The music The Kinks put out in the 1960s that is covered by The Mono Collection was, arguably, the best music the band ever released. And while you might already have most - if not all - of the albums included in this box, you probably don't have these records. You probably have stereo versions of The Kinks music, or if you have mono versions they probably don't sound like this mono box.
A lot of people don't like mono recordings. I used to be one of them. My turnaround started with the Rolling Stones mono box, released in 2016, which did wonders to restore the sound of the Stones to the way they were intended to be heard. Then I got the Beatles and Ray Charles mono boxes and I was hooked. But be wary - not all mono box reissues are put together with as much attention to detail and love as this box clearly has been. There are a lot of lousy mono sets out there, but this definitely isn't one of them. And I'm not a mono elitist by any means; I only have maybe half a dozen mono boxes and a few stray records. It's all about how the music was meant to be heard - which is how I like to hear it - and whether it was done really well.
For the most part the mono records in my collection sound incredible, and unlike what a lot people think about mono there is a lot of spaciousness and depth in these recordings. I would go so far as to say they blow the stereo versions away. The Kinks The Mono Collection is a very well-designed package. The included LPs are Kinks, Kinda Kinks, The Kink Kontroversy, Face To Face, Something Else By The Kinks, The Kinks Live At Kelvin Hall, The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society, Arthur (Or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire) and the The Kinks (The Black Album), the 1970 double LP that is the only digitally-sourced record in this set. All the albums up to Arthur have been sourced from the original analogue Pye label masters and were compared to mint first pressings to ensure their accuracy. The Kinks (The Black Album) was personally compiled by Ray Davies from flat digital transfers of the original analogue masters. It sounds really good, and is not at all out of place in this set.
Ray Davies once said that with mono you hear everything, warts and all. And that's part of the beauty of listening to this set because it's all here. Absolutely everything is here.
There's also a 48-page hardcover book that features never before seen photos and interviews with the Davies brothers and Mick Avery.
One thing that separates The Kinks from a lot of the other music that was released at the time is that while just about everyone else was writing about altered states and drugs or screwing the establishment, Ray Davies - The Kinks songwriter - wrote more about traditional English life. There was no "counter" to Kinks culture. These are songs about a woman buying a hat like the one Princess Marina wore that she will wear to all her social affairs and also when she's cleaning the windows and scrubbing the stairs. Somewhere else, in a song called Drivin' on the Arthur LP, there's a reference to gooseberry tarts.
It made me want to brew a cup of tea.
If you don't have any Kinks in your record collection and want to fill the hole, this is how you should do it. There was a CD mono box a while back that now commands a tidy sum on on the secondary market, but this is better by far. There's no Lola or Superman here, but that was a different Kinks.
The music on this set is as brilliant and vital as it ever was, maybe even more so, and it's all here in a beautifully packaged and exquisitely pressed box, which absolutely is …
The music The Kinks put out in the 1960s that is covered by The Mono Collection was, arguably, the best music the band ever released. And while you might already have most - if not all - of the albums included in this box, you probably don't have these records. You probably have stereo versions of The Kinks music, or if you have mono versions they probably don't sound like this mono box.
A lot of people don't like mono recordings. I used to be one of them. My turnaround started with the Rolling Stones mono box, released in 2016, which did wonders to restore the sound of the Stones to the way they were intended to be heard. Then I got the Beatles and Ray Charles mono boxes and I was hooked. But be wary - not all mono box reissues are put together with as much attention to detail and love as this box clearly has been. There are a lot of lousy mono sets out there, but this definitely isn't one of them. And I'm not a mono elitist by any means; I only have maybe half a dozen mono boxes and a few stray records. It's all about how the music was meant to be heard - which is how I like to hear it - and whether it was done really well.
For the most part the mono records in my collection sound incredible, and unlike what a lot people think about mono there is a lot of spaciousness and depth in these recordings. I would go so far as to say they blow the stereo versions away. The Kinks The Mono Collection is a very well-designed package. The included LPs are Kinks, Kinda Kinks, The Kink Kontroversy, Face To Face, Something Else By The Kinks, The Kinks Live At Kelvin Hall, The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society, Arthur (Or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire) and the The Kinks (The Black Album), the 1970 double LP that is the only digitally-sourced record in this set. All the albums up to Arthur have been sourced from the original analogue Pye label masters and were compared to mint first pressings to ensure their accuracy. The Kinks (The Black Album) was personally compiled by Ray Davies from flat digital transfers of the original analogue masters. It sounds really good, and is not at all out of place in this set.
Ray Davies once said that with mono you hear everything, warts and all. And that's part of the beauty of listening to this set because it's all here. Absolutely everything is here.
There's also a 48-page hardcover book that features never before seen photos and interviews with the Davies brothers and Mick Avery.
