Kinks-Size – THE KINKS****

Tired Of Waiting For You/Louie Louie/I’ve Got That Feeling/Revenge/I Gotta Move/Things Are Getting Better/I Gotta Go Now/I’m A Lover Not A Fighter/Come On Now/All Day & All Of The Night

British beat group The Kinks second US LP Kinks-Size includes the UK No. 1 Tired Of Waiting For You, and No. 2 All Day & All Of The Night, both of which made the US top ten. Ray Davies had yet to find his idiosyncratic song writing style. (US:13)

"Kinks-Size was released in March 1965 by Reprise in order to capitalize on the big hits, Tired Of Waiting For You and All Day & All Of The Night."

"This early album best represents the scorching sound of the early Kinks, appropriately ravaged by Shel Tamly's untrained production style with songwriting strong enough to bolster the genius of Ray Davies."

"Say it's early 1965, you're an American record company executive who's just seen two new singles by one of those British rock & roll bands on your label shoot up the charts, and there's no album to go with them; what do you do? Well, if your company was Reprise Records, then what you did was take five songs off of the band's recent British singles and EPs, two cuts that had been dropped from the US version of the group's debut album, and one off of their second UK LP, throw them and the two hits together, come up with a pretty cool name, and voila - you had Kinks Size." ,p> "What makes this record more enjoyable than the band's UK albums of the same era is that it was made up largely of singles, albeit many of them failed ones, but still an effort at luring in millions of listeners. The American label essentially distilled the best parts of the group's work in England, thus giving albums like Kinks Size a distinct advantage. From the raw, slurred Louie Louie to the pounding rave-up of Come On Now, this record rocks, showing off the better sides of the group's R & B output and early, formative, Beatles influenced experiments as well."

"This LP shows their first leap forward, style-wise. Whereas their debut was straight forward meat and potatoes rock 'n' roll, this album began to show a more developed level of songwriting both lyrically and instrumentally. A first taste of their mid to late sixties classic period is well represented here with many of the songs among my favourites by The Kinks."