The Scientific Method…..Meets Kiss (II)

by Keith in Album Reviews, Editorials, Reviews

This is the second blog in this series (of four), a quick-hit scientific breakdown of Kiss albums in search of what the best Kiss album is – ever! The last blog left off after the first album, which might be their best. It’s time to continue to make my way through Kiss records, some of which don’t share the same high level of quality as “Kiss”. Just remember, this is science!

Hotter Than Hell (1974)
A solid, but kind of inconsistent effort for their sophomore record. The high points to me are the dinosaur-riff songs “Watchin’ You”, “Parasite” and “Strange Ways”, but this record has its share of forgettable joints as well. This is good, but inferior to ‘Kiss’. Here’s where I have to stick to my scientific method and remember the question – what is the best Kiss record? If the question was to rank the Kiss records I’d have to spend a lot more time and thought on this, but I know it’s not the best Kiss record so we can move on.

Dressed to Kill (1975)

When you listen to all the Kiss albums in a row like this, this feels like even more of a puzzling evoltionary step than it was with a year to separate it from ‘Hotter than Hell’. While ‘Kiss’ had raw, fuzzed out guitars and Hotter than Hell had a noisier, more monster sound, the guitars here are kind of small in comparison. And, come to think of it, the drums are too. There are more average songs here than good or bad ones, to me the standouts are ‘Rock and Roll all Nite’, ‘Rock Bottom’ and probably my favorite Kiss song ever, ‘She’ (okay, there’s one song with the monster sound to it anyway). If I had to guess this would fall somewhere in the middle of the Kiss albums I’m listening to in terms of ranking, good but not great (yet not bad either). Before I go to the next album, I have to listen to ‘She’ again though.

Alive (1975)

Okay, so in 1975 if you were a Kiss fan you had three albums in your collection the day this came out. You went out and bought this, making it the fourth, and when you got home you listened to live versions of the songs you knew well from the three albums you’d heard over the past two years. Not bad, right? It catches Kiss in their best element – live shows – and by live album standards, it’s pretty good (I generally don’t like live albums). Two problems though: 1. I listened to ‘Kiss’ about two hours ago, ‘Hotter than Hell’ a little over an hour ago and ‘Dressed to Kill’ 40 minutes ago. I just heard these songs!
2. Live albums are essentially greatest hits records, unless the band is so insanely different live that the live record becomes a complement to the albums (think Parliament-Funkadelic or ‘Stop Making Sense’ by the Talking Heads with P-Funk connection Bernie Worrell playing keyboards through the set). What kind of dope puts a greatest hits record as the best album ever by a band? Not me. Next.

Destroyer (1976)

Now we’re getting into Kiss chugging along in their prime – this album and ‘Kiss’ show up on most fans’ number one spot in terms of Kiss albums. So now you know! And whoa! This record was chugging along, primed to give ‘Kiss’ a run for its money (Detroit Rock City, King of the Night Time World, God of Thunder)….until ‘Great Expectations’. Much like room 238 in the Shining – if you ever hear ‘Great Expectations’, run the hell away! Do you hear me? The album tries to save itself with ‘Beth’ and ‘Do You Love Me’, but a few average songs after ‘Great Expectations’ bring the album down. A few great songs, a few not-so-great definitely keep it from being a top Kiss album.

Rock and Roll Over (1976)

Going into this, I was thinking this record and their debut were the two records to watch out for in terms of being the best Kiss records ever due to its top-to-bottom consistency. From memory, I also really liked the energy of this record – where later albums by Kiss (and some songs on some earlier records) reeked of arrogance with songs like, well “Great Expectations”… this one seemed a little angrier and hungrier. Well, this is why memory isn’t always a good thing – this album (as a whole) is on the weaker side. The standout songs (”I want You”, “Makin Love” hold true to what I remember, but the album-filler type songs like “Mr. Speed” and “Baby Driver” disappoint. A Damn shame too, because this album cover is one of my favorites ever and damn near iconic (just ask Marilyn Manson).

Love Gun (1977)

Whew! I’m starting to get plenty saturated with Kiss about now. I think I’m going to need to take a little break after this one – another one of the peak era Kiss albums. On the bright side “I stole Your Love” is still a super-cool song, “Love Gun” holds up well too and “Christine Sixteen” was sampled by Tone Loc. On the surprise side, “Shock Me” is a typical ‘cool Ace Frehley song’ – it’s got a nice groove to it and in the flow of Kiss’s discography the Ace/Peter Criss sung songs really stand out, since they didn’t have lead vocal duties a whole lot – but perhaps I’m partial to Ace, since he was my favorite growing up (and I have the pics of me dressed up as Ace for Halloween when I was 7 to prove it). This is definitely one of the better Kiss albums. I mean, when you think about it the only way to really measure Kiss albums is how good the filler/album tracks are, you know? It gives good insight into how good the songwriting was at the time, if the ideas were brimming, etc. So by all those measures this is one of the strongest Kiss albums. But it isn’t the best.

Alive II (1977)

Okay, I will say this about Alive II – I like it more than Alive I. The few years of experience between the two records (and three albums) has made the band sharper, tighter, better at working crowds… this is definitely Kiss in the prime. Plus, the recording quality is good and the live versions aren’t just note-for-note replayings of the studio tracks, you know? And in addition, side 4 of the album is all studio songs and the studio songs are pretty good, from the spacey ‘Rocket Ride’ to the cooler-than-you-think ‘Larger Than Life’. This album is definitely up there near the top, worth considering at the end.

Paul Stanley (1978)

Oh, my. This is bad. How did I not remember this album being as bad as it is? I mean, I remember not liking it that much when it came out, but hey – I was seven. But now, as an adult? With all of the Kiss I’ve listened to so far? And waiting for these four albums to come out, and then getting this? Wow. It has a few decent moments (”Wouldn’t You Like to Know Me” and “Tonight You Belong to Me”, they seem the most Kiss-like, but I don’t even think they’re good enough to make their way to an album. Going off pure memory I think Ace’s album is the best, then Gene’s, then Peter’s and Paul’s are kind of disposable…. but I still didn’t expect it to be this bad. You don’t listen to albums like this – you survive them.

The experiment continues….. If I can just make it through the solo albums!