Kiss - Revenge

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

Ok I'm gonna have a rant on this album now. Firstly I will say don't get me wrong, I do love the album, but this rant is on why it's so overrated!

Why do 9 out of every 10 KISS fans say it's their big "comeback" or their best album since Creatures/Lick It Up era or even sometimes their best since the '70s along with Creatures? I don't understand...

Here is why I think they say it. Listening to the album, it has the most "classic KISS format" of all the non-makeup albums, and I think that is the only reason why. It is the first KISS album since then to have Paul & Gene trading lead vocals on songs, lots of Paul AND Gene songs, a rallying anthem (God Gave RnR) like a Shout It Out Loud or R&R All Nite, and a mix of lots of different types of Kiss songs, as I said the anthem, heavy evil Gene song, sleazy Paul songs, power ballad, etc. Also, not even ONE single during the non-makeup era until Revenge was sung or written by Gene Simmons, they were all Paul Stanley.

So I think that's why people consider Revenge as the big comeback album, but as I said it's only really the format of the album which is more classic KISS, because its a mix of all their different aspects of hard rock that they cover rather than being an '80s melodic hard rock album start to finish, but the quality of it isn't any better if you ask me.

Sure there are some fantastic songs on it: Unholy, Take It Off, Tough Love, God Gave Rock & Roll To You, Domino, Heart Of Chrome and I Just Wanna. But the rest of the album is pretty rank I think! Those other Gene Simmons songs are terrible, and even Paul's ballad on the album is crap compared to their old ones!

Compare that to an album like Crazy Nights, where out of 11 tracks, 10 of them are killers I think... and pretty much all the '80s non-makeup albums had a much better FLOW to them as well. They were consistent and worked well start to finish as whole albums because they all had the same vibe and didn't jump everywhere. Paul Stanley was undoubtedly at his best between 1983-1989 which I think even people who aren't into non-makeup KISS usually agree with, and considering that 70% of the material on those 83-89 albums was written & sung by Paul makes them pretty strong! Generally you'd still have 1 or 2 good Gene songs as well which only leaves a couple of filler tracks!

So while Revenge might have been a return to KISS showing the different sides of the band again, the quality of the album is a step down from Lick It Up, Animalize, Hot In The Shade and ESPECIALLY Asylum & Crazy Nights (their two best albums) if you ask me!

I do like Revenge alot as I said and I put it on alot, but when I do, I listen to the 5 or 6 songs I wanna hear and turn it off. With the other albums I'll just put it on start to finish and maybe only skip a track like No No No or Burn Bitch Burn or Cadillac Dreams or Love's A Deadly Weapon that sucks.

Rant over!

Just finished skipping my way through my fave songs on Revenge, now I'm gonna chuck on CRAZY NIGHTS! Oh and by the way, even the best songs on Revenge don't match up to Reason To Live, Turn On The Night and I'll Fight Hell To Hold You, and I also think Hell Or High Water is one of Gene's best ever songs (and so is Somewhere Bewteen Heaven & Hell off Hot In The Shade).

 

[Spruce Goose]

Kiss are funny

 

[Spruce Goose]

Whats the story behind the band name KISS? I have heard sleazy stories for how most bands got their names, but not kiss. Is there an actual meaning, or is it just a word that they liked and went with?

 

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

KISS are the greatest rock & roll band of all time.

Oh by the way, anybody out there who likes '80s KISS especially Asylum/Crazy Nights era has to check out the Crown Of Thorns debut. Very '80s KISS style, Jean Beauvior did co-write some great KISS songs with Paul in the '80s, and Paul co-wrote some material with Jean on this Crown Of Thorns album, they are a great team. And Jean's phrasing and the way he sings and his hooks are very Paul Stanley as well, awesome choruses too... it's a must for '80s KISS fans. Especially the demo track "The Rain" on the bonus CD co-written by Paul Stanley... probably the best song Paul or Jean ever wrote!!

I hope Jean Beauvior is involved in Paul's solo album. Paul's heart belongs in melodic hard rock and even since KISS started up until now he's songwriting style hasn't changed much... unlike Gene's who kept trying to stay current. Paul wrote KISS' melodic catchy sleazy songs with good choruses in the '70s, KISS was all about those style of Paul songs but even better in the '80s, and even on Psycho Circus the best songs were Paul's which were super-melodic hard rock songs like Dreamin', awesome song. Can't wait for his solo album... I have high hopes!

