My Day With KISS

Last week I came to realize that I had very little exposure to hard rock legends/lunch box salesmen extraordinaire's, KISS. With the urging of a couple friends I spent a whole day of work listening to KISS on my work van stereo. The results were far from disastrous and while I won't say I came away with an appreciation of them as a band, I certainly didn't hate the time I spent with them either. Here are my (very brief) thoughts on a partial discography.

Kiss - 1974 

Kiss' self titled first album is a good collection of hard rock songs. "Strutter," "Nothing to Lose," "Firehouse," "Cold Gin," "Deuce" and "Black Diamond" are all good songs. There's a couple throwaways but I like it. 

Hotter Than Hell -1974

Hotter than Hell is pretty terrible. The production sucks and there were only 1 or 2 songs in the middle that I cared for. 

Dressed to Kill - 1975

Dressed to Kill is better than Hotter Than Hell but aside from "Rock 'N' Roll All Night" the songs are all really generic.

Alive! - 1975

This is where KISS became superstars and it's easy to see why. The live versions of most songs blow away the studio versions. If you only want to own one KISS album, this is it.

Destroyer - 1976

Destroyer is their first album that is pretty unfair to make a judgment on after one listen (though I heard it years ago and know at least half the songs). A lot more experimentation which probably isn't Kiss' strong suit but most of it worked pretty well. Will have to give it another go. 

Rock & Roll Over - 1976

Rock and Roll all Over is back to straight hard rock but aside from the 2 famous songs ("Dr. Love" and "Hard Luck Woman" and 1 or 2 more it's again pretty generic and unexciting hard rock.

Love Gun - 1977

Love Gun is definitely one of their better albums. The songs hooks are a lot better and more consistant. Could really live without the lame cover of "Then He Kissed Me."

Alive 2

Alive II isn't as great as Alive but it's still far better then most of their studio work. Again the live versions of songs are generally way better than the studio one's.

 Dynasty - 1979

After releasing the completely lame gimmick of four simultaneous solo albums (which I haven't listened to), KISS released this pile of shit. It's pretty terrible.

Unmasked - 1980

I made it through half of the first song before skipping this completely. I was pretty burnt out on KISS by now and that song was truly awful.

Creatures of the Night - 1982

Better than the last 2 (and one that I skipped, something Elder) but by no means anything I ever want to hear again.

Lick It Up

I'm not sure who was in the band besides Stanley and Simmons at this point but I do know they ditched the makeup. This one sounds a lot like straight hair metal so there's not much of chance that I will like it but it's not a horrible album.

FINAL THOUGHTS: I think KISS at their best is a good hard rock band with a great gimmick while at their worst listenable but highly generic dumb rock (at least in their prime, after the solo album mess most of this stuff is practically unlistenable).

If I ever see a copy of Alive 1 or 2 at a used record shop for under 5 bucks I won't hesitate to pick up a copy.