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I am so late to this damn party....


Jakeboy

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I have always hated Kiss. As a kid growing up in the 70s, I LOVED rock and roll and 70s pop. It was serious business to me. A new album dropping meant an album listening party after studying every single letter on the album cover and liner. Serious shit to me. It still is.

I hated kiss for one reason: the cartoonish make-up. So stupid. Saturday morning television-ish. It still pisses me off.

As a result, I never gave them a chance....nary a listen. Sure, Rock And Roll All Night was a worthy anthem and it remains the only Kiss song I have ever played onstage. In fact, I can rock the hell out of that song...but I digress. I did live Ace’s New York Groove when it cam out...but I never told anyone. I have always hated Kiss for making the music I love seem like a  buffoonish cartoon. They did that stupid-ass movie in the 70s at an amusement park. Did I say they pissed me off? All my friends dug Kiss. I refused to listen.

I own a Greatest Hits 2 cd collection. Never listened to it...except for the live version of RNR All Night. In fact, that’s why I bought it. To learn the song for a band I was in.

So...fast forward to now. After wading through the latest “Ariana Grande has surpassed the Beatles” dreck on the Telecaster forum and being a bit torqued about the current state of pop music, I went to my gym to work out.....as I slap my headset in and grab the ipos\d, I see Kiss come up in the Artists queue. Hmmmmmmmm.....  let’s check that out...at least they play guitars.

YOWZA! Strutter hit me between the eyes!  This shit is right up Jakeboy alley, 2 guitars through sweating tube amps, bass and drums...no crazy extensive overdubbing...I love it! Simple but-punch rock and roll with no apologies!

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I am like 45 years  late. Oh well, it is what it is. I did find that as I progressed through the Greatest hits catalog, I really liked the earlier stuff the best.

And what is up with the song Hard Luck Woman? We’re they on a Faces binge? Or Beggars Banquet?

i remember when I Was Made For Loving You  came out...Kiss went disco, so they said. Listening to it today, I hear Miss You era Stones what with the sus4 chords and Jagger-sequel vocals.

Anyway, what are the best Kiss early albums? Best live albums?

I still hate the make-up, blood, Fire, high heeled monster shoes , and stupidity...but the music I listened to today flat out rocked.

I may be turning into a fan of Kiss music. 

I feel kind of silly. But that’s ok. 

It’s only rock and roll.

But I like it.

Yes I do.

 

 

 

 

 

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Ace Frehley was one of the main reasons I picked up a guitar when I was 13, and their early stuff is still killer IMO.  The first album (self-titled) has Strutter and Deuce on it, as well as Firehouse.  One of the first songs I ever learned was Rock Bottom, and I think that's on the Hotter than Hell album (their 2nd record).  My first 2 concerts were KISS in '77 and '79 and I'll never forget them.  The KISS Alive double album is awesome, and Alive II ain't bad either.  Watch some of their early videos on YouTube and you'll see that they were the real deal, even if they got mocked for the makeup and costumes.  By my mid teens I'd discovered Cheap Trick and that love affair continues to this day, but early KISS is some bad-ass rock n roll if you ask me! 🤘

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Double platinum which is kind of a greatest hits album and Alive 1, 2, & 3 are all you need. Alive 3 was the first cd I ever got of theirs and it made “I was made for loving you” into a rock song. No more disco...

love them or hate them, KISS influenced rock forever. Take it in and use their music to further your own. 

That being said, I saw them live for the first time a year or two ago and left halfway thru cuz they were so bad. I felt I needed to see them before they died and paul’s vocal antics plus tommy Thayer doing Ace’s whole schtick live just turned me off...

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I hated KISS as a teenager in the 70's.  Early 70's.  I was into Black Sabbath,  Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd.  Not some stupid band in makeup.  Later I really liked many of their songs but at the time it was antithetic to my music.  Yea,  I was a dumbass kid.  

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1 hour ago, mathman said:

I hated KISS as a teenager in the 70's.  Early 70's.  I was into Black Sabbath,  Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd.  Not some stupid band in makeup.  Later I really liked many of their songs but at the time it was antithetic to my music.  Yea,  I was a dumbass kid.  

Exactly. I was heavily into Aerosmith, Stones, Zep, Foghat, Petty, etc. All the blues-based rockers. Purple. Cream. AC-DC. I kept Kiss of my radar. They were hugely popular and were seemingly everywhere at once doing everything.

This will be fun.

I have always hated prog-rock too...for different reasons...,and in a rare move, I just downloaded Rush’s debut album. Supposedly blues-based rock. Should also be up the Jakeboy alley.

i mean, I was the kid who hated 2112, Dark Side of the Moon, Animals, Yessongs, etc...,took me years to figure out why. I like my RNR rooted in the blues. Once I realized that, everything made sense. Except for Kiss. 

‘Now they do! I’ll start with the debut.

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Ace Frehley (and to some extent, Gene Simmons) was probably the reason I wanted to pick up a guitar as well.  At 10-12 years old, we were really into music, but KISS sparked the guitar thing at age 12.  I actually still like pretty much most of the stuff prior to "Unmasked", but find almost everything from "The Elder" on to be a bit of a yawn.

Some of their old stuff is a great mix of Beatles/WHO/Stones, and they even have some decent power pop tunes in there.  

