In The Mirror- This is one of the standout cuts on the record. Paul sounds like he's not over reaching vocally and they manage to find a nice pocket while traversing the time changes from the verse->prechorus->chorus. In a weird way, Paul's vocal reminds me of his solo album approach... taking chances but comfortable. This is the most successful track on the hit and miss (for me) Carnival of Souls.
IN THE MIRROR Slightly surprised to see the love this one is getting, although it does come as a breath of fresh air after tons of gloomy songs. It could be described as brisk, funky, slightly '80s--everything COS is not. Paul sounds more comfortable here. Overall, though, it just kind of leaves me unmoved. Glad to see the lyrics above--I always thought it started with "You-were in the race" instead of "You-were in the right." I thought "You-appear to be" was "You-epitome."
I had always sung it as "You, appear to me / Epitome, lost in confusion"; a play on words. And I'm still not 100% sure that that isn't what he's singing. There have been a few other minor errors in these lyric transcriptions, so it's possible that there is one here. But I also might be giving Paul credit for being clever where he wasn't intending to be. (Assuming that it's even clever in the first place! LOL!) But I always thought that opening verse ("You, were in the right / Until you're left, stuck in the middle") was fairly amusing.
My good friend drunk emailed me last night. I've talked to him about this thread and he said how much he loved the song Jungle. He gets how people feel about this album but he loves it and to hell with the haters. That's the censored version of how he felt.
One thing that's really cool about the two of them, their musical IQ is pretty awesome, considering their age. My earliest musical memories are from age 5-6, and the little record player that I had. I too was already into a bunch of different sounds at that age, and The Beatles and The Monkees were two of my favorites. And they are for my sons, as well!
I'm one year older than you. I remember determining that early on in this thread, when we were talking about the ages we were when we got into KISS, and what year it was. (And if you're wondering why my kids are so young, it's because my wife is 15 years younger than me!)
I can often see the wheels turning in people's heads that I've just met, if we happen to be talking about our kids. Sometimes I can see them thinking to themselves, "your kids are how young?"
This trip through Carnival of Souls has showed me that my main problem with Paul here is the vocal melodies he's written and employing. In The Mirror is an okay song, I wouldn't skip it, but again the "take a look in the mirror...." and the boring drum thump underneath it just isn't humping my rope. I can live with them setting out to make an Alice in Chains record, with feeling like Paul wasn't convinced going in that this was a good idea, with feeling like Paul isn't invested in the words he's singing all the time. But if the vocal melody is negatively grabbing my attention it's just about impossible to like. I think the drums on this song would be really great if they sounded better, they sound like they're being played on cardboard boxes. And maybe I'm just imagining this but it feels like 'enough already' with the wah wah from Bruce on this album. I like what he's playing just fine but even Kirk Hammett thinks he's going overboard with the wah. I know we're not quite done but I've enjoyed this trip through CoS. It's been eye opening in that there's really only two songs that I strongly dislike. So even though I struggle to find common ground with Paul here it's not the unmitigated disaster I thought previously. That said I'd still put it right near the bottom of KISS albums and that can be for reasons beyond just the content of the songs. Take Animalize (please....!!!! ), it's not a top tier album by an stretch of the imagination but if I'm grabbing a KISS album I'd almost always want to get in and out in 35 minutes as opposed to 60 minutes (there's a sex joke in there somewhere but I'm too classy to make it! ). And I think I'd look more forward to doing this exercise with a 'bad' album by a band I love. I think I'd have a more enjoyable time discussing VH 3 than VH 2 even though the 1979 album is a stone cold classic and the 1998 album is a sinking stone. Also I'll say that I'm a WAY bigger KISS fan now because of this thread. I tend to be a binge listener but never like this, hearing what will eventually be an entire catalogue in such a regimented fashion. And it only makes me want to listen to them more and I'd love to do this with a lot of other bands. I know @GodShifter did a Black Sabbath album by album thread but I'd love to see a song by song thread for them, along with Priest, Maiden, VH, Metallica, Megadeth etc etc etc.
In The Mirror Maybe it's my bias but I'm guessing a good deal of the (relatively speaking) love for this one is that it's not as downcast. Downcast Paul is really a bridge too far, especially stretched out across an album. For me, whether Paul is aping this, chasing that, copying this or pandering that is not AS important as whether the end result bears at least SOME resemblance to the Paul we know (musically speaking of course.) And the Paul we know musically is a pretty upbeat guy - sure there are some dark/heavy/negative moments here and there across the discography but it's overwhelmingly move your ass, have a good time, rattle the windows, escapist fun. Paul may have written God of Thunder and perhaps if he sang it would've been okay - but I'd be willing to bed almost anything that a Paul sung God of Thunder would never ever have become one a KISS signature song. I prob would've sequenced this in the first half of the album, btw.
