The Album by Album Challenge: KISS (Part II)

kiss logoWelcome to another “Album by Album Challenge.” For those that are new here, the “Album by Album Challenge” is where I take a band’s entire discography and listen to every album in order of release from front to back. With my unforgiving and well-aged ear, I call it how I hear it. In some cases, I find that what I once thought was good is actually pretty crappy and sometimes crap manages to age into something pretty kick ass. And in some cases, face melting is still just good ol’ face melting.

And we’re back with Part II the KISS Album by Album Challenge.  We are about to head into some murky waters also known as the 80’s KISS.  We made it though KISSCO and now we have see KISS try and maintain some relevance and the rapidly changing world of hard rock/metal.  Regardless of the pitfalls, misses, and flat out failures, KISS did manage to have some pretty shining moments of greatness here and there.

Sit back and let’s venture into the world of 80’s KISS and beyond.  Here we go…

 

 

 

 

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Kiss – Lick It Up
Release Date: September 18, 1983
The Good: Exciter, Not for the Innocent, Young & Wasted, All Hells Breaking Loose, A Million to One, Fits Like a Glove, Dance All Over Your Face,
The Bad:
The Indifferent: Lick It Up, Gimme More, On the 8th Day

This was a really fun album to listen to. This seems to be the album where KISS must’ve really seen a shift in the times and saw bands like Motley Crue, RATT, and Dokken slowly rising from the streets. They adopted a more sleazy/glam metal kind of sound and image for this album and they actually pulled it off really well. The songs sound more like what you expect from KISS and is probably closest to the classic sound that they forged. The songs on this album are really fun to listen to and even the indifferent songs are totally listenable. Some of the songs are flat out corny. “All Hells Breaking Loose” is hysterically awesome, “Dance All Over Your Face” has me wondering if the word “Dance” actually replaced some other word, and let’s not forget this gem: “On the 8th day God created rock n’ roll? Really Gene? There’s only 7 days in a week. You were a teacher. You should know this. Besides that the album really is a lot of fun and it’s an album that I could totally see revisiting.

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Kiss – Animalize
Release Date: September 13, 1984
The Good: I’ve Had Enough (Into the Fire), Heaven’s On Fire, Lonely is the Hunter, Thrills in the Night, While the City Sleeps,
The Bad:
The Indifferent: Burn Bitch Burn, Get All You Can Take, Murder in High Heels

So KISS picked up where Lick It Up left off. This album is pretty much an extension of Lick it Up and if I didn’t know better I’d even think that maybe these songs were all written around the same time. The album starts off really strong with “I’ve Had Enough” and “Heaven’s on Fire”. “Thrills in the Night” is another really cool song that I forget about a lot but after that it all just seems to be kind of meh. I mean, nothing about this album really stands out as spectacular and it’s not even as fun to listen to as Lick it Up was. I can see how this album was such a hit for them as it really found KISS looking and sounding very relevant for the times. These guys managed to ride the winds of change into the scene and managed to actually pull it off without looking or sounding like a bunch of old guys trying too hard.

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Kiss – Asylum
Release Date: September 16, 1985
The Good: King of the Mountain, Who Wants To Be Lonely, I’m Alive, Tears Are Falling, Uh All Night,
The Bad:
The Indifferent: Any Way You Slice It, Love’s A Deadly Weapon, Trial By Love, Secretly Cruel, Radar For Love,

First off can we just address the white elephant in the room? No I’m not talking about Gene’s groupies. I’m talking about that shit artwork of an album cover. I remember seeing this album at 12 years old and going, “Oh no. This looks like it’s going to suck.” Well, I wasn’t TOO far off as this album really didn’t flat out suck. While it didn’t suck there was an awful lot of forgettable material on this one. I am pretty much embarrassed to say that I liked “Who Wants to Be Lonely” and “Uh All Night” but man, they’re fun songs and its typical brain in the crotch KISS. “Tears are Falling” is a pretty great song as well but everything else just seems to fall flat. Matter of fact, a couple of songs went by and I totally forgot I was even listening to KISS. Asylum isn’t quite as shitty as I remembered it being but it’s definitely not a great album by a long shot.

