Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Kinks Available Now
This Pink and Green Reprise original MONO pressing is lively, balanced and vibrant, with a healthy dose of the Tubey Magical richness The Kinks’ recordings need in order to sound the way we want them to, which is less irritatingly bright, thin and harsh.
“Tired of Waiting For You” is the big hit here, and like most Kinks albums from back in the day, they put the hit at the end of the side, so you had better make sure whatever copy you find has not been played much or it will be full of inner groove distortion.
Inner Groove Distortion caused by the non-anti-skate-equipped turntables of the day is a chronic problem with rock and pop records from this era. We check all our records for Inner Groove Damage (IGD) as a matter of course when condition checking the surface quality of the vinyl.
The Poster Boy for Inner Groove Distortion is the song “Thank You” on this album from 1969. That record got played a lot back in the day, on the only turntables that we had available to us at the time, crappy ones.
My first “audiophile” table was the extremely plasticky Garrard 40B. I think I bought mine in 1973 and I probably paid about $69 for it. As I recall, this was their entry level model. If any table had been cheaper I would have bought it, which shows you what my starving-college-student budget must have been. Sounded just fine to me, though. What did I know about sound in 1973?
By 1976 I would have some of the best audiophile electronics in the world and the massive speakers you see below. That’s some head-spinning progress if you ask me. Once I had heard how good all my favorite albums were sounding, I got very motivated. This is key: For real progress to occur, the music must do the driving.