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rsmurphy wrote: Wed Aug 21, 2024 1:40 pm KISS songs have so many cool riffs but to my ears most of their albums are bogged down with filler. Must-haves are Destroyer, Rock and Roll Over, and Love Gun; but you can just pick-up Alive II and enjoy a double LP of front-to-back bangers. That tone arm ain't leaving the record until the run-off. Bet.

Right on except that I think that applies better to the first Alive; on Alive II, I actually prefer the Studio versions of most songs though the song selektion is (almost) perfect for the era you mentioned.
Also, I don't think the debut has too many fillers,the versions there just sounds so weak compared to Alive and since you get 7.5 of the 10 songs there (leaving only filler instrumental "Love the from Kiss", LAME cover "Kissin time' and power-poppy beginning of "let me know"-standout coda appears on Alive attached to the end of She I think), it's pretty pointless.

Otherwise, Hotter... has some sludgy standouts NOT on Alive like Goin blind and Strangeways but the remaining three are indeed fillers, Dressed to kill is mostly weak outside of the Alive songs and the production is razor-thin and trebly, Destroyer is frequently too Bob Ezrin overblown outside of the classics on Alive II and Rock'n'roll over is 40% filler, deep cut for me is MR Speed which is really cool., otherwise,Alive 2 covers it well.. Love Gun has Almost Human as a deep cut, otherwise, it's the songs on Alive III that works-stuff like Hooligan and Plaster Caster is really dull, Crystals cover is lame and Tomorrow and Tonight is... "suspect"...call it a guilty pleasure because it's awful but I like it in spite of itself...

tonyballzee wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2024 7:52 am Like I mentioned in my recent Elton John post, you kind of had to be there. A song called God Of Thunder sung by a man in spiky armor with a demon's face and a long pointy tongue who spit up blood and breathed fire while playing a bass guitar shaped like a bloody axe was absolutely MINDBLOWINGLY cool to a nine year old boy in the late 1970s.

This is a great point, and you can’t really fault man-children in 2024 building little shrines for their KISS action figures or whatnot when that band literally changed their lives in 1978.

In 78 I was still listening to John Denver and the Beatles and the Star Wars soundtrack and it would be a few years before I got into hard rock. Then punk ruined me for good.

But anyway, I think when music really gets its claws into you in adolescence, it can be this super important soundtrack to your life, and KISS is clearly one of those big cultural waves where if you look back on it only in hindsight it’s easy to think “what’s the big deal?”

jakethesnake wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2024 4:37 pm Right on except that I think that applies better to the first Alive

Quick story about Alive which I might have previously shared on the old forum.

My grandparents were religious folk, I was not. Grandfather was a pastor and my grandmother owned a religious bookstore. One year, I might've been 13 or 14, my grandfather invited me to go on a road trip with him to Denver to work a religious book convention. As we were approaching Colorado he pointed to the horizon and told me to keep watching because the Rocky Mountains were slowly coming into view. I was awed to the point that I started connecting the dots of being on a road trip with my preacherman grandfather on our way to a religious convention while a breathtaking panorama growing around me, and took it all as a sign from God. I told myself I was going to become born again and subsequently renounced rock music.

When we got back to Chicago after my grandfather paid me for helping I immediately went and stored all of my records in a closet, then went to kill some time at a mall. As I'm waking around I pass by a record store and noticed Alive just chillin in a bin. It was calling to me. I then renounced God and never looked back.

Thank goodness I didn't toss all of my records in the trash.

rsmurphy wrote: Sat Aug 24, 2024 1:41 am

jakethesnake wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2024 4:37 pm Right on except that I think that applies better to the first Alive

Quick story about Alive which I might have previously shared on the old forum.