One thing that separates The Kinks from a lot of the other music that was released at the time is that while just about everyone else was writing about altered states and drugs or screwing the establishment, Ray Davies - The Kinks songwriter - wrote more about traditional English life. There was no "counter" to Kinks culture. These are songs about a woman buying a hat like the one Princess Marina wore that she will wear to all her social affairs and also when she's cleaning the windows and scrubbing the stairs. Somewhere else, in a song called Drivin' on the Arthur LP, there's a reference to gooseberry tarts.
It made me want to brew a cup of tea.
If you don't have any Kinks in your record collection and want to fill the hole, this is how you should do it. There was a CD mono box a while back that now commands a tidy sum on on the secondary market, but this is better by far. There's no Lola or Superman here, but that was a different Kinks.
The music on this set is as brilliant and vital as it ever was, maybe even more so, and it's all here in a beautifully packaged and exquisitely pressed box, which absolutely is …
BONUS TRACK
Ray and Dave Davies are The Kinks. They are the youngest in a household of 10, and all the older kids were girls.
Ray was number seven. Dave was number eight. Kids that close together tend to be, well, close together. But there were issues that got in the way, even going back to before four school friends formed a band and became stars before they became men.
Ray had been gifted his first guitar by his sister Rene, who suddenly dropped dead later that same night.
Dave got his underage girlfriend pregnant when they were both 15. He never met his resulting daughter until he was in his mid-30s, as both sets of the young lovers' parents had conspired in the beginning to keep it a secret.
Ray and Dave would often physically fight, but they didn't always keep the violence between the two of them. In 1965 Dave started an onstage fight with the band's drummer, Mick Avory, who responded by knocking Dave out with a well-placed smack from a cymbal stand.
This sort of behaviour contributed to a four-year ban from playing in the U.S. right in the middle of the British Invasion, which resulted in the band being less successful than they could have been, which took many years to rectify, which in turn caused a lot of internal band tension.
In 1966 Ray had a nervous breakdown. Six years later he attempted suicide by popping pills during a show because he was upset his wife was leaving him.
Then, in New Orleans in 2004, Ray was shot in the leg during a robbery by a mugger. That same year Dave suffered a stroke that left him unable to play the guitar for a couple of years.
But there were always reunion rumours in the background, and a few years back there was speculation it might happen in 2020. Then the pandemic hit, and … I don't think it will ever actually happen. Pandemic or no pandemic, the brothers have attempted to get together previously but always ended up fighting or at odds with each other and nothing ever became of it. In 2015 Ray did make a surprise guest appearance at one of Dave’s solo shows. There's a video of the encounter somewhere on the Internet, in which nobody fights and the brothers seem to be enjoying each other. Then Ray leaves the stage and Dave thanks the crowd but doesn't say anything about what has just happened. But he did later tweet that he’d "had a blast."
And that's about as sure a thing as it gets with The Kinks, which is more than we've had previously. So fingers crossed!
Ray and Dave Davies are The Kinks. They are the youngest in a household of 10, and all the older kids were girls.
Ray was number seven. Dave was number eight. Kids that close together tend to be, well, close together. But there were issues that got in the way, even going back to before four school friends formed a band and became stars before they became men.
Ray had been gifted his first guitar by his sister Rene, who suddenly dropped dead later that same night.
Dave got his underage girlfriend pregnant when they were both 15. He never met his resulting daughter until he was in his mid-30s, as both sets of the young lovers' parents had conspired in the beginning to keep it a secret.
Ray and Dave would often physically fight, but they didn't always keep the violence between the two of them. In 1965 Dave started an onstage fight with the band's drummer, Mick Avory, who responded by knocking Dave out with a well-placed smack from a cymbal stand.
This sort of behaviour contributed to a four-year ban from playing in the U.S. right in the middle of the British Invasion, which resulted in the band being less successful than they could have been, which took many years to rectify, which in turn caused a lot of internal band tension.
In 1966 Ray had a nervous breakdown. Six years later he attempted suicide by popping pills during a show because he was upset his wife was leaving him.
Then, in New Orleans in 2004, Ray was shot in the leg during a robbery by a mugger. That same year Dave suffered a stroke that left him unable to play the guitar for a couple of years.
But there were always reunion rumours in the background, and a few years back there was speculation it might happen in 2020. Then the pandemic hit, and … I don't think it will ever actually happen. Pandemic or no pandemic, the brothers have attempted to get together previously but always ended up fighting or at odds with each other and nothing ever became of it. In 2015 Ray did make a surprise guest appearance at one of Dave’s solo shows. There's a video of the encounter somewhere on the Internet, in which nobody fights and the brothers seem to be enjoying each other. Then Ray leaves the stage and Dave thanks the crowd but doesn't say anything about what has just happened. But he did later tweet that he’d "had a blast."
And that's about as sure a thing as it gets with The Kinks, which is more than we've had previously. So fingers crossed!
