The Journey - Pt.2

2023年に結成60周年を記念してリリースされ、昨年7月に第3弾のリリースで完結したThe Kinksのアンソロジー・シリーズ(3部作)、『The Journey』の第2弾のリイシュー!

アンソロジー・シリーズ第2弾を新品番・新POSで再発。バンド結成から苦楽を共に歩んできたRay Davies、Dave Davies、Mick Avoryが選曲したコンピレーション。1965年から1975年までのアルバム(『The Kink Kontroversy』から『The Kinks Present a Soap Opera』まで)の収録曲から選曲。感動的な「Till The End of The Day」、熱狂的な「David Watts」、太陽が降り注ぐヴァイブス「Sunny Afternoon」、そして反骨精神あふれるアンセム「20th Century Man」など、バンドの象徴的なヒット曲の数々、伝説の"New Victoria Suite"パフォーマンスから未発表ライヴ・トラック3曲(新リミックス)を収録。
■仕様:CD2枚組、6パネル・デジスリーヴ、リマスター音源
*予めご了承下さい:海外から取り寄せる輸入盤ですので、仕様が急遽変更となることもございます。

The Kinks continue their series of plus-size overview anthologies with 2023s The Journey, Pt. 2, in which the great band takes a look back at its career and the themes and ideas behind its songs. While this album is sequenced thematically rather than chronologically, for the most part its devoted to the period when their string of brilliant but commercially overlooked albums like 1967s Something Else by the Kinks and 1969s Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) was broken by the smash hit "Lola in 1970. After signing a new record deal with RCA, Ray Davies next occupied himself with overblown rock operas such as 1973s Preservation: Act 1, 1974s Preservation: Act 2, and 1974s The Kinks Present a Soap Opera, which derailed the momentum theyd gained. While there are plenty of great singles and superb album tracks included in The Journey, Pt. 2, most fans and critics regard the bands (or at least Ray Davies) fascination with unsubtle narrative pieces in the 70s as the nadir of their catalog, and its hard not to feel like Ray wanted to use this compilation as an opportunity to prompt a re-examination of those albums. This set cherry-picks most of the best songs from the two Preservation albums and Soap Opera, and while "Scrapheap City," "Money Talks," and "Where Are They Now" are better than most folks remember, their inclusion makes it obvious that they were written as part of a larger narrative, and their insistence on establishing ongoing characters weighs them down. That said, any album that includes "David Watts," "See My Friends," "A Well Respected Man," and of course "Lola," is going to be worth hearing, and the remastering makes the tracks sound as good as they deserve. A few relevant Dave Davies solo sides are also included (including "Susannahs Still Alive" and "Lincoln County"), and three previously unheard tracks from a 1975 concert show that the Kinks still knew how to deliver on-stage even if their albums of the period were lackluster. (The set also includes song-by-song notes from Ray Davies, Dave Davies, and Mick Avory, though they usually seem to be going out of their way not to reveal anything interesting.) A large portion of The Journey, Pt. 2 is dedicated to exploring a fallow period in the story of a truly great band, but the Kinks were truly great, and even their lesser material was smarter, more interesting, and more ambitious than what nearly all their peers were doing, and that is made clear on this album. ~ Mark Deming