My grandparents were religious folk, I was not. Grandfather was a pastor and my grandmother owned a religious bookstore. One year, I might've been 13 or 14, my grandfather invited me to go on a road trip with him to Denver to work a religious book convention. As we were approaching Colorado he pointed to the horizon and told me to keep watching because the Rocky Mountains were slowly coming into view. I was awed to the point that I started connecting the dots of being on a road trip with my preacherman grandfather on our way to a religious convention while a breathtaking panorama growing around me, and took it all as a sign from God. I told myself I was going to become born again and subsequently renounced rock music.

When we got back to Chicago after my grandfather paid me for helping I immediately went and stored all of my records in a closet, then went to kill some time at a mall. As I'm waking around I pass by a record store and noticed Alive just chillin in a bin. It was calling to me. I then renounced God and never looked back.

Thank goodness I didn't toss all of my records in the trash.

That's wonderful.

rsmurphy wrote: Sat Aug 24, 2024 1:41 am

jakethesnake wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2024 4:37 pm Right on except that I think that applies better to the first Alive

Quick story about Alive which I might have previously shared on the old forum.

My grandparents were religious folk, I was not. Grandfather was a pastor and my grandmother owned a religious bookstore. One year, I might've been 13 or 14, my grandfather invited me to go on a road trip with him to Denver to work a religious book convention. As we were approaching Colorado he pointed to the horizon and told me to keep watching because the Rocky Mountains were slowly coming into view. I was awed to the point that I started connecting the dots of being on a road trip with my preacherman grandfather on our way to a religious convention while a breathtaking panorama growing around me, and took it all as a sign from God. I told myself I was going to become born again and subsequently renounced rock music.

When we got back to Chicago after my grandfather paid me for helping I immediately went and stored all of my records in a closet, then went to kill some time at a mall. As I'm waking around I pass by a record store and noticed Alive just chillin in a bin. It was calling to me. I then renounced God and never looked back.

Thank goodness I didn't toss all of my records in the trash.

Wholesome

twelvepoint wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2024 4:44 pm

tonyballzee wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2024 7:52 am Like I mentioned in my recent Elton John post, you kind of had to be there. A song called God Of Thunder sung by a man in spiky armor with a demon's face and a long pointy tongue who spit up blood and breathed fire while playing a bass guitar shaped like a bloody axe was absolutely MINDBLOWINGLY cool to a nine year old boy in the late 1970s.

This is a great point, and you can’t really fault man-children in 2024 building little shrines for their KISS action figures or whatnot when that band literally changed their lives in 1978.

In 78 I was still listening to John Denver and the Beatles and the Star Wars soundtrack and it would be a few years before I got into hard rock. Then punk ruined me for good.

But anyway, I think when music really gets its claws into you in adolescence, it can be this super important soundtrack to your life, and KISS is clearly one of those big cultural waves where if you look back on it only in hindsight it’s easy to think “what’s the big deal?”

I don't consider myself a man-child and I'm not a nostalgic "good ol' days" person in general. I have no desire to relive my childhood or early adolescence. I judge art on whether it's relevant to my life today, not because it brings back warm fuzzies. I still listen to KISS (once in a while anyway) because a lot of the music continues to kick my ass.

And I've never owned a KISS action figure but I do have a giant Zippo lighter with their logo on it.

The manchild thing didn’t, I hope, come across as a personal criticism, Tony, and sorry if it was.

Basically I think if people liked something at some point in their lives, particularly during younger, impressionable years, there’s no reason to be ashamed of that as an adult, even if it’s kinda uncool.

I was born too late to have encountered KISS in their heyday, never seen them live, but I love 'em. First experience was with a dubbed cassette of Destroyer, so I can't even blame it on their image. I simply love a lot of dumb catchy 70s hard rock, and KISS until around '78 (Ace's solo LP included) scratch that itch. I dig some later songs here and there.

These days when I pull out some KISS to listen to, it's the debut (or the Ace '78 LP). I even love "Kissin' Time". It is perfectly stupid, like a fun bad b-movie.

Well now I feel like listening to Iron Maiden.

Cause I'm a... MAN-CHILD! do do do do do do do

What is the polar opposite of man-child rock? 10,000 Maniacs?