I still think there aren't too many guitars more rock and roll looking than a PS-10.

 

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27 minutes ago, Jakeboy said:

 

I have always hated prog-rock too...for different reasons...,and in a rare move, I just downloaded Rush’s debut album. Supposedly blues-based rock. Should also be up the Jakeboy alley.

 

I know I’m in the minority on this and the charges of blasphemy will follow , but I’ll take Rush first album over anything else they did. Straight up hard rock. Nothing pretentious.  No mention of any trees in the Forrest or anyone named Tom Sawyer. As for what followed, I recognize the talent but not my thing. 

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11 hours ago, princeofdarkness56 said:

I know I’m in the minority on this and the charges of blasphemy will follow , but I’ll take Rush first album over anything else they did. Straight up hard rock. Nothing pretentious.  No mention of any trees in the Forrest or anyone named Tom Sawyer. As for what followed, I recognize the talent but not my thing. 

Not blasphèmes at all. I love the Fly By Night and 2112 albums too. They sort of lost me after Permanent Waves.

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Kiss, Hotter Than Hell, Dynasty, Creatures Of The Night, Lick It Up, Rock And Roll Over, Alive, Alive II, Ace and Paul solo albums.  Forget the disco talk about Dynasty - there are some good rocking tunes on that album.  Hotter Than Hell suffers a bit production-wise, but it's got some great deep cuts, especially from Ace Frehley.

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The first KISS Alive album. I wore out several copies. I remember hearing that flanger sound that begins one side, don't remember which, with the crowd cheering, being played on the TV commercial advertising the album. I had to have it. I think I paid $4.99 for it a Woolworth's. 

J22134000000000-00-500x500.jpg

And that cover was just bad-assed. 

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15 hours ago, princeofdarkness56 said:

I know I’m in the minority on this and the charges of blasphemy will follow , but I’ll take Rush first album over anything else they did. Straight up hard rock. Nothing pretentious.  No mention of any trees in the Forrest or anyone named Tom Sawyer. As for what followed, I recognize the talent but not my thing. 

I was never a Kiss fan, still not... I discovered Rush Fly by Night, Queen self titled , Nectar Down to Earth, Henry Gross plug me into Something pretty much all at the same time. All are still my favorites. Plug me into Something is Les Paul into a wide open Fender amp. Great playing and tones on all of those records!!! Kiss just didn’t have the musicianship or the tone to hold my attention... I’d get crap from my bandmates because I didn’t want to play Kiss hit’s. But I caved... and we’d rock n roll all night : )

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I agree with Steve, except for Ace's solo album. I remember being thoroughly disappointed in that one.

Strutter is as good a rock song as there is, but the live version is much better than the album cut.  That's pretty much true of all the songs in the iconic first two albums.  The production on those was questionable.  Almost as if they were trying to hold back and play everything at 3/4 speed.

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40 minutes ago, Ed Rechts said:

Listen to them back to back.

Oh, Hell no!

I'd rather put The Elder on shuffle/repeat for three hours.

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I'm the same.  I hated Kiss and refused to listen to them as a kid and I was exactly their target audience: teenage male in the mid- to late 70's.  I found one cassette of the two-cassette Double Platinum on a dirt bike trail and that was all I had for 20 years.  It was the one with Calling Dr. Love on it and I don't remember a single other song.  Years later someone played Ace's solo album for me which I liked and added to the collection, and I actually bought Creatures of the Night and Lick It Up when they were new because I heard them and liked the songs.  I still wouldn't go back and listen to the old stuff though.

About 12-15 years ago I had a major road trip to go on and the drummer in my band had ALL of their remastered catalog on CD so I took them with me and promised myself I would listen to everything, in order, not skipping a single song.  I made notes of the songs I could tolerate and made myself a compilation when I got home.  A few years after that, I borrowed them again and just recorded them two albums to a CD since they would fit.  That way, like them or not, I would have everything and when someone asked if I could play something by them I could go home and learn it.

I still think about half of their stuff is garbage, but I like way more of it now than I ever thought I would.  I don't think I'll ever call myself a fan though.  And I still like Creatures of the Night, Lick It Up, and Ace's solo album the best.

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As an elementary school kid taking a shine to rock-n-roll for the first time, I thought Kiss was the shiznit. I realize now I was reacting more to the special effects, pyrotechnics, makeup, and theatrics than the actual music.  As I grew into a preteen learning my first chords on guitar, I began to realize that the musicianship and harmonic qualities of their peers' efforts in the "hard rock"  genre was infinitely more interesting than the sludge rock riffs rendered by Messrs Klein, Eisen, and Frehley. In fact, even after buying my own copy of Alive, I began to realize that while some of the songs had a pretty nice groove, I still found them to be overly simplistic, plodding, and largely devoid of anything that really made me want to play guitar.  When the NWOBHM hit our shores and there were so many bands emerging from the ashes of the '70s with superb chops, top-notch production, and complex, yet melodic song structures, I bought a ton of cassettes and began building my own chops learning songs by Maiden, Priest, UFO, Scorpions, etc. To my 13-year-old self, Kiss just couldn't hang with those guys in any measurable way other than stage theatrics.

Having said all that, I'll peruse the Kiss catalog and look for some classic songs to revisit. Maybe it will rekindle an interest in them; maybe not. 

 

 

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