KISS Album Trilogy Discussion Thread

The only problem with that approach for myself is that KISS Alive tracks are a lot better than many of the studio recording tracks. Many of studio tracks from the Original Trilogy are not as dynamic as it's live renditions on KISS Alive.

 

Let's see...

The number of songs which I'd award a grade of at least 95 to from each trilogy...

Kiss / Hotter Than Hell / Dressed To Kill

Strutter 95
Nothin To Lose 95
Firehouse 95
Let Me Know 96
Kissin Time 96
100,000 Years 96
Black Diamond 95

Got To Choose 97
Parasite 95
Let Me Go, Rock n Roll 99
Mainline 95
Comin Home 96

Room Service 98
Rock Bottom 96
C'mon And Love Me 95
She 97
Love Her All I Can 96
Rock And Roll All Nite 97

* Doncha Hesitate 98

Destroyer / Rock And Roll Over / Love Gun

King Of The Nighttime World 97
God Of Thunder 95
Great Expectations 97
Shout It Out Loud 95
Beth 96
Do You Love Me 98

I Want You 97
Take Me 98
Calling Dr. Love 96
Love Em And Leave Em 95
Mr. Speed 95
Hard Luck Woman 99
Makin Love 98

I Stole Your Love 97
Christine Sixteen 97
Got Love For Sale 99
Shock Me 95
Tomorrow And Tonight 98
Almost Human 95
Plaster Caster 96
Then She Kissed Me 97

* Love Is Blind 96

Gene Simmons / Paul Stanley / Ace Frehley / Peter Criss

Radioactive 95
See You Tonite 97
True Confessions 95
Living In Sin 96
Mr. Make Believe 97
See You In Your Dreams 96
When You Wish Upon A Star 98

Tonight You Belong To Me 97
Move On 96
Ain't Quite Right 95
Take Me Away (Together As One) 97
Hold Me, Touch Me (Think Of Me When We're Apart) 98
Goodbye 97

Speedin Back To My Baby 97
Snow Blind 96
What's On Your Mind? 97
New York Groove 95
Wiped-Out 97

I'm Gonna Love You 95
You Matter To Me 97
Easy Thing 95
Rock Me Baby 96
Kiss The Girl Goodbye 98
I Can't Stop The Rain 96

Dynasty / Unmasked / The Elder

I Was Made For Lovin You 97
2000 Man 95
Sure Know Something 99
Charisma 96
Magic Touch 97

Is That You? 96
Shandi 98
What Makes The World Go Round 95
Tomorrow 98
She's So European 95
Easy As It Seems 95
Torpedo Girl 96

Odyssey 96
A World Without Heroes 97
The Oath 95
Escape From The Island 95
I 96

* Nowhere To Run 96
* I'm A Legend Tonight 95

Creatures Of The Night / Lick It Up / Animalize

Creatures Of The Night 96
Saint And Sinner 95
Keep Me Comin 96
Danger 95
I Love It Loud 98
I Still Love You 96

Exciter 97
Gimme More 95
A Million To One 96

Into The Fire 95
Heaven's On Fire 95
Thrills In The Night 97
Murder In High Heels 95

Asylum / Crazy Nights / Hot In The Shade

Any Way You Slice It 98
Who Wants To Be Lonely 96
I'm Alive 97
Love's A Deadly Weapon 97
Tears Are Falling 97
Radar For Love 95
Uh! All Night 96

Crazy Nights 95
Bang Bang You 95
No, No, No 95
Reason To Live 95
Turn On The Night 95

Rise To It 97
Forever 99
Cadillac Dreams 95
Somewhere Between Heaven And Hell 95

Revenge / Carnival Of Souls / Psycho Circus

I Just Wanna 96
Domino 96
Everytime I Look At You 97

So the final results? I took the liberty of "making up" a solo albums "trilogy". They are far too essential to skip over...

* The 1978 Solo Albums - 24 (But it uses FOUR albums to reach that total)
Destroyer / Rock And Roll Over / Love Gun - 22
Kiss / Hotter Than Hell / Dressed To Kill - 19
Dynasty / Unmasked / The Elder - 19
Asylum / Crazy Nights / Hot In The Shade - 16
Creatures Of The Night / Lick It Up / Animalize - 13
Revenge / Carnival Of Souls / Psycho Circus - 3

 

Here's my list from the first six lps.