My friend Trev, who is the same age as you, has just had his first child. A daughter. My goodness, I don't envy him. He's grey enough already!
I Confess - I wasn't really familiar with this song, most likely because I have trouble making it all the way through this album, but this is a decent tune. I like Gene's vocals. I don't think it's great by any means, but it is listenable. I like the verse more than the chorus. In The Mirror - Another crappy generic song with a boring melody from Paul. As underwhelming as this song is, at least it is less irritating than his other COS offerings. Revisiting this album has been a painful exercise. I can't wait until Monday.
OK I just listened to this and I liked it, a lot even, but it didn't sound like Sabbath to me. But on a good note I just downloaded a bunch of Sabbath! all kinds of Ozzy. Peace
I did one of those "nerdy fan" exercises earlier today, by going back to all of my song ratings, averaging out the ratings for each album and assigning each one a letter grade. Originally, I only assigned grades to each song when we started the Solo Albums, but I went back and assigned grades to the first 6 albums (actually, 7 including side 4 of ALIVE II). It's possible there could be the slightest difference in a grade for these early albums, had I graded each song as we went along, but I sorta doubt it. I'm familiar enough with them that this is basically what they would have scored had I been doing this from the start. When you calculate the average grade for an album, based on the "mean" score, one song with a poor rating can drag the overall grade for the album down with it. For those that care, I'll note when an album could have scored higher if I graded "on a curve", and threw out both the highest and the lowest scoring song on a particular album, and averaged out the grade based on the remaining ratings. I was going to wait and save this for when we finished MONSTER, but activity is a little slow here right now, and I'll repeat these grades when we're all done. Hopefully, a lot of you will feel like sharing your overall grades, as well, when we've finished. I haven't graded the 3 remaining KISS albums yet, as I haven't listened to any of them for quite a while. So I'll update this when we finish. Thanks for reading! KISS 9.05 A- Hotter Than Hell 8.80 B+ Dressed To Kill 8.80 B+ Destroyer 7.94 C+ Rock And Roll Over 8.95 B+ Love Gun 8.45 B Alive II Side 4 8.90 B+ Gene Simmons 6.50 D Ace Frehley 9.17 A- Peter Criss 7.35 C Paul Stanley 8.33 B Dynasty 8.22 B- Unmasked 8.27 B- The Elder 7.70 C+ Killers (new tracks) 7.88 C+ Creatures Of The Night 8.67 B+ Lick It Up 7.56 C Animalize 6.83 D+ Asylum 7.65 C Crazy Nights 7.18 C- Hot In The Shade 8.00 B- Revenge 8.75 B+ Carnival Of Souls 9.08 A- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Grading on a curve - Certain albums ended up with a lower overall score due to one lousy track. Here are the albums whose grades would have improved, had I done what some teachers do, and toss out both the highest and lowest scores, and calculate the average based on the remaining ratings. If the album is not mentioned, it's because the difference wasn't significant. Destroyer 8.21 Grade rises to a B- with "Great Expectations" removed Dynasty 8.71 Rises to a B+ without "X Ray Eyes" dragging it down The Elder 8.00 Rises to a B- when "Odyssey" 's poor score is removed (I'm sure I'll be getting some hate mail from one of our esteemed colleagues pretty soon!) Lick It Up 8.00 Rises to a B- without "Dance All Over Your Face" dragging it down Animalize 7.00 Ekes out a C- without "Lonely Is The Hunter" weighing it down a little Ace's solo album has the highest overall average, at 9.17, but I'd still rank KISS' debut album as my #1 overall KISS album. Its score suffered a bit due to "Kissin' Time", but it's still their overall best effort, to my mind. If you've read this far, thanks for indulging my nerdy fan ways! When we're all finished, I'll share how I graded KISS' studio output in a KissFAQ poll from around 5 years ago (obviously without the benefit of analyzing each song, the way we've done here), and contrast it with how I grade them now, which is a much more precise rating! [Slips into flame-retardant suit]. OK, let me have it! Actually, for those who think I'm too lenient with my ratings, when you see it like this, with a letter grade assigned, perhaps I'm not quite as easy on them as it may appear. (Maybe?)
I love that Carnival got such high marks. My biggest difference would be switching Love Gun and Destroyers grades maybe. Pretty groovy all together. It's an hour and 15 mins away, but HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY MRS. @npgchris
That I think makes me gramps of our little group then. 15 years younger! That can either keep a man feeling young..... Or make him old b4 his time! Nudge nudge wink wink say no more say no more! ( he said in his best Eric Idle voice). Anyways your boys have good musical tastes! Much like their pop! Pax
A completely fair point (not sounding like Sabbath), and I thank you for respecting my musical tastes enough to check out this song. I think it's Tony's best vocal performance in Sabbath.
