The Weakest Link: KISS ROCK AND ROLL OVER (Round 1)

Man I am BUMMED that See You... has so many votes. It's like a KISS power pop song! What's not to love?!

 

"Love Em and Leave Em" and "Mr. Speed" gotta go.

My aunt had the 8-track of this.

 

I got this the week it came out I believe I was 22 and so full of my self. Had just bought a house the year before with my Pops, and the basement was set up as a music/rehersal/bar/party/freak out room! Music was always blasting weather it was live or recorded. I played the hell out of this album. Made a tape so I could play it in my Van. My Pops thought "put your hand in my pocket grab onto my rocket... " was the greatest line ever. He laughed til he was choking the first time he heard that.
This & Dressed To Kill are my favorite 2 of the first 6. But I don't care for Beth part2 aka Hard Luck Woman and since we were asked to pick 2 I Picked See You In Your Dreams.
I understand that it's all subjective, but I don't get the hate for Baby Driver. Oh well I love it and after all that's the only thing that matters. Peace good sirs

 

Makin’ Love
Baby Driver

I first heard this album when I bought it on cassette in 1988. It was by no means a blind purchase. I had heard the four songs that appeared on Double Platinum.

 

My stickers from the album were stuck on my van ceiling. The inside of my van was a collage of cut outs from Rolling Stone, Circus, Creem etc. I remember a Creem cover of KISS, just the four faces that was centered on one wall. KISS Genesis, ELP, Sabbath, Deep Purple, Crimson, Winter.... If it made it into a Rock Magazine it went in the collage. And of course my Love Gun my KISS ARMY stickers etc. The 70s Rocked!

 

Got into KISS in the early eighties - I got Creatures & Dynasty on the same day - & quickly picked up the rest of the catalogue. This one (& Love Gun) was hard to get hold of for some reason. Finally found it at a record fair &, at the time found it a crushing disappointment. I knew a whole bunch of the songs from Alive II & Double Platinum but the original album versions sounded like bargain basement demos in comparison & the songs that hadn't been cherry picked for the compilations sounded flimsy & tired.

I've warmed to it a bit over the years but it's still lower level KISS, for me.

Love 'Em & Leave 'Em is the first for my personal shepherd's crook. Terrible!

 

Since there are only 3 or 4 great tunes on RARO, the first 6 or 7 will be easy to kill. The only tricky part is which order to off them, because 6 of 'em are just about equally appalling, IMO. But the first two for me have to be LE&LE and SYIYD. These two are total ratfarts, and had no right to be included on a once major band's album, at or around the peak of their career.

I got RARO for my 16th birthday in 1977. A month or so earlier, I'd returned from a holiday in the USA armed/burdened with every KISS album except RARO and Destroyer. On returning, I chose to get Destroyer first, on account of it having a couple of songs I'd heard of, also because RARO's cover art sucked so badly. Destroyer was ok, if a little too polished...but man, RARO was sooooo disappointing. Of the classic 6, it's probably joint worst with DTK; both have at least 50% rubbish songs, although DTK's good ones are probably better than RARO's. So I guess that makes RARO the worst. IMO.

 

My first KISS LP was Destroyer, followed by Alive! then The Originals, I'm pretty sure R&R Over was the next one I picked up. As for the album I consider 6 songs to be keepers, 4 are below grade. I voted for Ladies Room and See You in the first round.

 

Love Leave em
Makin Love (vocal effects get tiresome)

 

Personally, I just don't like it, but I wonder if there's a bit of fall out from this one due to it being included on Gene's solo record from 1978. The version wasn't really that different, but it was worse than the one on RnRO. I'd say "See You In Your Dreams" is just not a very well constructed song (read: lazy chorus and trite verses), but I guess a lot like it.

 

Great album so I refused to vote for a weak link on this one.
KISS 74-77 is one of the most unique bands ever.

 

How the hell is Baby Driver getting all these votes? Its the second best song on the album!

 

See You In Your Dreams
Baby Driver

Discovered this album in the late '80s when I started picking up the back catalog on cassette, those terrible '80s Polygram reissues with poorly transferred artwork and beige shells.

 

True, it isn't. I really dig the sound of it more than anything else, but it ain't much of a "song" when you break it down.

 

@Price.pittsburgh first I salute your conviction in not voting because RARO is a great album. Second I salute your choice of Avatar. God Bless The King and God Bless Rock And Roll ! over
Peace

 

Great album to do a poll for! Unlike other Kiss albums where it’s easy for me to select my favorite track (Dressed to Kill: “Rock Bottom”; Destroyer: “Detroit Rock City”), this album is loaded with musical deliciousness.

“Baby Driver” is dreck, but everything else is solid, and among their best compositions and tightest performances.

I can’t tell you how excited I was to convince my parents to buy me Rock And Roll Over on cassette tape back in 1977. It was a music store in Valley Stream, NY whose name escapes me at the moment. Not sure what we were doing there, and not sure why we didn’t walk out with the vinyl record — maybe the cassette was cheaper?

All I know is that it soon became my favorite Kiss studio album. How many times did I wear the tape out listening to “Mr. Speed” then rewinding it, then listening to it again, then rewinding it....

GOOD TIMES....

 

I'm not a KISS fan, so I won't be chiming in much on this one. However, I can answer the discussion question: I was living in a dorm in the fall of '76 when it was released, and several guys on the floor had it, some on 8-track. I'm sure that during a poker game or riding in the car with one of them, I heard just about all of it.

JcS

 

The Weakest Link: KISS ROCK AND ROLL OVER (Round 2)