Kinks 2: Kinks-Size

This early on, the Kinks were more reliable on singles than albums. That was fine for their American record company, which followed in the practice of releasing more but shorter albums. Kinks-Size got its title from a British EP, included in full here, along with two of the leftover tracks from the first British LP and both sides of their last two singles.

Those singles included “All Day And All Of The Night” (an excellent rewrite of “You Really Got Me”) and the more sophisticated “Tired Of Waiting For You”, which tempers the chunky rhythm with excellent dynamics for the bridges. Together they form the backbone of an LP that dips and rises.

The first dip is “Louie Louie”—yes, that “Louie Louie”—taken at a slightly sluggish pace and not offering anything not on the Kingsmen version. “I’ve Got That Feeling” deserves better lyrics (and vocal) than its piano-driven backing track. “Revenge” is a brief instrumental that’s out of the way before “I Gotta Move”, a B-side with heavy use of 12-string acoustic. “Things Are Getting Better” is a hopeful title for another Bo Diddley pastiche, while “I Gotta Go Now” sports nice echo on the vocal, despite spending too much time making the point of the song clear. Dave’s lead vocal is restricted to “I’m A Lover Not A Fighter” and “Come On Now”, his voice that much better on the latter, which also includes Ray’s wife singing backup over an infectious riff.

The Kinks weren’t quite there yet, but they can’t be blamed for this one. Two decades later, Rhino acknowledged the hodgepodge origin of Kinks-Size by swapping some stray tracks for the LP, and adding some others from another American-only set for the CD, which took care of most of the balance of the tracks not on the first two British albums proper. Today they’re all included on the expanded versions of those.

The Kinks Kinks-Size (1965)—2½
Current CD equivalent: Kinks and Kinda Kinks