Christine Sixteen- I'm a fan of this song, always have been. I forgot that VH played on the demo and didn't put together that Ace was just mimicking what Eddie did making it an un-Ace like solo. Love the piano, bass, and drums interplay. Gene has a cool howl at the end too during the fade out. Kind of surprising this was a hit single. I don't think of this song in that aspect. Maybe it was a payola thing how it charted so high?
Great write-up! I love this song. I love the drum sound, the bass, the guitars, the vocals. I even like the outro/fade (!). (All drums should sound like this, btw. I mean the tone.) Who does the howl at the end? A great piece captured on tape. I can't imagine EVH doing a solo like this, but I love it. That said, the backup vocals does sound like something VH would do (high pitch). Re the lyrics, here's an angle: maybe folks didn't really think of Gene (or KISS) as being old. It was a little hard to tell with their make-up. And I'm sure there were a lot of 16- yr olds in the fan base. So it's no worse than any pop icon singing to young girls. But in retrospect...whew. At least it's not "Plaster Caster" content :^P
No, the demo has never come out. Never been bootlegged or anything. I'm sure some collector somewhere will claim to have it, and maybe they do...but I've never heard of it ever being out in circulation, or ever recall any KISS or VH fan saying they even heard it. btw, Rudy Leiren, Eddies's longtime guitar tech, was there when they did the demo and he insists they used Ed's take on Love Gun, that that's actually Eddie on the track. Not saying I share that view. Just saying Rudy said that.
It wouldn't surprise me one bit if it was Eddie playing on it. Maybe that's one of the reasons Ace didn't like it. He didn't play on it and wasn't asked to. I'd think, though, that if it was Eddie, wouldn't he have said something about it after all these years? Or even Gene?
I was going to say the same thing as you did in the first paragraph, but you beat me to it! It's now been "officially" confirmed (although nothing's really ever "official" until it's available online or in stores) that Gene's long-promised box set of demos is going to be released later this year. He's been talking about it for so long that fans had kinda given up on it. How many songs it's going to include, we still don't know. Certainly, if the demos recorded with Eddie and Alex are ever going to be heard, it would be on this release. Once a track listing surfaces, I'll share it here, and if someone else reads it first, please post it here. As of now, it's slated for "later this year", and I have a strong feeling that the contents are still being finalized. As to the second part, it seems a little hard to believe. After 40 years, you'd have thought that either Gene or Eddie (or even Ace or Paul) would have revealed that tidbit in some interview at some point! It's certainly within the realm of possibility that material from a demo could end up in the finished product, but given the notoriety of EVH you wouldn't have thought a secret like that would have been kept this long! EDIT: Once again, @GodShifter beats me to it!
Christine Sixteen- IMO not a strong riff or melodic hook but taken as a whole a good tune. The chorus is good. Peter helps the tune move along. Nice harmony guitar from Ace. Vocal harmonies good also. The piano is a little cliche' sounding. Kiss is great at boogie tunes and this one is no exception.
"Christine Sixteen" good song from Gene. It's nothing really special but it has place and meaning to be on the album. Can't think of "Love Gun" without it. I like the bass and drums, sounds like pure 50's influenced little rock and roll romance song, but Im not going to give further analyse on the lyrics, maybe a bit dumb and embarrassing but Gene might be singing in the stalker character. Keyboards are nice addition to the whole sound. Overall I like it.
Christine Sixteen- Take the creeper factor out of it and it's a damn fine KISS song. I think it Does have a cool hook, cool solo (sounds like Ace or Paul to me), and the bridge is badass. Punchy with good harmony placement (answered by a nice guitar lick) I never took the lyrics seriously, even as a youngster. Everything has always been in context of the characters and personas from those early makeup records. I like this song.