Let me Know - live without it (keep the coda)
Kissin' Time - toss
Love Theme - toss
Let me Go R n Roll - LWI - see Alive version instead
Comin' Home - LWI - see MTV instead
Ladies in Waiting - toss

Great Expectations - toss
Ladies Room - LWI see Alive II
Baby Driver - toss
Love and Leave Em - toss
See You in your dreams - toss
Got Love - toss
Hooligan - toss
Plaster - toss
Then She Kissed - toss

 

Agree for the most part, but "Baby Driver" is awesome.

 

My favorite bands are Black Sabbath, Killing Joke, The Young Gods, and Wovenhand. All have had fairly long careers and all have sucked it up for a period of time. I could be a diehard and claim none has ever done wrong. Fact is every one of them has sucked it up at some point. It happens; I make no excuses for any of them.

 

You forgot "Rock n Roll All Nite" and "Goin' Blind" = both tossed. Awful.

 

I have no problem with that. If I felt Kiss had ever "sucked", I'd have no problem saying so. You sound as if you are irritated for some reason that there are no Kiss songs I hate. I really don't know what to say. It seems silly to me to pretend they have songs I hate when the truth is I like a great majority of them. It shouldn't be too shocking. With any band you dearly love, you like most all their stuff. If you didn't, they wouldn't be your favorite band!

 

I don't mind them - they stay . Two others that are borderline are Christeen 16 and Two Timer.

 

You gotta take the pleasure with the pain.

 

Not irritated in the least. You like what you like. I guess I'm just far more critical than you (that is NOT an indictment on you; just an acknowledgement that I'm a critical dick). True story.

 

No Detroit Rock City?

 

That song is in the KISS Hall of Fame, top shelf A+++++ prime grade cut right there.

 

Totally agree. It's beyond burnt for me but it MIGHT be the best song they ever wrote (I happen to think it is).

 

Mostly looks okay. The only thing "The Elder" has in common with Dynasty and Unmasked is that it came after them. Sorry - I cannot accept these three as any sort of "trilogy" other than purely incidental.

 

What is the difference between a 95 and 96 song? Besides 'one'. I don't get how you determine that.

 

Definitely one of their best songs IMO....certainly better than Then She Kissed Me, Kissin Time, Hard Luck Woman.....also IMHO.

 

I love Sabbath also, I can't really find much fault with anything on the first 6 studio albums, things get wobbly on the next two and then back on track with DIO for 2 great ones. 8 killer studio albums, a few more good ones and then some scattered great songs on the rest. I can't ask for much more than that.

 

I'm not on the same page as you regarding Hard Luck Woman, I love that song (it's far better than Beth imo).

 

I HATE "Hard Luck Woman"

When I first heard it, I was like, "this is lame country!!"

 

Totally agree though I love Never Say Die.

/personal preference

 

Oh, no problem. I still respect your preferences. It's true that I'm very much an "optimist" with music (I look for any good there is and usually assume it's ME that isn't getting it if I don't like an artist). So I'm indeed very open to most bands' flaws. Especially when it comes to the trivialities of "pop music".

And it's okay to be critical, it just isn't of much significance or value for me. I certainly have definite degrees of likeness between some of the material and the albums but that's all it is - degrees of likeness. Going out of my way to pretend there is a big critical or structural difference between Asylum and Hotter Than Hell or The Elder just seems empty to me. As Mick Jagger once said, "It's only Rock and Roll".

Beyond saying that I love song "Y" and am not as fond of song "X", it all just comes down to personal opinion anyway. There are no "sucky moments" in a band unless, of course, you just don't care for the stuff. Which is fine. Which doesn't mean I can't see the low times the band went through, but I guess I just don't view them AS low as some do.

 

I like the studio let me know and baby driver. The remainder of my list would be similar you your toss and live version list!

 

The song is a signature one from them, no doubt. And I like it. But love it? Not exactly. It would be a 91 maybe. Hopefully Kiss can settle for an A- now and then...

 

There is no difference really. It's all just arbitrary (to some extent).

 

I agree, Hard luck Woman is also one of Paul's better ballads he has written in his career.