The Kiss Studio Albums

[Thenop]

WIth the benefit of hindsight - is it fair to think that there's a sort of crisis in hard rock music, in the early '80s? Bands going more commercial and turning into parodies of themselves; maybe MTV had something to do with it.

Some of the British bands had a sort of weird musical chairs thing going on. Ian Gillan was in Black Sabbath at one point.

I think I had a sort of high water mark in 1983. I can remember going to see UFO, Diamond Head, MSG and Kiss that year.  Obviously Rush had morphed into something else entirely by that time. After that I don't think I ever had much of an interest in that sort of music. I stopped buying new records by the likes of Schenker, Budgie, Priest, Leppard and Motorhead, UFO split up, Zeppelin were long gone, etc. I did buy the Purple reunion record in late 1984 but it never had much of an appeal for me.

I still do like a lot of the stuff I liked up to then though. As I grew middle-aged I became a bit more open-minded about it. Certainly I still give old Budgie and Purple records a spin sometimes, for example.

There was a clear shift in popularity for rock bands from the UK and their place was taken by bands from the US. The US sales figures were unreal and real metal was coming up, culminating in mega sales in 85-88.
This meant a decline in sales elsewhere. You can only spend your money once. While in itself this has little to do with quality, it does explain the lack of good rock bands that started then. If there is no market, there is little interest in starting a band like that.

More on topic:
Kiss mainly survived during this period not because of the quality of the output, but because the popular bands at the time, cited Kiss as a major influence which kept sales up.

[Slim]

Gene Simmons in Runaway, filmed the same year that Animalize was made. I remember Barry Norman (well-known TV film reviewer of the time) talking about Gene's part, and saying that he looked evil.

[Thenop]

He was not half bad, as a baddie    He did a flick with Rutger Hauer, or national acting treasure (RIP) as well, Wanted: Dead or Alive.

[captainkurtz]

Heaven's on Fire as well, which was a bigger song than Lick It Up.
Not sure whether GGRnR to you was actually played, they use it as an outro tape after shows, kind of what Maiden does with Always look at the bright side of life.

Was played on the sonic boom tour, I'm sure.  I remember, because it's one of the only songs my wife knows by them...

[captainkurtz]

I loved Runaway.  I thought it was a great film, although I've not seen it since it was released.

I love The Blue Nile as well, but they're music is so heart breaking, I can't really listen to them much/often.

[Thenop]

Heaven's on Fire as well, which was a bigger song than Lick It Up.
Not sure whether GGRnR to you was actually played, they use it as an outro tape after shows, kind of what Maiden does with Always look at the bright side of life.

Was played on the sonic boom tour, I'm sure.  I remember, because it's one of the only songs my wife knows by them...

Must have blocked that, see the tour but drawing a blank.
Never liked the song.

[captainkurtz]

Heaven's on Fire as well, which was a bigger song than Lick It Up.
Not sure whether GGRnR to you was actually played, they use it as an outro tape after shows, kind of what Maiden does with Always look at the bright side of life.

Was played on the sonic boom tour, I'm sure.  I remember, because it's one of the only songs my wife knows by them...

Must have blocked that, see the tour but drawing a blank.
Never liked the song.

Just checked - was the penultimate song of the set before 'rock and roll all nite'

[Slim]

13: Asylum (September 1985)

I was expecting, pretty much, to be able to copy & paste my assessment of Animalize here but actually I think this one's a little bit different from its predecessor. In essence it's more of the same radio-friendly corporate poodle-hair rock product, but - it's a bit less metal and a bit more rock'n'roll. It doesn't have the dissonant riffs or the Schenkeresque lead guitar widdling, I guess those were probably a Mark St John artefact.

Bruce Kulick, younger brother of Bob Kulick who plays on Alive II is certainly a very sharp player, maybe a bit too shreddy for my liking but he uses the whammy bar a bit more sparingly than St John, which is a good thing.

I think the songwriting is a bit stronger here than on Animalize. And the performances feel a bit more sincere as well somehow, like they've put a bit of heart into it.

Again though there's nothing very distinctive or original. I did remember Tears are Falling, I'd heard that one somewhere before. Probably the best of the bunch. Out of curiosity I watched the video on YouTube. Best viewed on a black and white telly.

I quite liked Secretly Cruel. Any Way You Slice It has a riff that's reminiscent of All American Man.

Radar For Love is surely an intentional homage to Zep's Black Dog. It even has a "get your fill" reference. I wondered if it was inspired by Golden Earring's Radar Love, although musically and lyrically only the title is similar.

Well - for what it is it's not bad but it's not my cup of tea.

[Thenop]

Spot on, Tears are Falling is very good being the lead off single. I really like Kulicks solo here.
The lowest piont is the hideous Uh! All Night.

I do like the energetic opener and have an inexplicable liking for Secretly Cruel but thats where it ends. I played it many times back in the day but it never gets out anymore.

It was so much a Stanley album that he even took care of the cover art (not great).

They toured this one only the States.

Not much more to say here, just a bland album with too much filler.
Then again, I think between Animalize and Asylum, a decent album is to be had.