GOT LOVE FOR SALE 1977 (Simmons) 3:29 Another demo track that Gene worked up with the Van Halen brothers, “Got Love for Sale” was originally called “Have Love Will Travel” hence the chorus. The genesis of this song goes back to 1975 with a song Gene had wrote called “Man of 1000 Faces” which was considered for Dressed to Kill. Gene used parts of the lyrics of that song for “Got For Love Sale” and then radically changed the lyrics for “Man of 1000 Faces” which would appear on his solo album in 1978. I think the thing stands out for me on this song is how dominant the bass guitar is in the mix. In fact, the bass really drives the song with the electric guitars kind of taking a backseat on the tune. Even the background vocals overshadow the guitars. There’s also an acoustic guitar that plays throughout the track which, I believe, is Gene (he’s credited as playing rhythm guitar on this track). I’m not sure if that’s him at 1:24 (and showing up again at 2:29) on electric guitar kind of doing some half hearted licks on the right channel or not, but they’re interesting to note. Ace’s solo is probably the stand out of the track as he does his trademark stutter step licks before doing kind of a Chuck Berry like riffing for the middle portion of the solo. I like the high bends he does at the end of the tune as well as the high repeating licks at the end (which kind of reminds me of Joe Perry of Aerosmith). “Got Love for Sale” is almost kind of a boogie tune with the rumbling bass and Peter’s shuffle throughout the verses. I like the call and response background vocals on this tune by Gene and Paul; especially “whoa no, whoa no” parts. They really add to the song. Gene's lead vocal sells the song as well; he's pretty forceful with his delivery. This song, in fact, is probably the one I botched the lyrics the most when I used to listen to the album as a kid. I just couldn’t get much of it right and misunderstood a lot of it. I always thought the chorus was “High, Low In Trouble” for example. Never the less, this was always one of my favorite tunes on side one of the album. I like the tempo of it and think it rocks pretty hard despite the heavy presence of the bass and the acoustic guitar. For some strange reason, this song gets stuck in my head a lot (even though I still don’t know the lyrics very well so I just kind of make them up, heh). I don’t think this song was played live (in fact, I know it wasn’t because Gene says it wasn’t in the video of him playing it with some band). I’ll link that version as it’s not bad (but the mix is pretty awful and Gene forgets the lyrics several times).
Gene Simmons doing "Got Love for Sale" in 2017 with a backing band (Fireball Ministry maybe?) Not sure about that.
"Got Love for Sale" - Unusual in that it so relatively clean and dry-sounding. The "heaviest", most hard-rocky/kinda-metal-like timbre is actually from the bass, which has a cool growl to it that brings to mind King's X's Doug Pinnick's default sound. The unusual blend provides good variety. The first three tunes on this album are all quite different from each other. Has a really nice "driving" groove to it. I like the jangly guitar accents on the verse cadences--they sound like relatively clean twelve-strings with a bit of a chorus on them. Peter's snare on the "+" of 3 and 4 on the pre-choruses and the fact that he rides the floor tom is a simple variation, but very effective. Killer riffs. I tend to really like those riffs that alternate open string notes like this one does. Perfectly constructed solo. Nice lead on the outro, too. Fantastic tune. Unfortunately I can't recall ever seeing them do this one live, although the fact that it's a tune that hasn't gotten much attention outside of its occurrence here helps it sound fresher.
Got Love for Sale - I always considered the structure of this song to be clunky/awkward, it doesn't flow very well to my ears. I didn't like it very much in the 70's and it's not a whole lot better today. Not a five star band effort. 2/5 Got Love for Sale Your condition's red, you can't get to bed Your eyes are full of tears You've got headache, heartache, a pain you can't take I am who you have to fear Your observation's correct I'm someone you can't neglect Whoo no, whoo no, whoo no, whoo no, whoo no, whoo no Have love, will travel (I've got love for sale) Have love, will travel (I've got love for sale) Have love, will travel (I've got love for sale) You buy the magazine, in between the lines You see my face, you read my name And you can have me for one price, baby You must have heard of my fee You know you need me, I know you want me 'Cause I'm a living cross your heart man You've got to have me, can't live without me 'Cause I'm the one and only yes I am I've got love for sale And my love will not fail you Whoo no, whoo no, whoo no, whoo no, whoo no oh, whoo no, whoo no Have love, will travel (I've got love for sale) Have love, will travel (I've got love for sale) Have love, will travel (I've got love for sale), yeah I've got love for sale And my love will not fail you Whoo no, whoo no, whoo no, whoo no, whoo no, whoo no, whoo no Have love, will travel (I've got love for sale) Have love, will travel (I've got love for sale) Have love, will travel (I've got love for sale), yeah I got love for sale I got love for sale I got love for sale I got love for sale I got love for sale I got love for sale I got love for sale I got love for sale I got love for sale I got love for sale, yeah Written by Gene Simmons • Copyright © Universal Music Publishing Group
Got Love For Sale - I used to hate this song, now I simply don't like it all that much. It has good energy, but the hook is weak, and the performances are unremarkable. The cartoonish self-parody of the lyrics gets old fast; I can usually tolerate the Gene's egotistical sex God lyrics, but this song contains no sense of humor whatsoever. Simply put, this is boorish Simmons posturing at its worst.
What's a "living cross your heart man"? I always thought "you must have heard of my fee" was "you must adhere to my fame" (which granted, makes no sense whatsoever).
Gene : "I am the most virile, masculine, and desirable man that you could ever hope (cross your heart) to encounter."
Yeah I never really liked this song much. The best part about it is Ace's solo. I also like the tone of Gene's bass. I've found with Gene there is no middle ground with his songs. I either love them ( Calling Dr. Love ) or hate them.
"Cross your heart" bras were big at the time--lots of advertising for them, including TV commercials. I would guess that that line is partly an allusion to that. Also, that line being in a verse that references magazines and advertising is significant. "Cross your heart" bras were attractive, intimate, support items for sale.