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Kiss – Crazy Nights
Release Date: September 18, 1987
The Good: Crazy Crazy Nights, I’ll Fight Hell to Hold You, Come Hell or High Water, Reason to Live, Turn on the Night,
The Bad: Bang Bang You,
The Indifferent: My Way, When Your Walls Come Down, No No No, Good Girl Gone Bad, Thief in the Night

Kicking off with one of my favorite KISS songs “Crazy Crazy Nights”, Crazy Nights pretty much starts off really strong going into “I’ll Fight Hell to Hold You” but then things just get out of control from here. At this point in the game, KISS is looking around them and seeing what is selling huge at this time. Poison, Cinderella, Bon Jovi were all on top at this point and KISS wanted a piece of this. They hire songwriters Desmond Child and Dianne Warren to help them write the hits and even their gold and platinum writing implements couldn’t save them. As corny as they are, I love the singles from this album (Crazy Crazy Night, Reason to Live, Turn on the Night) as for the other songs, I’d have to say “NO NO NO.” Ha! See what I did there?“No No No”? Hell, I liked it better when it was called “Hot For Teacher” and Van Halen did it. C’mon guys. You didn’t even try and make that song sound like anything original. “Bang Bang You?” I’m sure Desmond Child loves his $0.35 royalty check from that piece of shit! Ugh. This is starting to look bad for the future. I may need a break before moving forward.

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Kiss – Hot in the Shade
Release Date: October 17, 1989
The Good: Rise to It, Betrayed, Hide Your Heart, King of Hearts, The Street Giveth And The Streat Taketh Away, Boomerang
The Bad: Read My Body, Forever, Cadillac Dreams, You Love Me To Hate You, Somewhere Between Heaven & Hell,
The Indifferent: Prisoner of Love, Silver Spoon, Little Caesar,

Wow. I’m surprised this album didn’t come with a roll of Charmin since it’s so fucking shitty. This album delivered five… FIVE songs that were good. The first three songs are so fucking good that it really hooks you and has you hoping for the best from there it just spirals out of control like someone just flushed the toilet on this big heaping turd. The songs that didn’t make the “good” list aren’t even listenable. I literally had to skip through them because they were that fucking terrible. “Cadillac Dreams” just may be the worst KISS song ever and “Little Caesar” proves that Eric Carr was only slightly better than Peter Criss in that his contribution made the “indifferent” list as opposed to the flat out suck list.

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Kiss – Revenge
Release Date: May 19, 1992
The Good: Unholy, God Gave Rock N’ Roll To You II, Domino, Thou Shall Not, Paralyzed, I Just Wanna,
The Bad: Every Time I Look At You, Carr Jam 1981
The Indifferent: Take it Off, Tough Love, Spit, Heart of Chrome,

I remember this being the KISS album I thought would be the most promising. Eric Carr had passed away and the band had recruited bad ass drummer Eric Singer. Unholy is probably one the single greatest KISS songs ever and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. The rest of the album failed to come close to touching the greateness of that song but it’s not a total loss. As corny as it is, I love “God Gave Rock N’ Roll To You II” (sorry Argent) and “Domino” is just classic, creeper Gene Simmons. I always thought that song was a kinda follow up to “Christine Sixteen” and “I Just Wanna” is fun, kitschy KISS. “Unholy” was really the bait for this album only to discover that it was full of “meh”, “not bad”, and “wow this flat out sucks.” Not much different than any other KISS album eh?