 

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

They were driving along in their car one day when they'd been thinking of band named and Paul Stanley just said as a joke "How about KISS hahaha!" and nobody laughed, they were like "You know, that's pretty good.." so they came up with a logo and the rest was history. I like the name because it's a word you use every day but then it suddenly gets associated with the band. Also, especially in the glitter rock & disco era of the mid 70s, it conjurs up one image of shiny silver outfits & glitter & stuff but then you see the band and it was all big black hair, studded black leather, Kabuki style makeup, fire, blood, explosions, smoke bombs, etc (in the early days, went a little more comic book style and glammy as they got bigger), and probably the heaviest music any American band was playing at the time.

 

[spawn]

I think Gene is a hack, out of the hundreds of songs he has written, about 5 have been good. Most of those having been written with others which makes me wonder how much of the actual writing he did. No Paul Stanley, no Kiss. Every other member is expendable. Gene is good on stage because of the fire breathing thing and the blood and all that, but Paul actually concentrated on the music (in between sex) while Gene made stupid business deals that always completely failed and took photos of groupies.

Dreamin stinks Trent I like Raise Your Glasses and I Pledge Alliegance To The State Of Rock And Roll the most from PC

(I almost won the Crown Of Thorns cd on ebay, but I forgot to bid, even though I had the fucking page up on my pc for the last 10 minutes of the auction )

 

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

I bought the 2 CD version off a friend for $15

Dreamin' is unreal, great hooks, great chorus, classic Stanley. Raise Your Glasses used to be It's My Life and was better as It's My Life but I like it, and I Pledge Allegiance is awesome (they played it on tour this year) and so is the title track. The 4 Paul Stanley songs, along with Within, are the only 5 tracks I like on that album.

I reckon the best Gene Simmons songs are:

Unholy (written mainly by Vinnie)
Not For The Innocent (written mainly by Vinnie)
War Machine (co-written with Bryan Adams haha!)
I Love It Loud (entirely written by Vinnie except the chant)
God Of Thunder (written by Paul)
Hell Or High Water
Calling Dr Love
Somewhere Between Heaven & Hell
Domino (which he admittedly "borrowed" from Nasty Nasty by Black N Blue)
Parasite (written by Ace)
Cold Gin (Written by Ace)

Not the best writer in the world... and other than those songs, its ALL about Paul Stanley with KISS. I know Paul co-wrote alot too but Paul every song he did still has such a signature Paul sound and nearly all of them are great so obviously he was the winning ingredient, and the co-writers just elevated them even further sometimes. Half of Gene's songs even written with great co-writers sucked!

Paul is the king!

 

[spawn]

Ill have to track down Its My Life then... Raise Your Glasses rocks!

He wrote the chant in I Love It Loud and he got a credit for that? Is he fucking kidding?

The only song Gene has ever written by himself that rocks is Domino, and now I find out he stole that!

 

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

Yeah I read an interview and Vinnie Vincent wrote the song I Love It Loud and Gene had the chant so they just sandwiched them together. So his contribution to that song was "Yeaaaaaaah... Yeaaaaaah!" Hahaha!

And yep... in 1986 Gene Simmons produced Black N Blue's album Nasty Nasty and the main riff in Domino which the whole song is built around is taken note-for-note from the title track of Nasty Nasty... which he's said himself. I spose Tommy can't complain since Gene has been paying him heaps since Black N Blue to work with KISS (ever since Hot In The Shade).

 

[spawn]

Oh man I cant BELIEVE what a hack he is

 

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

If you want even more reason to believe what a hack he is, how about this:

Paul Stanley played 90% of the bass parts on albums during the '80s, and Bruce Kulick played all the bass on Carnival Of Souls.

 

[Sydo]

Dreamin' is unreal, great hooks, great chorus, classic Stanley.

 

[spawn]

If you want even more reason to believe what a hack he is, how about this:

Paul Stanley played 90% of the bass parts on albums during the '80s, and Bruce Kulick played all the bass on Carnival Of Souls.

So basically, without Paul, Gene would just be a sleazy old sex crazed creep after women who detest him because he has no money...

 

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

Precisely

Though I do believe that Gene had alot to do with KISS' success in the early days, played all the bass on that obviously and wrote alot of the classic songs then. But it seems most of his MOST classic ones were Ace's or even Paul's that were given to him, and that after the band got big he just lost any interest in contributing to the band musically. Which turned out to be a good thing because it let Paul take charge and allow KISS to put out their best music ever in that era.

