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Post by kds on Oct 31, 2019 13:38:05 GMT
For the most part, I don't mind most classic bands' later half of the 80s more poppy material. I found that far better than when bands tried to get super serious after grunge got big (looking at you Motley Crue and Poison). That's one trend KISS thankfully avoided.
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Post by Kapitan on Oct 31, 2019 13:46:20 GMT
Absolutely! Pop at its core is about “popularity,” or in musical terms about being enjoyable, listenable, hooky. There’s no disconnect between that and heavier music. Not that all heavy music has to be poppy, too. But there’s nothing wrong with it.
I’d pick it over pure punk or hardcore or grunge 100% of the time.
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Post by kds on Oct 31, 2019 13:55:04 GMT
And while hard core fans might not agree, but I don't think there's that much of a leap from "Rock and Roll All Nite" and "Crazy Crazy Nights." Many so called "hair metal" bands cited 70s KISS as influences. As have several metal bands.
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Post by Kapitan on Oct 31, 2019 14:34:46 GMT
Definitely. You couldn’t listen to Poison, for example, and not hear KISS.
‘70s KISS is best described imo as “heavy (simplified) Beatles,” which is itself very poppy. The 80s just had a different style of pop.
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Post by kds on Oct 31, 2019 15:06:53 GMT
Definitely. You couldn’t listen to Poison, for example, and not hear KISS. ‘70s KISS is best described imo as “heavy (simplified) Beatles,” which is itself very poppy. The 80s just had a different style of pop. I think the poppy rock of the 80s was just a bit more glossy than that of the 60s and 70s, and maybe that's what so many people found so offensive about it.
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Post by Kapitan on Oct 31, 2019 15:13:47 GMT
I think that’s true, but I think that’s as much a product of technology as anything else.
Personally as long as the songs are good or the playing is good, I’m not especially bothered. Though I do prefer more natural instruments over programming and artificial sounds.
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Post by Kapitan on Oct 31, 2019 23:16:29 GMT
KISS Smashes, Thrashes & Hits (1988)
This is more greatest hits collection than proper KISS album and therefore won't get a full write-up: after all, Double Platinum didn't even get a mention ... but Killers did. ST&H has half the original songs of that compilation, though, with only two. Or two and a half.
As has been the case for most of the '80s material, the new songs are Paul Stanley's. The first single was "Let's Put the X in Sex," and if you like watching a guitarless Stanley awkwardly dancing to his best Robert Palmer-imitating Desmond Child co-write, then this is the song for you. The second, "(You Make Me) Rock Hard," is for you if you like watching a guitarless Stanley awkwardly dancing and trapezing through a Diane Warren co-write. If you like watching '80s rock-star moves (kicks, sneers, guitar poses) and video vixens, either of the two will do.
The half-new song is a new version of "Beth," with Eric Carr replacing Peter Criss's original vocal. It sounds very similar to the original. Carr doesn't have Criss's scratchy voice, but it's otherwise the same.
The album otherwise contained 12 songs, nine of which were from the makeup era, and several had been released more than once on previous greatest hits albums. But KISS was never a band to pass up an opportunity to resell the same material again. And again. And again.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Oct 31, 2019 23:44:46 GMT
Was it REALLY necessary to re-record "Beth"? (we need a rolling of the eyes emoticon!)
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Post by Kapitan on Oct 31, 2019 23:45:56 GMT
My guess is they really wanted a power ballad on the greatest hits album and that was the obvious choice ... and there was no way they were going to put Peter Criss's version on this record.
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Post by kds on Nov 1, 2019 13:23:56 GMT
Was it REALLY necessary to re-record "Beth"? (we need a rolling of the eyes emoticon!) It was the first time, but not the last time.
