Kinks Deep Cuts: B-sides, rarities, etc.

this is a cool bootleg:

https://www.discogs.com/release/15872751-The-Kinks-Glenhenry-Winners

What's the best bang for the buck CD versions of the first eight albums?

probably this one

https://www.discogs.com/release/2212710-The-Kinks-The-Pye-Album-Collection

the most definitive imo is this one, but it's expensive

https://www.discogs.com/master/2575784-The-Kinks-In-Mono

I'd go with the latter, the one produced by Andrew Sandoval. Sound-wise it's not great, but I think the cheaper option is more or less the late '90s mastering which was awful. Sandoval's has the best presentation so it gets the nod by default.

FWIW, the original PRT CD's from the '80s are surprisingly the best in terms of sound quality. They're reportedly straight transfers of the first-generation tapes with no added compression, noise/hiss reduction or questionable equalization. However they favor stereo, which is great in the case of Arthur but less so with the earlier albums.

This mastering was generally used for most '80s CD's outside of the U.S. (Reprise in the U.S. used the production copies in their vaults for their CD releases), so they're not rare. However, they did make some mistakes, and some pressings introduced a few new ones. Copied from elsewhere:

• The UK and WG PRT discs of the debut are different. The UK is superior. The WG has imbalanced EQ, the right channel is louder and bassier than the left.

• The UK Arthur (CDMP 8835) was mastered too loud and ended up with a lot of clipped peaks. That problem doesn't affect the WG disc.

• The Castle Classics series (catalog number starts with CLACD) basically duplicates the PRT masters, but with swapped channels on all stereo titles except Village Green. The debut is actually based on the superior UK PRT, not the inferior WG one.

• Both PRTs and the CLACD for Lola are missing the drum-roll intro to "Top Of The Pops". However, the WG and CLACD are also missing the count-in to "The Contenders", which is intact on the UK.

• I don't know if it was ever conclusively established whether the two alternate mixes of "Tin Soldier Man" and "Situation Vacant" on Something Else are vintage remixes or if they were done specifically for the CD. Either way, on the PRT/CLACD, those two songs are not the original album mixes.

• Apart from Kinda Kinks and Kontroversy, all of the albums are in stereo, while all of the compilations are in mono (bar "Victoria" and "Apeman").

Sandoval? The Monkees guy? Hmm.

Yup, that guy, but he worked for Rhino and produced a shit ton of stuff. He did all of the Band's reissues in the early '00s, Elvis Costello's two-disc reissues, etc.

(WG is West Germany)

The Band's obviously Capitol, not Rhino, but whatever, he still did them

sandoval also has a long-standing show on wfmu fwiw: https://wfmu.org/playlists/CZ

The Sanctuary single discs from the late '90s are worth picking up disc by disc. They all have fantastic bonus stuff and every title through Village Green was in mono. BMG also did a budget reissue of one of the early US cash-in albums, which picks up the essential stray tracks from that period not on those other early albums.

FWIW, Sandoval's deluxe two-disc issues of each album scoops up more or less all of the bonus stuff found on the Sanctuary discs (as well as other stuff they missed). The Sanctuary discs should be dirt cheap - don't pay more than a few bucks for them. I don't like him because I hate the way they were mastered, but if you're on a budget and need to save money, they're one way to go.