A Well-Respected Band: The Kinks Prep “Essential,” A New Deluxe “Muswell” and “Anthology” Box Set

It’s going to be a Kink-sized autumn on both sides of the Atlantic. Legacy Recordings, newly-exclusive licensor of The Kinks’ 1971-1985 catalogue for North America, is kicking things off on October 14 with the release of The Essential Kinks, a 2-CD career-spanning retrospective of the group’s music for Pye/Reprise, RCA, Arista and Columbia. Then, on November 10, Legacy follows with a Legacy Edition CD/DVD set celebrating the band’s 1971 album Muswell Hillbillies. One week later on November 17, Sanctuary Records (BMG/InGrooves in the U.S.) has a 5-CD box set coming. The Anthology 1964-1971 has been curated by longtime Kinks historian Andrew Sandoval and includes roughly a full disc’s worth – 23 tracks – of previously unissued material. Finally, Legacy has already made available 16 Kinks albums as high-resolution digital downloads in North America via HDTracks, from Muswell Hillbillies through Return to Waterloo (1985) and Come Dancing with the Kinks (1986).

“I’ve never heard a Kinks song I didn’t like,” writes David Bowie in his new liner notes penned for The Essential Kinks. This truly stuffed package – with 48 songs on 2 CDs – begins with 1964’s U.K. chart-topper/U.S. Top 10 hit “You Really Got Me” and concludes with 1993’s “Phobia,” The Kinks’ final original single to date. In between, you’ll find most of The Kinks’ hits including “All Day and All of the Night,” “Tired of Waiting for You,” “Sunny Afternoon,” “Waterloo Sunset,” and “Come Dancing,” plus live renditions of “’Till the End of the Day,” “Where Have All the Good Times Gone” and “Lola.” (The group’s MCA period of 1986-1989 is the only label affiliation which is overlooked here.)

The Essential Kinks will be followed by a Legacy Edition of Muswell Hillbillies on November 10. The band’s ninth studio album, it was named after Muswell Hill, the area of North London that Ray Davies and his brother Dave once called home. Like The Kinks’ classic Village Green Preservation Society before it, Muswell concerned itself with themes relevant to British life, wryly addressing working-class conditions and the changes affecting the populace. A Deluxe Edition was released by Sanctuary and Universal in 2013, which presented the original album on its first disc and fourteen bonus cuts on its second disc.

The upcoming Legacy Edition retains eight of the thirteen bonus tracks on the 2013 Deluxe Edition, dropping three BBC radio performances from The John Peel Show (“Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues,” “Holiday” and “Skin and Bone”) and the 1976 remixes of “Muswell Hillbilly” and “20th Century Man.” It then adds a separate DVD with thirteen previously-unreleased performances: two songs from a January 1972 broadcast of The Old Grey Whistle Test and eleven from BBC’s Live at the Rainbow program from July 1972.

After the jump, we’ll explore The Kinks Anthology 1964-1971. Plus we have track listings and pre-order links for all titles!

Thank You, Friends: Omnivore Readies Live Big Star, Complete Works of Queen’s Roger Taylor

Omnivore Recordings is greeting autumn with projects from a couple of, well, big artists. By big, we mean perhaps the biggest cult band of all time – Big Star – and if that’s not big enough, how about the drummer from one of the biggest rock bands in the world? As in, Roger Taylor of Queen? On October 27, Omnivore will issue the first-ever retrospective of Taylor’s solo work in anticipation of the November 11 U.S. release of his complete, all-encompassing solo box set, The Lot. On November 4, the label brings fans the only professionally-filmed complete concert from Memphis’ favorite power-poppers with Big Star – Live in Memphis.

Live in Memphis continues the Big Star story with the premiere on DVD, CD, DD, and 2-LP vinyl (with download card) of the band’s performance of October 29, 1994. That evening, Alex Chilton, Jody Stephens, and Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow of The Posies ran through a packed set of Big Star classics and covers in front of an appreciative hometown audience. Filmed at the New Daisy Theatre, Live in Memphis includes Big Star favorites such as “Thank You Friends,” “September Gurls,” and “The Ballad of El Goodo,” plus the late Chris Bell’s “I Am The Cosmos,” and songs from T. Rex (“Baby Strange”), The Kinks (“Till the End of the Day”), Todd Rundgren (“Slut”) and even Antonio Carlos Jobim (“The Girl from Ipanema”). All told, the audio editions have 19 songs, and the DVD has 18, eliminating “Fire.”

Though the concert was billed as Big Star’s farewell, it was far from it – the band continued to tour together for another 16 years until Chilton’s untimely death in 2010. Big Star – Live in Memphis includes liner notes from filmmaker Danny Graflund, Ardent Studios’ producer John Fry, Jody Stephens, Jon Auer, and Ken Stringfellow in the CD, LP, and DVD packages. In addition, the first pressing of the LP will be pressed on colored vinyl, with standard black to follow. This once-in-a-lifetime chronicle of the one and only Big Star is due on November 4.

After the jump, Omnivore is going ga-ga with Queen’s Roger Taylor! Plus the full track listings and pre-order links for all titles!