For somebody who likes Sammy Hagar, I thought she'd like ****ty bands like King Crimson. But I clearly see you're not the only crazy person in the relationship
Yes yes the true blissfulness of insanity. The foundation of the American family! til someone takes the Thorazine and Prozac away....
Sounds like your wife rocks to me. Just about everything I listen to except for classical my wife says "sounds like junk." That is when I nicely tell her to stick her head in the toilet.
Way more information and data on KISS Album Rankings than you could probably ever want! (Part II) For those interested, here was how I voted in that KissFAQ poll from 5 years ago. Unlike my rankings here from last week, this was done off the top of my head, and did not benefit from a recent listening to their catalog. 1) KISS 2) Rock And Roll Over 3) Carnival Of Souls 4) Hotter Than Hell 5) Creatures Of The Night 6) Revenge 7) Monster 8) Dressed To Kill 9) Ace Frehley 10) Love Gun 11) Lick It Up 12) Destroyer 13) Dynasty 14) Unmasked 15) Sonic Boom 16) The Elder 17) Hot In The Shade 18) Paul Stanley 19) Asylum 20) Animalize 21) Psycho Circus 22) Gene Simmons 23) Crazy Nights 24) Peter Criss And here's how I ranked them after this (nearly year-long) exercise. I didn't rank the solo albums within the overall rankings, so things don't exactly match up for comparison purposes - 1) KISS 2) Rock And Roll Over 3) Carnival Of Souls 4) Dressed To Kill 5) Hotter Than Hell [Alive II Side 4] 6) Revenge 7) Creatures Of The Night 8) Monster 9) Love Gun 10) Dynasty 11) Destroyer 12) Unmasked 13) Hot In The Shade 14) The Elder 15) Lick It Up 16) Sonic Boom 17) Asylum 18) Psycho Circus [Killers - 4 new tracks] 19) Crazy Nights 20) Animalize [Smashes, Thrashes & Hits - 2 new tracks] In my next (and I'm sure you're all hoping, my last!) post, I'll get way more analytical with grades, "mean" averages, grades based on a curve, and more nerdy, statistical nonsense. By that time, I will have given my sons a bath, watched a movie with them, and consumed a couple of beers, so I'll see you later!
We agree on KISS, Alice, Sabbath and a couple others that were popular when we were in High School. She hates Crimson, YES, Genesis, ELP, Aristocrats, pretty much anything I like. She loves today's pop. Beiber and such. Which is everything I hate. So I usually have headphones on that way she doesn't hear my music and I don't hear hers. It's perfect!
See, Iron Maiden knows! I think you're already coming around on Sammy, you're just not ready to admit it publicly yet.
(Revenge Of The Son Of) Way more information and data on KISS Album Rankings than you could probably ever want! Even more Album Rankings data of little or no value, brought to you by popular demand! OK, so no one demanded it; just humor me while I share statistical data that has been gathered over the course of this year, during our massively impressive (or is it impressively massive?) "KISS Songs" thread. Assigning each KISS song a numerical score creates a voluminous amount of data by the time you reach the finish line. And it affords me the opportunity to average out the grade for each album, and to compare those scores with my final rankings. I used the scale of 1 to 10 a little differently than most probably would, in that I equated the scores with a letter grade, like you would get in school. Which means a "9" is an "A-", an "8" is a "B-", a "7" is a "C-", a "6" is a "D-", and anything below a "6" is an "F". As I had mentioned before, I went into each song looking for things to hold up and give credit to, as opposed to just going in looking to criticize and tear apart. Which is hopefully what most of your teachers in school did, as well! When you add up the scores for all of the songs on an album, and divide it by the number of songs, you get the average score, or "mean". This gives you a cold, hard statistical grade for each album, which can be useful. Of course, if you have one song that scores very poorly, it ends up bringing the whole album's grade down with it. Because of that, I also gave each album a "graded on a curve" score, where both the highest and lowest score are tossed out, and the remaining scores are then averaged. Interestingly, the majority of the albums did not vary all that much between the "mean" and the "curve" score. The ones that did have a noticeable variance will be listed, as well. Based on the numerical data, here is how KISS' discography graded out: Ace Frehley 9.17 A- Carnival Of Souls 9.08 A- KISS 9.05 A- Rock And Roll Over 8.95 B+ Alive II Side 4 8.90 B+ Dressed To Kill 8.80 B+ Hotter Than Hell 8.80 B+ Revenge 8.75 B+ Creatures Of The Night 8.67 B+ Love Gun 8.45 B Monster 8.42 B Paul Stanley 8.33 B Unmasked 8.27 B- Sonic Boom 8.27 B- Dynasty 8.22 B- Hot In The Shade 8.00 B- Destroyer 7.94 C+ Killers [4 new tracks] 7.88 C+ The Elder 7.70 C+ Asylum 7.65 C Psycho Circus 7.65 C Lick It Up 7.56 C Peter Criss 7.35 C Crazy Nights 7.18 C- Animalize 6.83 D+ Gene Simmons 6.50 D Smashes, Thrashes & Hits [2 new tracks] 2.50 F These grades do not exactly match my earlier ratings, where I didn't allow