But do continue listening, we are nearing the bottom.

[captainkurtz]

It's a poor record and probably their lowest point image wise - and that's saying something...

Still, like Animalize, I loved it at the time..

[David L]

I quite liked Lick It Up. At this time Kiss were in crisis. The tour was a major disappointment for me, with only Simmons and Stanley present from the classic era. It was my first experience of seeing Kiss live and I struggled with Stanley's preening and prancing and Simmons' awkward stage craft which essentially consisted of the same moves he'd used as The Demon. However, the album was pretty strong and I played it a lot.
Animalize was harder to accept. Clearly they were trying to adapt to the current musical style (within the hard rock genre). A couple of the song were OK but they were no longer Kiss. At this point the image had become ridiculous. They had morphed into Twisted Sister. I did see the live show at Wembley but it was embarrassing. Each band member was adorned with random bits of leopard-print material to accentuate the album title. Total wank.
I did buy Asylum but that was even worse and that's were I checked out. They continued to chase the zeitgeist, hopping onto the grunge bandwagon with Revenge which was associated with an even more contrived image in keeping with the times.

Thankfully. by 1996 they decided to reunite with Ace and Peter and put the make up back on. I was lucky to catch that tour at the NEC. In my mind it was the first 'proper' Kiss gig I witnessed.

[Slim]

I have to say Paul's stage persona is just bizarre sometimes - actually I think he's an amazing front man in some ways. He makes Freddie Mercury look like Geddy Lee.

I heard a bootleg years ago in which he was telling the crowd some (obviously fake) anecdote about a "BIG-TITTED NURSE" who "pulled my zipper ALLLLL THE WAY DOWNNNNN", just so larger than life.

But he does go too far sometimes in my view. When I saw them he performed a solo guitar widdle for what seemed like half an hour. Vinnie had already done one and it wasn't bad though I could have done without it. But Paul was doing a sort of schoolboy finger tapping thing that most members of the audience who owned a guitar could probably have done just as well.

I laughed when I read that one of the reasons Vinnie got fired was that his guitar solo went on too long. Paul's had gone on too long after about 10 seconds.

Yes if I've paid to see Steve Vai or Eddie Van Halen or Adrian Belew I'll happily watch them improvising improbable solo guitar contortions for a few minutes. Not Paul Stanley. I hope he doesn't still do that.

Also that bizarre balletic dancing thing he does, sometimes with the jazz hands. And the clothes he was wearing in the '80s, and all those pointy guitars. Definitely a one-off.

[The Picnic Wasp]

I liked the Ibanez they sold in the 80s. Might have been called The Iceman. Stunning. I notice they still sell the same shape. I don't know if it was resurrected at some point but it's the only non standard, less than traditional shape that I would buy. Was it made for Paul originally? Very strange that the whole history of electric guitar shapes was covered so quickly. Strat, Tele, Les Paul, SG, Flying V. Never really rated the offsets, Firebird, Thunderbird types too much. Look a bit forced and unnatural and I believe they suffer from balance problems. In a physical, not musical sense. Quite like to own a PRS which I suppose is a Strat / Les Paul love child.

[Thenop]

They continued to chase the zeitgeist, hopping onto the grunge bandwagon with Revenge which was associated with an even more contrived image in keeping with the times.

That would be Carnival of Souls, Revenge was about as far away from grunge as possible.

But in general the 80s shows were a band that was surviving. Animalize sold well, but the rot had set in. In more ways then one. They had been struggling with management, they left Bill Aucion, had their business manager (Howard Marks) take care of things, although he was clueless and they ended at some point even up using Stanley's shrink to run their business. They had no one to turn to for guidance in a period that was alien to them. Yes they were trying to be part of the hairmetal surge but they were also a good 10 years older than all those bands. They were not druggies like most others and had a most difficult time positioning themselves. Past investments as advised by business managers collapsed and they were more or less broke. It is under these circumstances they were touring and they would record Crazy Nights. Not the things they like to discuss themselves of course, maybe not even widely known, but it's true.

The stage banter was simply Stanley having no clue how to behave. They had been a kids band at their peak, no curse words were used, but now that all bets were off, he could do what he wanted. The long Love Gun rap is the most famous (or infamous) on, indeed the doctors' office talk that is. And Simmons has repeatedly gone on record stating he was lost during this period.

I always think that had they brought back Aucoin, or Sean Delaney (an early day friend and advisor) they would have fared better. But I guess they had to go through this before they could look up again.

And yes: the Iceman has always been a Stanley favourite. Frehley has his signature Gibson, Thayer his signature Epiphone and Simmons has had countless signature basses, the Axe being the most famous one but the Punisher probably the meanest sounding.

[David L]

They continued to chase the zeitgeist, hopping onto the grunge bandwagon with Revenge which was associated with an even more contrived image in keeping with the times.

That would be Carnival of Souls, Revenge was about as far away from grunge as possible.

I've never heard either. I was thinking more of the image they adopted around that time (long, greasy hair, goatee beards and garage mechanic threads