Men comp which sounds good as well. That comp included many of the Kinks Kronikles tunes in better sound quality. Not easy to find that one though.

 

Thanks for the comparison between the comps - that is what I was looking for. Together with Malc's analysis, it looks like Are Well Respected Men is the winner on sound (although Malc has previously touted the Japanese set as excellent and the waveforms only consider one song), although as noted it does not contain singles that appeared on albums, so no YRGM, Tired of Waiting, Till the End of the Day, Where Have All the Good Times Gone, Waterloo Sunset, etc. Hmm... if it is correct that Complete uses the exact same mastering as "ugly" than that is relatively "muddy" as well and that is how the tapes sound [EDIT - confirmed by Steve (started post prior to Steve's reply)]. We all know that these tapes aren't the greatest anyway, so maybe there was actual thought to the mastering of Are Well Respected Men?? That would be surprising, but why else would it sound better?

AWRM is a great release - not many comps take into consideration what else is out there. For PRT to release a comp of all non-album singles and EP tracks to complement the albums shows unfortunately rare consideration of the needs of the fan. Too bad it is OOP. The only issue is, the brilliant concept of all non-album tracks is undermined by the fact that YRGM and Tired of Waiting are essential singles that were just stuck on the following (non-essential) albums.

This is why I got the Japanese Complete Singles comp. However, it has the notorious fake stereo YRGM atrocity, and I already have all the A+B sides except Dedicated Follwer together on Fab Forty, so I guess what I am babbling about is that the sole result of my aquiring the Japanese singles comp is that I have Tired of Waiting (not on Are Well Respected Men) and Dedicated Follower... (not on Fab Forty for some unknown reason) in one place (albiet hopefully with better sound than Fab Forty). Oh well - I can probably get rid of Fab Forty now. EDIT - Are Well Respected has EP tracks not on other comps except for Rhino's Kinks-Size Kinkdom. Everytime this comes up it is just infuriating to think that Steve had early Kinks tapes in his posession.

I haven't seen anyone comment on the sound quality of Fab Forty. Unfortunately it is still at my old (ex-gf's) apt., but I'll get it and compare it with the other comps and report back(unfortunately I don't have waveform analysis capability).

 

I still have mine!

 

It has a nice booklet too that someone put some thought into. There isn't a huge difference in sound between that blue comp and KAWRM, I have both. KAWRM does sound better on some tracks, but not anything to get too excited about (I'm still going to be buried with it!)

Here's the cover:
http://kinks.it.rit.edu/lyrics/comps/lrg-wellresp.jpg

1987 PRT PYC 7001 UK CD

Tracks:
Long Tall Sally
You Still Want Me
You Do Something To Me
It's All Right
All Day And All Of The Night
I Gotta Move
Louie Louie
I've Got That Feeling
I Gotta Go Now
Things Are Getting Better
Ev'rybody's Gonna Be Happy
Who'll Be The Next In Line
Set Me Free
I Need You
See My Friends
Never Met A Girl Like You
A Well Respected Man
Such A Shame
Wait Till The Summer Comes Along
Don't You Fret
Dedicated Follower Of Fashion
Sitting On My Sofa
I'm Not Like Everybody Else
Dead End Street
Big Black Smoke
Act Nice And Gentle
Autumn Almanac
Mr Pleasant
Wonder Boy
Pretty Polly
Days
She's Got Everything
Plastic Man
King Kong
Mindless Child Of Motherhood
This Man He Weeps Tonight
Berkeley Mews

 

Thanks. I do have it - got it a few months ago on ebay, but no booklet (seller did mention that but it is tough to get so I snagged it anyway). I was wondering how it compared to Complete Collection, "Ugly", and Japanese Compete Singles (thanks for the input).

 

Thanks for chiming in to this thread Steve. Which double do you mean - Kinks are Well Respected Men, or the 2-CD remastered Ultimate Collection that has been mentioned?

And, although it is probably masochistic on my part to know but I am VERY curious, which tapes would you have had for the aborted Kinks project? All the PRT/Pye singles A+B sides? Just the "common" ones ("Ugly" tracks)? Rhino Greatest Hits tracks? ...

 

Do you mean the level fluctuating? I always assumed this was on the master - it is the same on the Inglot/Perry mastered "Kinks-Size Kinkdom" (Rhino).

I suppose you could correct this in mastering but I wouldn't call it a flaw in the mastering if it is left as it is on the tape.

Is that the flaw you are referring to?

 

The drums are much louder here than on the Complete Collection, very distracting. Is that what you mean? And what is the cause for this?

 

"The Complete Singles" is still a great set to have. It sounds fine and contains all the A and B sides for their singles. There are plenty of tracks on "Singles" that aren't on "Are Well Respected Men" that can't be found sounding any better elsewhere.

I also have a soft spot for complete singles compilations with all the A and B sides - something they seem to be more into in Japan than elsewhere.

Trust me - you will love having the "Singles" comp .