one weak track to affect my overall ranking of an album. When I graded each album on a curve, as a way to partially compensate for a very low scoring track, the majority of the grades did not move very much at all. Here are the ones that did noticeably change: Destroyer 8.21 B- (without "Great Expectations" to drag it down, the overall score for this album settles in more where it should) Gene Simmons 6.72 D+ ("Living In Sin", and a couple of others, dragged down the score for Gene's album. With "...Sin" thrown out, the score improves, but it still only gets to a "D+" grade) Paul Stanley 8.64 B (the score moves up, although the letter grade doesn't change, with "Hold Me, Touch Me" 's low score removed) Dynasty 8.71 B+ (with "X Ray Eyes" removed from the calculations, Dynasty's score jumps up quite a bit) Unmasked 8.44 B (album makes a modest gain with "What Makes The World Go Round" 's low score removed) The Elder 8.00 B- (with "Odyssey" removed from the calculations, The Elder gets a score that's more befitting) Lick It Up 8.00 B- ("Dance All Over Your Face" dragged the overall score for this album down, which improves to a "B-" with it jettisoned) Animalize 7.00 C- (the score doesn't move up all that much, but the letter grade improves to a "C-" with "Lonely Is The Hunter" omitted) None of the other albums made a significant move when graded on a curve. There's a lot of different comments I could potentially make about these scores, but most of you probably have eyes that have glazed over by now, plus it's late, so I guess I'll just leave it at this. My rankings that I posted earlier more accurately reflect where I would place each album. For instance, despite Gene's solo album having a lower numerical score than Animalize, I'd still rank it ahead of that (for me, unenjoyable) album. Gene's record has got 4 or 5 gems on it, while Animalize has only one or two, and even those aren't nearly as good as the best tracks on Gene Simmons. Thanks for reading! Hopefully, a few of you will be inspired to share your rankings of KISS' albums. I don't think even 10 of you guys have compiled your rankings and shared them with us. It's fun to see how people rate this stuff. Cheers!
So what made the first album drop from 1 to 3? Why did RARO jump to 1? Hot In The Shade took a big tumble. How come?
There's a few threads I want to post in when I get more than 5 minutes at a time. I'm behind in like three of your threads!
God of Thunder demo Wow, so much fun! I love the background "god of thunder and rock and row-ow-ow" vocals. The disco drumbeat and Paul's sass really make this one. As I hate the production choices on the studio version from Destroyer, I actually prefer this version. Now, the live versions ALWAYS blow these away, but if I'm just comparing this demo to Destoryer...it's this one, definitely.
First, happy page 1001! I wasn't able to post yesterday on #1000. Sue me, I was watching football. Big thanks, @GodShifter for guiding this thread and also to kick ass contributors @vamborules @ejluther @William Smart @Musicman1998 @Rose River Bear @Terrapin Station @BluesOvertookMe @npgchris @Cooks420 @SizzleVonSizzleton and everyone else I forgot. It's been a blast and I'm surprisingly NOT sick of listening to KISS! As for the Box Set, overall it's a disappointment for me. The demos we've covered over the past few days, Doncha Hesitate, Mad Dog and Paul of Thunder have reinforced what this box set should've been - 100% unreleased or rare material. It should've had the FULL Wicked Lester album (because it's good, ya know), all these demos, live tracks, single mixes, b-sides, outtakes and maybe some alt takes or even remixes. I would've also been happy if it included all of the extra tracks that ended up on comps and Alive II. That's what it should've been, not a glorified "Greatest Hits + a few demos". We all own the studio albums, having the same versions as on the main albums is pointless for this box set.
Of the three posts from last night, the first one shows the results of a KissFAQ poll that was conducted about 5 years ago. It's of interest in that it's a fairly recent, and fairly comprehensive, ranking of KISS' discography by a bunch of diehard KISS fans. The second post shows how I voted in that particular poll, and how the ratings compared to how I ranked them at the conclusion of our discussion. I probably should have linked to my original post regarding this, for some brief reasoning as to why I ranked them as I did. That post is here. The third post shows how each album graded out numerically, and summarizes my work here as the "teacher" who attempted to see the merits in each song/"homework assignment" we took a look at. As always, there aren't enough thanks in the world to adequately express what an amazing job @GodShifter did guiding this thread for most of this year! I'd wager the time and effort he put into this would rival any other thread here, or on any other discussion forum, for that matter. Just EPIC work for which we all owe him a big hug, an extra tall libation, and a hot meal (not necessarily in that order!)
