Kinks Collection
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August 8^th 2005 Announcement
The Kinks Collection is Complete

I am pleased and relieved to announce that the Kinks Collection is complete. It has taken about 3 years of hobby time to collect every song on every studio album released by The Kinks from 1964 to 1994. The collection also includes the unpublished and alternate version "bonus tracks" released on many CD album reissues as well as miscellaneous singles, rarities and some bootlegs. Only bootlegs of reasonable fame and tolerable quality are included.

The 576 files occupying 1942KB of disk space have been carefully named and tagged and stored in 34 folders. There is one folder for each of the 31 kinks albums and 3 more for Singles, Bootlegs and Ray's album Storyteller. The files in the collection consist of 549 unique MP3 files and 27 shortcuts to represent duplicate files which appeared on previous albums. See theCollection List page for a formatted listing of all of the files in the collection in ascending year release sequence. Each album listed has a thumbnail album cover attached that can be clicked to popup an enlargement.

	The formatted Collection List sorted into ascending year sequence, grouped by album titles and singles for each year.
	A plain text Directory Listing of the collection files.
	A gallery of all Kinks Album Covers in the Nancy Street collection.

The most difficult parts of the collection process were at the beginning:compiling a discography, and at the end: finding the final rare tracks. Before the collection process started it was necessary to create a discography to identify the songs and albums that have been released by the Kinks in their 30 year career. The Kinks prolific output has resulted in several large and conflicting discographies to be published on the Internet, and only by carefully comparing them and getting advice from some Kinks experts was it possible to arrive at a satisfactory list to guide the collection process.

Slavko's Mini-Gallery

As the collection neared completion it became increasingly difficult to locate the last 30 or so rare tracks required for completion. it was starting to look like the collection would never be completed when miraculous help arrived in mid-2002 in the form of an email from Slavko in Belgrade in the former Yugoslavia. Slavko has a deep knowledge of The Kinks and seems to know some expert Kinks collectors. Over a period of a few years, Slavko identified and located the final rare tracks needed to complete the collection and sent them to Nancy Street via email and CDs in the post. Thanks to Slavko! ... With his permission, I have created a mini-gallery of pop-up images showing (clockwise) his home in New Belgrade, his Vonnegut collection, an old building in Zemun where his family lives, his Kinks collection and his PC (showing this web page on the screen).

Background

The Kinks in 1975 as Schoolboys in Disgrace

When I was young music student in the late 60s and early 70s I can remember songs by The Kinks being played on the radio, which is surprising, as they were often swamped by the other big name pop groups and singers of the time. I did notice that The Kinks kept producing records and minor hits, despite the various music fads that came and went. They seemed unfazed by the wildest swings in pop music taste, forging through them and always sounding fresh in new and surprising ways. I noticed they would sometimes incorporate contemporary music influences into their songs, and I was never quite sure when it was serious or just a clever parody.

Sometime around 1976 I was visiting a friend, and the song Lola was playing on his stereo. I had of course heard the song many times before, but this time I stopped and really listened for the first time to the structure of the song, the arrangement and the ambiguous lyrics. I think I said to my friend something like "Shit! That's a damn good song, a great pop song, and what does it all mean?". I casually decided to investigate The Kinks a bit further and hunted down a 2nd hand copy of Lola versus Powerman and The Moneygoround (it was hard to find), a new copy of Sleepwalker and an import copy of Everybody's in Show-biz. I was amazed how the song Lola takes on a whole new perspective when it is heard in the context of the full concept album. I wish more people knew how the hits Lola and Apeman are richer in meaning when taken in the context of the album. Gradually, over a period of a couple of years I became a fan of The Kinks and the songwriting of Ray Davies. I jokingly call Ray "The People's Poet" ^[1], as he seems to capture people, feelings and places with amazing fidelity in his songs.

Over the last 27 years I have purchased 18 LPs and 2 CDs by The Kinks. I also have the LPs titled Glamour and Dave Davies (self-titled) by Dave Davies. The Dave albums have not yet been digitised or added to the collection.

^[1] Taken from a Rick Mayall dream sequence in The Young Ones.

Cover Gallery

There used to be a gallery of Kinks album covers here, but it became so large and slow to load that it was moved to its own dedicated page. See: Kinks Album Covers Gallery.

Album Reviews

When I have more spare time I plan to compose some reviews of my favourite Kinks albums and songs and put them here. As I write this in May 2004 I can't find enough spare time to write reviews. In the meantime, see the web pages by George Starostin and Wilson and Alroy

Notes

	The Nancy Street Kinks collection is a personal project and will not be distributed haphazardly or made into bootlegs. If you're a serious Kinks fan and you find something rare in the collection that you want, send a message to Greg <> and explain your request. I will ignore requests for tracks that are readily available for retail purchase.
	This (virus free) Word Document acted as the scratch pad to help track the collection process. The contents are bit jumbled and long out-of-date now, but a copy remains here in case someone might the partial track lists, notes and lyrics useful.