Come Dancing With The Kinks

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Come Dancing With The Kinks album cover
Album Information
EDITOR'S PICK

Total Tracks: 18   Total Length: 77:53

eMusic Review 0

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Dan Epstein

eMusic Contributor

04.22.11
A Kinks-sized collection of Carter-era essentials from this truly classic rock band.
2004 | Label: KOCH Records / Entertainment One Distribution

When the Kinks signed with Arista Records in 1976, Ray Davies effectively abandoned the village greens of Britain for the basketball arenas of America. For the next decade, the band's theatrical concept albums took a back seat to sleek, radio-friendly slabs of mainstream rock that won the Kinks a new generation of Stateside fans, even as they alienated rock critics everywhere. While it lacked the timeless charm of the Kinks 'late-'60s work, their Arista period still produced some of Davies 'finest (and most underappreciated) songs, as evidenced by Come Dancing With the Kinks, a compilation of hits from 1977 to 1984.

Dated production values aside, "Full Moon," "Misfits," "A Rock N 'Roll Fantasy" and "Good Day" (in which Davies muses on romantic strife, nuclear holocaust and the death of actress Diana Dors) are among the most heartbreaking ballads in the Ray Davies canon. "Sleepwalker," "Destroyer" and "Do It Again" rock harder than anything the Who or the Stones released in the same era; ditto for "Father Christmas," possibly the angriest holiday song ever waxed. Throw in the glorious "Better Things," a live "Lola" and the disco goof "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman", and you've got a collection no true Kinks… read more »

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Later years Kinks

Neptuneman08

The era when Kinks ditched the concept albums and went back to their roots of rock and roll and quriky songwriting while fitting into the New Wave scene as the legends. Good overview of the last commerical tunes before going bland on MCA.

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Great Stuff

UglyDogFaceMan

Always very English, the kinks resurfaced in the 80's with some great music. Some have described it as stadium rock, but its not as commercially crass as most of the corporate rock from the same era. It has a sense of cleverness and humor consistant with the great Kinks music from the 60's. This is a solid collection. Add it to your collection.

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Clever Band

GoatFacedBoy

Great overview of a great band during it's second coming.

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coming of age

tctahoe99

Early Kinks was groundbreaking, but I came of age in the 70's. I've owned this collection on CD for quite a while and frankly, I never get tired of these truly classic cuts. I think this era of Kinks material is very underrated. There's a couple of tracks that I could probably do without, but as a whole, this album just keeps on rockin'. VERY SOLID.

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a few comments:

mabewa

This material is actually mostly from the mid 70's to the mid 80's, although it throws in a few live versions of earlier songs recorded in that time period. Yes, "Living On a Thin Line" is one of the best songs here, but it's actually a Dave Davies song. I also especially like "Come Dancing," "A Rock and Roll Fantasy" (mislabeled here as "A Rock And Roll Party" and the great "Father Christmas.") Overall, this period hasn't held up nearly as well as their brilliant mid-to-late-60's stuff, but this is still a good collection: solid, but not brilliant.

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the kinks amidst the 70's

juanyovece

From reviews, i've heard that past "muswell hillbillies" the kinks put out a lot of weak albums (with the exception of a couple), but this album apparantly gathers the best of a lot of material. Whether or not those 70's albums are as bad as the reviews would have one believe, the collection of songs here shine as probably some diamonds in the rough. All of this is strong Ray Davies songwriting, my favorite being "Living on a thin Line" (brilliantly used in a sopranos episode).

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this is music!!!!!!!!!!

hl.judd

This is music even though my mom listens to this stuff it have to good. If you don't rate this 5 stars you don't know what music is.

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Solid

smarandayal

Every track on this album is brilliant. Hence the title: solid.

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my favorite greatest hits album

ernie-c

what the heck, this doesn't have half the songs of the original! it is supposed to start with a live version of you really got me...

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The real thing...

001jeff

ALL of the Kinks releases on emusic are the real thing.

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They Say All Music Guide

Originally released as a double-album set in 1986, just after the Kinks had their last run at chart success, Come Dancing With the Kinks (The Best of the Kinks 1977-1986) does an excellent job of summarizing their stadium rock and AOR radio favorites on Arista. It leaves no single or radio favorite behind, while adding such terrific obscurities as “Long Distance” (originally only released as a bonus track on the State of Confusion cassette; the early ’80s were a completely different world than the late ’80s), the non-LP single “Father Christmas,” the wonderfully sentimental album track “Better Things” (a close, upbeat cousin to Dylan’s “Forever Young”), and the charming “Heart of Gold.” In addition to these, there are live takes of “You Really Got Me” and “Lola” taken from the fine One From the Road album. It winds up being a representative selection of the Kinks’ time as stadium warriors. They may have released some good albums during this period — and Misfits and Low Budget are close to great — but listeners looking for the bare essentials from this period will not be disappointed with this first-rate collection. [Three songs -- "Catch Me Now I'm Falling" plus the title tracks to Misfits and Sleepwalker -- were dropped from the CD reissue of Come Dancing in order to have it fit the running time of a late-'80s compact disc.] – Stephen Thomas Erlewine

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