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Kiss – Carnival of Souls
Release Date: October 28, 1997
The Good: Hate,
The Bad: Master & Slave, Childhood’s End, I Will Be There, In My Head, Seduction of the Innocent, In The Mirror, I Walk Alone
The Indifferent: Rain, Jungle, It Never Goes Away, I Confess,

KISS’ never ending desire to try and stay on the cusp of changing trends within heavy metal experiences yet another monumental fail with this craptastic album. The first song “Hate” actually sounded like it could’ve been a great follow up on the heels of “Unholy” on Revenge but as this album progressed it was painfully obvious that this was a band that was trying way too fucking hard. “Rain” would’ve been a great Alice in Chains song but for KISS, not so much. There are a few songs on here that aren’t completely unlistenable but for the most part even KISS realized that this thing was just a big fucking “oops” in the diaper of hard rock and opted not to release it until the bootlegs surfaced and they figured they could at least make a buck or two off of this one. I’d be surprised if they even made enough money to cover the cost of having this coaster printed up. The album closing with a song sung by Bruce Kulick is absolutely hilarious. I wonder if this was what the guys used to get rid of him.

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Kiss – Psycho Circus
Release Date: September 22, 1998
The Good: Psycho Circus, I Pledge Allegiance to the State of Rock & Roll, Into the Void,
The Bad: We Are One, I Finally Found My Way,
The Indifferent: Within, You Wanted the Best, Raise Your Glasses, Dreamin’, Journey of 1,000 Years

Psycho Circus. The KISS reunion album that wasn’t really a reunion (Peter Criss only sang on two songs and played drums on one song). This album came close to capturing that classic KISS vibe but it was just close but no cigar. The title track is one of the best KISS songs in years and “Into the Void” pretty much proved that anything Ace Frehley does in KISS is fucking going to rule. The rest of the album was just full of “meh” and even the bad songs were better than most of the “indifferent” songs on previous albums. This album had KISS stepping into the right direction but sadly this would be the last we would ever hear of Ace on a KISS album. “Into the Void” is such a great song. It’s a shame he was such a loose cannon and that they just could never make things work between them.

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Kiss – Sonic Boom
Release Date: October 6, 2009
The Good: Modern Day Delilah, Russian Roulette, Never Enough, Danger Us, I’m An Animal, When Lightning Strikes, Say Yeah
The Bad:
The Indifferent: Yes I Know (Nobody’s Perfect), Stand, Hot and Cold, All For The Glory,

There must’ve been some magic in this line up because this feels like classic more than any line up since the classic line up. For Sonic Boom, Kiss sounds like KISS. They’re not trying to ride in on any trend or trying to be modernly relevant. They’re just playing their asses off and this album is so much fun to listen to. There really isn’t a bad song on this album and even the “indifferent” songs are still totally listenable. “Modern Day Delilah” is new classic KISS and is probably one of my new favorite KISS songs. “Never Enough” is a really fun song but c’mon guys, can you just TRY and hide the fact that you stole this song from Poison (Nothin’ But a Good Time)? “Danger Us” is one of Paul’s finest moments in years and “When Lightning Strikes” has Tommy Thayer doing a pretty good Ace Frehley with a kick ass song of his own. All in all, Sonic Boom is proof that when KISS just stops trying, they can actually do what’s natural and make a great hard rock album.

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Kiss – Monster
Release Date: October 9, 2012
The Good: Hell or Hallelujah, Wall of Sound, Back to the Stone Age, Shout Mercy, Long Way Down, The Devil is Me, Outta This World, All for the Love of Rock & Roll
The Bad:
The Indifferent: Freak, Eat Your Heart Out,

No outside writers, no failed attempts at trying to be trendy or hip and KISS puts out probably their best album in only God knows how long! This album was such a shock and a pleasant surprise for me. The songs are so strong and they are played with such a fire and energy that seemed to have been gone for so long. That fire that the band had for the first few albums flickered out only to return as a spark with Psycho Circus. The flame started to burn with Sonic Boom and with Monster it’s a full on fire that is showing no signs of going out. “Hell or Hallelujah” (much like Modern Day Delilah) sounds like new classic KISS and from there on the songs on Monster continue to encapsulate that magic and fun that KISS had in the very beginning. Just when I thought KISS was clear out of ideas and that their best creative days were behind them they come out with an album that completely blew my mind and reminded me just why I love KISS so fucking much to begin with. Monster lives up to its name and it also gives me hope that we haven’t seen the last of KISS for quite some time.

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