 

[The Amazer]

but Calling Dr. Love is SOOOO good!

 

[Connie Fixx]

as much as Gene hates 80s kiss he still says Creatures is 1 of there greatest albums they ever did

 

[Wrathchild]

Bruce played most of the rhythm guitar on Carnival of Souls too. I'm sure Gene would have played the bass parts of his songs on that album, but then again Bruce's bass playing often sounds quite a bit like Gene's (eg Love's A Slap In The Face).

"Why do 9 out of every 10 KISS fans say it's their big "comeback" or their best album since Creatures/Lick It Up era or even sometimes their best since the '70s along with Creatures? I don't understand..."

Because that was probably the only time in KISStory since Destroyer that the entire band was focused 100% on making the best album they could. And they did .

I like the 80s non makeup albums just as much as you, Trent. The only thing that lets them down for me is the over-slick production and typical 80s "hair band" sound. It dilutes the feel of vintage KISS and neuters some songs that should have been classics.

There was none of that on Revenge. That album was all about KISS proving themselves again and realising how great they could still be if they tried. Bob Ezrin really pushed them and helped them to deliver, just as he did in 76.

That's not to say it's perfect. Have you noticed that most of Paul's songs have similar arrangements? Four of them have got a slower singalong section in the middle that makes them hard to tell apart. Heart of Chrome and Tough Love sound almost identical to me, and the only thing that distinguishes I Just Wanna is the very cool riff .

My other problem is Vinnie's writing input at the expense of Mr Kulick's. Bruce should have been able to contribute more. Nothing against Vinnie because he's a great writer, but he wasn't in the band at that point and Bruce was, so why not make good use of him?

I'd just like to say how much I'm looking forward to Paul's solo album next year. It's about time the fans had some KISS related music they can be proud of again. Here's hoping Stan won't let us down.

W

 

[spawn]

Actually, I think Vinnie should have written more, at the risk of sending Trent into orgasms, he wrote some fucking GREAT Kiss songs, and I dont think Bruce was anywhere near as good judging by the songs he has writing credits on anyway.

Im worried Pauls album will be too weird, he has already said he doesnt want to make an album full of rock songs because then it would be like Kiss...

 

[BlindGuardianKill]

Im so over Kiss. Simmons and Stanley have done themselves no favours tainting their fans. They certainly had their time but now they just annoy me.

Vain much better than Kiss!

Black N Blue with Tommy Thayer makeupless better than Kiss!

Talisman better than Kiss!

Sad that a once such a legendary band can now grate on its own fans so much.

 

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

I'm crankin' "Move On It" now BGK Oh and I love Black N Blue but I prefer '80s KISS!

Wrathy I agree with some of that, but issues about over-production aside, the songs themselves apart from the few standouts are alot weaker than on the '80s albums I think. That was kinda what I was getting at with my rant. I know it was the most focused KISS album since the early days where they busted their balls to make a classic sounding great KISS album but I don't think it worked all that well because there is just way too much filler compared to the '80s albums which are more consistent. I'd rather have Paul doing his thing and putting together a rockin', melodic, catchy awesome '80s hard rock album than the band busting their balls to get a hack like Gene involved again at the expense of better songs, no matter how good the production or more vintage KISS vibe is.

Conan, I know but Gene also says that Crazy Nights is their worst album (actually 2nd worst after Unmasked) because it is "disposable pop". Funny because it is one of Paul's favourites and apparently the one he is most proud of... which he should be because it has the best production, the best songwriting, the most consistency, the best guitar playing, the best everything really.

I agree Spawny Three out of those 6 or so songs I mentioned on Revenge that are the good ones were Vinnie Vincent songs (Unholy, I Just Wanna, Heart Of Chrome) and then when you add to that I Still Love You, I Love It Loud, and the entire Lick It Up album... Bruce wrote a few great songs with KISS like Hell Or High Water and Tough Love but he didn't write many! He is a musician really, a hired gun guitarist, he is not a songwriter. Just compare his solo albums "Audio Dog" and "Transistor" to Vinnie Vincent Invasion. Bruce Kulick's albums sound like 2nd rate hard rock which people will buy because it's an ex-KISS member but wouldn't compare to the bigger bands. Vinnie Vincent Invasion charted, won diehard fans, two critically acclaimed metal albums, appealed to a far wider audience than just KISS fans, and spawned another chart-topping band out of it (Slaughter).