LOVE IS BLIND (Demo) (Simmons) (2:46) “Love Is Blind” was written on the road during the Love Gun tour when Gene was just strumming around on an acoustic guitar one night. Taking the night to finish it, he then sat down to record to tape. All the vocals, bass, guitar, and background vocals are done by Gene while a click track was used for the drums. KISS never recorded the track so it was relegated to demo status. The song is kind of in the vein of material from his solo album like “See You Tonite” that is, it's fairly Beatlesque in terms of its style. Heavy vocal harmonies are employed throughout the tune (sounding a lot of the Beatlemania guys from the solo album in 1978), but, as stated, it is apparently all Gene. The soft acoustic tune is heavily punctuated by Gene’s pick heavy punchy percussive bass lines ala McCartney. The song has a good lead vocal and some very deft harmonies and melody to it. I’m bit surprised it wasn’t included for his solo album because it certainly would have fit in that hodgepodge of a train wreck. I have to think if “Love Is Blind” had been on the record it could have only helped it.
Love Is Blind: This is a cool tune, certainly better than most of the 78 album, what a piece of **** that was. If it was on there, it would be a Top 3 track (then again he would've added all the bloated kitchen sink horses*** to it.) I like it.
The first list he posted has RARO as #1 on page 1001. I quoted his second post which was an older list. EDIT: Yup. I got it wrong. The first album went up, not down. HITS went up, not down.
LOVE IS BLIND I love when Gene gets all "Beatle-y", but this track is only so-so for me. As he often did with his demos, I'm sorta surprised he didn't pluck elements of this tune to use on a later composition. (Or maybe he did, and I'm just not aware of it?). I like the harmonies, but it feels a bit unfinished. I guess the bass line does somewhat evoke McCartney, yet it seems sorta ham-fisted. I guess that's just because it's a demo, and not meant to be perfect? Or was that the precise style he was going for? I tend to agree with @Musicman1998 regarding this tune, and his '78 solo album. It feels like the song's pleasant simplicity would have been over-produced, and over-"tinkered with", had he opted to include it on his solo album. I'm sure he (or producer Delaney) figured there was enough material of this ilk already on there, thus relegating this one to the "30 lb. vault", once more. ("In Gene We Trust" medallion included only with this special, limited-time offer, and not available in any store!)
LOVE IS BLIND This is gorgeous. Gene uses the time honored I-iii-IV-V progression in the chorus, and melts into it with the background harmonies. Thing was, this didn't fit the KISS mold in any way, and they had no use for it. As much as they worked through things like Hard Luck Woman, they were antithetical to Gene's persona. Paul or Peter could have gotten away with it (and did). Agreed that it would have fit on the solo album, but at that point (1978) he was on a competitive ego trip and was writing songs for guest artists, etc. to do the album. This is a lot like See You Tonight, and Gene has a pop side to him that was not allowed to flourish within the confines of the makeup and characters. The solo album was an attempt to get past it, but it didn't work. This demo doesn't even need much work. Peter could have played soulfully with brushes or on the rim, and they could have had a spot where they did some tight harmonies for once. Or Peter could have even come to the front of the stage and shook a tambourine...
Love is Blind This is a nice track and shows a surprisingly sweet side to Gene. With him being "the demon" it's too bad he couldn't do this type of song unless it had a sneer with it. Agree with all of you, if the solo album hadn't been such a hodge-podge mess, this song would've been a perfect candidate for it.
Love Is Blind. I have no memory of this song which again goes to show how little I ever listened to the box set. Shame on me because this is a real gem and I'll be giving it a lot more listens now. I'm impressed with the story of Gene writing it. I said a while back in a thread about 80's bands (I think the White Lion thread) that these bands should have been setting aside some time on the road to write so they wouldn't be so up against the wall when they suddenly needed to record album number two or three or further. Imagine you're in KISS's era when you're going to end up putting out two albums a year for multiple years in a row. Same as I said about Ace criticising Gene for writing so many songs; you're going to need a lot of songs when the band counts on you to write. So Gene made the time and I admire that. Some are certainly going to end up being throwaways but who knows when you might hit upon something, or for that matter some small thing that a co-writer (like Ezrin) might hear inside a demo. As someone who mostly likes Gene's 78 solo album I would have loved to have heard this on there.
Putting a box set together seems a dicey deal to me and if you try to do a “one size fits all”/Greatest Hits + a few demos” like the KISS box it often leaves both the diehard and the casual/new fan unfulfilled. Pricing aside, Gene’s box set is, if nothing else, 100% positive of who the target audience is...
