KISS: The Songs 1974-2012

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by GodShifter, Feb 7, 2017.

  1. GodShifter

    GodShifter Forum Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Dallas, TX, USA
    Ah, makes sense. Thanks.

    You didn't misuse the term. I just didn't understand it until now.
     
  2. YardByrd

    YardByrd rock n roll citizen in a hip hop world

    Location:
    Europe
    If you think pre-chorus, turn-around or bridge can get confusing, try working in a foreign country where English isn't the native language! The term turn-around can especially get 'em confused! So, I've had to settle for "A-part," B-part" etc. to keep confusion to a minimum.
     
  3. ejluther

    ejluther Forum Resident

    Location:
    Newtown, CT
    Thanks! Not doing so is a failing on my part. And I'm not anti-digital files at all - I use ROON and have ripped FLAC files of all my CDs and play through a computer run through a Mytek DAC into my stereo. I just never got into listening to music with my iPad...old habits die hard, I guess...
     
  4. SizzleVonSizzleton

    SizzleVonSizzleton The Last Yeti

    I've never heard any of these songs, I'm just making (un???) educated guesses based on the titles.:shrug:

    ;)
     
  5. ejluther

    ejluther Forum Resident

    Location:
    Newtown, CT
    Here are the Love Gun ones but I never saw them in the wild, either:
    [​IMG]
    If there were official solo album belt buckles, I've never seen them...(unofficial ones are another story)
     
  6. RelayerNJ

    RelayerNJ Forum Resident

    Location:
    Whippany, NJ
    WTCS

    That's a pretty clever break before the guitar solo. Kiss always has a way of surprising me.
     
  7. Cheevyjames

    Cheevyjames Forum Resident

    Location:
    Graham, NC
    I do most of my replies on this thread at work so I don't have access to great equipment here. I usually use the yt videos GodShifter posts, but in the case where I know the music is more subtle or if the sound quality on the video is bad I plug in my headphones and use Spotify. Thankfully While the City Sleeps is a good song so I didn't mind listening to it multiple times.
     
  8. bartels76

    bartels76 Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    CT
    WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS

    I am conflicted with this song. I have always passed this off as a bad Gene song but I have slightly warmed to it the past couple of days. The only issue is now that I have paid more attention to the lyrics and realized how terrible they are. It’s just a bunch of metaphors strung together. Like a bunch of Deep Thoughts by Gene Simmons rather than Jack Handy...or maybe just a Fortune Cookie thought.

    "Burn your bridges, take what you can get
    it's all there in black and white
    through the eye of the needle, gotta thread your life
    It's a hit or miss, an eye for an eye, live for today, and don't ask why
    For better or worse, you bought and sold
    They love you while you're hot and leave you when you're cold"

    Gene’s vocals usually are consistent but he sounds a little strange here- “While the city sleeeeeps…”. The selling point to this song is the music itself. It’s a cool riff and everything is clicking here even Mark (and Mitch). As an instrumental it’s pretty good and the music is what is sticking in my head. But those lyrics are just awful. Another 5 minute jobber in between his acting lesson classes. This song sounds like a classic though compared to the next song on the album.
     
    Last edited: Jul 17, 2017
  9. RelayerNJ

    RelayerNJ Forum Resident

    Location:
    Whippany, NJ
    Enjoyed reading your Unmasked and other Kiss related posts in the past. An Unmasked scholar!
     
  10. Diamond Star Halo

    Diamond Star Halo Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vancouver
    While the City Sleeps -

    Not bad, but instantly forgettable. The chorus could be better, which is a shame, since it is repeated a billion times. This is the highlight of Side Two, which isn't saying much.
     
  11. Cheevyjames

    Cheevyjames Forum Resident

    Location:
    Graham, NC
    @dadonred pretty much nailed it. Prechoruses link the verses and choruses and are usually either exactly the same or have slight variations in the lyrics. Bridges are distinct sections (sometimes playing off the verses and choruses and sometimes are a big change) and normally come after the 2nd chorus and either lead into the guitar solo or back to a chorus. Bridges are more or less the "C" section in a song when a song goes ABABCAB or whatever. It's really interesting to me how much I love prechoruses and I know it's because I grew up listening to metal. For some strange reason a lot of metal songs feature prechoruses while other rock and pop doesn't. I'd be interested to know where the idea for pc's came from as far as rock bands go.
     
  12. Hamhead

    Hamhead The Bear From Delaware

    This is one of the pictures from the Perry Middle yearbook from 1976.

    [​IMG]

    Depp is in the middle, Tommy Campbell is on the left. This weird kid named Robert is on the right, he had a hole in his pants and pulled his tallywacker though it and walked down the hallway. He got in trouble.

    [​IMG]

    If they talked to Mr. Milard he would have said the opposite, he hated Depp since he used to interrupt class (as well as anyone else who disturbed him).
    I hope that's enough.
     
  13. npgchris

    npgchris Forum Resident

    WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS

    I listened to this last night, for the first time in years and years (and still more years), and didn't remember it at all. And, it was pretty much forgotten by the time I finished listening to it. Reading a bunch of positive opinions on this just now, seems to have influenced me a bit, as I liked it more listening to it again, but I still get on overwhelming sense that Gene was "half-ass"-ing this when he came up with it. (Actually, more like "quarter-ass"-ing it I guess, since apparently this is mostly the work of Mitch Weissman).