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 1, 2019 19:40:30 GMT
KISS Hot In the Shade (1989)It took an unprecedented two years after Crazy Nights for KISS to release its follow-up, Hot In the Shade. While the album was a moderate success and has some strong moments, it would be hard to argue it was worth the wait. There were rumors at the time that the band might be returning to its makeup. They turned out to be not entirely baseless … but mostly wrong. In reality, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley put on their makeup again for the video of “Rise to It,” the album’s third single. The song was a middling success, a mid tempo rocker that did at least feature audible vocals from both Stanley and Simmons after nearly a decade of albums that seemed to comprise an EP apiece from two separate bands. “Forever” was far and away the biggest hit on the album, and the group’s most successful single since another power ballad, “Beth,” which had been released 13 years prior. Sung by Stanley, “Forever” was co-written by Michael Bolton. (Guitarist Bruce Kulick knew Bolton from their time together in the late ‘70s band Blackjack.) The song topped out at #8 on the Billboard charts and #1 on MTV’s popular “Dial MTV” call-in program. The first single released from the album, “Hide Your Heart,” was another mid tempo rocker from Stanley with Desmond Child and Holly Knight. It was less successful than “Forever” but more so than “Rise to It,” reaching only #66 on the Billboard charts. Ironically, the song was actually released by former KISS guitarist Ace Frehley as part of his Trouble Walkin’ album four days before KISS released it. While not generally up to the level of their best—or even their better—work, the singles do stand out among the album’s surprisingly robust 15-song, nearly hour-long track list. Some of the rest are downright embarrassing, such as the Def Leppard-meets-rap Stanley song “Read My Body.” Also not above stealing, Simmons’s “Cadillac Dreams” opens Side Two with an obvious pilfer of Led Zeppelin’s “Good Times, Bad Times” riff. The song was co-written by longtime collaborator Vini Poncia, whose five credits on the album included work with both Simmons and Stanley. Making his lone appearance as a lead vocalist on an original song on a KISS album, drummer Eric Carr handles those duties on “Little Caesar,” which he co-wrote with Simmons and longtime KISS collaborator Adam Mitchell. He sounds like Gene Simmons Lite. Sadly, like “Read My Body,” it includes an embarrassing stab at something approaching rap. The song is often considered a highlight from the album, but one has to suspect that is as much an emotional reaction to Carr—who sadly died from cancer during the making of the band’s next album—as it is a reaction to the song itself. Along with Bolton, Child, Mitchell, and Poncia, the other notable cowriter is guitarist and producer Tommy Thayer. His previous band, Black ’n’ Blue, had been produced on two occasions by Simmons. He cowrote and demoed songs with Simmons for this album and was later hired to work for the band, culminating in performing as the Space Man character once the group returned to its makeup and fired Freely (again). The sound, the result of Stanley’s and Simmons’s production without outside help for the first time since Asylum, is mostly generic. While it was a bit heavier than its predecessor in terms of the guitar-to-synth ratio (and the closer, Simmons’s and Kulick’s “Boomerang” approaches true speed metal), it also includes drum machines and synth drums (reportedly to cut costs and speed production). For its flaws, Hot In the Shade was received warmly on the backs of heavy promotion and, as was the case with its predecessor, the fashion of the times. It went gold and cracked the Top 30 in the US, peaking at #29. It was similarly successful in Australia, Europe, and the UK. Time, however, has not been kind to the album. Its sound is neither here nor there, and outside of the singles, the songs simply aren’t memorable. It would be two and a half years before their next album.
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Post by kds on Nov 1, 2019 20:06:43 GMT
In the waning days of the 1980s, and the first couple years of the 90s, a hit power ballad pretty much guaranteed you a gold album at least. And Forever really is a top notch power ballad, even if its not distinctively KISS. Although that was the flaw of the formulaic power ballad of this time period. Some bands completely went against their sound to get a power ballad hit, and wound up as one hit wonders. Saigon Kick comes to mind.
Of course, KISS was too big of an established name to suffer such a fate. But, I do recall Forever cracking "Vh1's 40 Worst Metal Songs of All Time." That was an entertaining show, eventhough I liked at least 36 of the songs on the list including Forever.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Nov 1, 2019 20:07:44 GMT
I can't believe I never heard or saw "Forever" before. But it's pretty good. I like it.
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 1, 2019 20:14:29 GMT
But, I do recall Forever cracking "Vh1's 40 Worst Metal Songs of All Time." That was an entertaining show, eventhough I liked at least 36 of the songs on the list including Forever. Hilarious, considering their parent company MTV had it among the 50 best videos of 1990... Classic case of "I like it when it's popular; I don't when it's not."
I think it's a perfectly good song. It's formulaic, for sure. It could have been a hit by anyone, though ... making it not BAD, but making it A STANDARD. Let's remember, up until the mid-60s or so, that was the norm! A good song was recorded by not just the writers, but by everyone! I can imagine this as a synth-pop Duran Duran sort of thing, as a Michael Bolton or Celine Dion sort of thing, obviously as a hard rock power ballad, and so on.
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 1, 2019 20:15:30 GMT
Another thing: "Forever" does feature Stanley when he could really sing the hell out of a song. Those days are long gone now, but he was really belting them out in the late 80s. Crazy Nights has several of those vocals as well. (Try singing along with "Crazy Crazy Nights" sometime...)
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