    Those lyrics are pretty hilarious. It's like Gene had a reference book with common sayings in it, and just randomly through a bunch together. Anyway, rhythmically this is somewhat interesting, and I agree that it would be better to just hear an instrumental version of this. It tells you all you need to know about this period in KISStory that a song like this ends up sounding pretty decent, simply based on the underwhelming, half-baked tunes surrounding it! This would have been a nothing, throwaway track on an earlier KISS album, but here, it's seen as one of the standout tracks by many. Sigh.... 6.5/10

    How embarrassing is it that Gene only plays bass on two songs on ANIMALIZE? Seriously? Oh, it's three? Either way, that is pathetic. Despite Paul's many flaws, he deserves a medal for carrying Gene's ass during this period of time. I can appreciate Gene allowing someone else to play bass on a song, especially if he feels like the other person has a better feel for the needs of that particular song. But here, he's obviously just checked out and is leaving the heavy lifting to others. I hope he was appreciative at the time to both Paul and Eric for them doing a lot of the work that he should have been doing.
     
  14. npgchris

    npgchris Forum Resident

    Thanks! Had I seen those in a store, it'd have been awfully hard to pass them by! :thumbsup:
     
    William Smart and ejluther like this.
  15. npgchris

    npgchris Forum Resident

    No, it's not enough, but I appreciate you sharing whatever you can. Honestly, I could probably read a few pages worth of stuff like this, especially since KISS plays a role in the story. Depp is actually one of the few actors in modern times that I give a s##t about (I know, that's my problem, not yours), and school anecdotes are often pretty funny, anyway. Great stuff, and please feel free to share as much as you wish. I'm sure a bunch of us will read it with interest.

    Oh, and 100 bonus points for the use of the term "tallywacker". It'd been a while since I'd heard that one! :tiphat:
     
  16. vamborules

    vamborules Forum Resident

    Location:
    CT
    For the last four or five songs I keep thinking okay maybe I'll wait til there's one I say more about than 'I hate this.'

    And uh...I'll keep you posted.
     
  17. npgchris

    npgchris Forum Resident

    We'll be here, standing by! :laugh:
     
  18. Exile On My Street

    Exile On My Street Senior Member

    Location:
    Long Island, NY
    While the City Sleeps



    This album is just a big empty nothing to me, riddled with cliché after cliché, uninteresting generic riffage, abominable lyrics..Maybe I just don't get the 80's metal..or more precisely, KISS in the 80's. Gene hasn't given us a song even worthy of "Charisma" in nearly 5 years. This is reaching, meandering, going through the motions rock music and the bar keeps getting lower and lower. Bland stuff.

    Oh and Gene? Yeah, thanks for showing up with your bass today. We're proud of you.
     
  19. MagneticNorthpaw

    MagneticNorthpaw Senior Member

    Location:
    Chicago, IL USA
    Actually, he was borrowing Paul's. ;)
     
  20. SammyJoe

    SammyJoe Up The Irons!

    Location:
    Finland
    "While The City Sleeps", just listened to this couple times and it's basically little nice, if not even ok song.
    Definitely better than I remembered, which isn't much as Animalize hasn't been on my rotation too much lately.
    Song starts with good intro and have to say that Genes sounds good on this one. I like the verses and the break between solo is clever.
    All in all, eventhough this might be little forgettable song, it's ok and I kinda like it.
    Maybe it's just too clear now reading comments, interviews and stuff how can now easily see that for example Gene didn't have top priority set on Kiss back then.
    I wonder what Kiss could have come up with if they only could have raised the bar higher and never reached the lowest points of the low in the 80's?

    Earlier as I mentioned that I quite haven't overplayed these later songs on the album, it's just that as this album was among the first I heard but it didn't stay on constant rotation as some other albums in their catalogue.
    Back then if I listened to this on lp or cassette, then it would just roll through all the songs, but I must have been distracted or paid attention to other stuff than some song playing from the album.
    I listened to this quite a lot back then, but it's just that these songs haven't actually managed to do that kind of a everlasting effect, which some of the more classic Kiss-songs have done.
    Anyways, it's just nice that this thread makes us listen to each album and song more carefully, then in the long run it's always nice revisit these "not too overplayed" songs.
     
  21. Diamond Star Halo

    Diamond Star Halo Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vancouver
    Anybody else have this nice little anthology?

     
  22. Exile On My Street

    Exile On My Street Senior Member

    Location:
    Long Island, NY
    Even better..hahahaha

    If Paul didn't love money more than his art he should have gone solo in '84 and gone back to writing songs the way he did in the '78-'80 KISS era. Let Gene figure out on his own what the hell he was doing. But Paul didn't want to go that route, probably too fearful of releasing any material not under the KISS moniker.
     
  23. npgchris

    npgchris Forum Resident

    I may get burned for saying this, for I haven't listened to ASYLUM in as many years as it has been for ANIMALIZE, but I'll state this to serve as encouragement for you to stick around (and also for @GodShifter, who seems to harbor wretched feelings for the next album). Though ASYLUM is no masterpiece, my memory tells me that it is a noticeable step up from the flotsam and jetsam that is ANIMALIZE.

    Looking at the track listing now, I see 4 tracks that I remember as good, two or three that I either can't remember, or barely remember, one stinker, and a couple that are "OK". Admittedly, these are semi-ancient memories, but I think the next album will be better than the one we're on now. Not that that's setting too high of a bar, however! :sigh: o_O
     
  24. Cheevyjames

    Cheevyjames Forum Resident

    Location:
    Graham, NC
    Of course! It's a classic.
     
  25. SizzleVonSizzleton

    SizzleVonSizzleton The Last Yeti

    Paul had some bad enough songs in the 1980's while only having to fill half an album each time. The idea of him having to come up with twice the amount of material for each record doesn't excite me.
     

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