Would Critics View KISS More Favorably If 'Phantom' Were A Blockbuster Hit Film?

I've read before this movie hurt them.
Back in the days of limited channels, a lot of people saw it and the next day were no longer KISS fans.

 

I think Frampton's career was damaged more by "I'm In You" than "Pepper's". Frampton alienated much of his rock audience with that one - the first single was a sappy ballad, and he tried to look like a teen idol.

Yeah, the album/single sold, but pretty much every follow-up to hits on the level of "Comes Alive" sell. "I'm In You" sold much less than "FCA" and seemed to doom his career.

When rockers lose the rock audience, it's tough to compensate. Same thing happened to Kiss: when they embraced their teenybopper crowd, they lost much of their teen/early 20s fans and they found it tough to recover.

That's the bigger reason Kiss declined. "Phantom" was just a symptom in their move away from the audience that initially embraced them...

 

From what I understand, KISS were originally offered the role of the villain band in the Sgt. Pepper movie that eventually went to Aerosmith. KISS turned down the part to do Phantom.

Aerosmith did alright and had a moderate hit with their cover of ‘Come Together’.

Imagine KISS, who are major Beatles fans, performing the song in the Sgt. Pepper movie.

 

I think if the movie was a successful blockbuster, it would have given critics more reason to hate the band. Kiss was never a band for the critics.

 

I think the idea that "Pepper's" damaged careers is overblown.

Sure, it was a bomb, but as noted, "Spirits Having Flown" came out after that and it did well.

Like I already mentioned, Frampton was hurt more by "I'm In You". "Pepper's" might've been an additional nail in that coffin, but if it'd directly followed "Comes Alive", I don't think it would've mattered much.

Aerosmith and EWF both had hits with their tracks!

 

Let's face it, Queen, the Monkees, and Abba conspiratorially got the all the love and attention that was meant for Kiss.

 

What really fascinates me about the OP's premise is what exactly would need to be done to this movie in order to make it "a blockbuster hit film". Because I've actually seen this movie and I can't begin to imagine.... It makes an episode of Scooby Doo Where Are You ? seem like The Wire.

D.D.

 

Yow. Fans can come up with some pretty odd theories.

Christgau stopped reviewing Kiss after Rock and Roll Over in 1976. Phantom of the Park was not broadcast until two years later. Whatever his reasons for not reviewing Love Gun and Alive II, they clearly had nothing to do with a film that had yet to be released.

On the flipside, Christgau reviewed Spirits Having Flown and Bee Gees Greatest after Sgt. Pepper was released. So clearly, Sgt. Pepper didn't cause him to stop reviewing them.

Kiss' first album after Phantom (Dynasty) went platinum, same as their two albums immediately before Phantom, and it even had a top-twenty hit. Hardly any dropoff in popularity there. They subsequently lost popularity, but that seems more likely to be due to backlash against their changed sound on Dynasty (and alienation of their older hard rock fans) plus market oversaturation. If Phantom had hurt them then Dynasty wouldn't have sold so well.

In like manner, the Bee Gees' first album after Sgt. Pepper (Spirits Having Flown) was 5X platinum (their best-selling album ever) and produced three #1 singles. To suggest that they were viewed as has-beens at that point is simply untrue, and to suggest that Sgt. Pepper hurt them in any way at all is ridiculous. They subsequently lost popularity, but that was obviously due to backlash against disco and their close association with the genre.

 

The funny thing is, the ‘Scooby-Doo Meets KISS’ animated film actually took the plot line of ‘Phantom’ and improved on it, making it a much better movie and probably closer to what KISS wanted it to be.

And the kicker is that it was also produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions which produced the ‘Phantom’ movie!

 

...And the circle of life is complete. Unless somewhere in Hanna-Barbara 's vault is a long-buried pilot for Scooby Doo Meets KISS and They Head Off to Meet Up With Omar and Score A Little Sumpthin' Sumpthin'...

D.D.

 

Following...

 

Even funnier is that this none-more-‘70s production was made in 2015, ie about 38 years past what one would expect to be its sell-by date.

 

Nah. What was Frampton's "rock audience" before Frampton Comes Alive? Just a
small number, and not enough to make him anything radio paid attention to.

And wasn't "Baby I Love Your Way" a sappy ballad?

I saw the Pepper movie at the cinema. When Pete was on that roof, thinking he
might end it all, people were yelling, "Jump!"

He was a laughing stock for quite some time after that.

Also, the change in musical tastes that came with the 80's did him no favors.

I'm In You was not his big problem.

 

Christgau reviewed KISS and Bee Gees during those acts peak years, kept reviewing pop and rock acts up until the present day, but ignored Bee Gees and KISS after 1979. That's a lot of ignoring, when Bee Gees and KISS were still active recording artists. Something must have happened to deem both acts irrelevant or relatively unimportant for forty years.

 

It's worth noting first of all that Christgau is not the barometer of popular taste, and what was irrelevant and unimportant to him wasn't necessarily so to the general public. But anyway, if you read enough of his reviews, a pattern emerges. With longtime acts, he tends to review them until he stops finding much to like in their newer work, and then he stops reviewing them. I assume he does this because he figures writing a stream of negative reviews would become boring. My guess would be that he stopped reviewing Kiss and Bee Gees albums because he didn't like them enough to bother reviewing them. And if he stopped liking them, it stands to reason it was because of the music on them, not anything else.

Regardless, as I noted, your theory that he stopped reviewing them because of their failed movies makes no sense. He stopped reviewing Kiss albums two years before their movie came out. And he continued to review Bee Gees albums for a year after their movie came out. So there isn't even a correlation between these unrelated events (movie release and cessation of reviews) upon which you could base a spurious causation argument.

 

Well let's bring The Beatles into this (for good reason).

They started their career as a lovable teenage import playing happy pop love songs. They were good songs, but lots of people didn't think the appeal would last, and so at the time it was considered a fad.

That band surprised a lot of people though. They grew up with their audience, and their offerings became more philosophical and introspective, and more challenging in their songwriting and arrangements. It's a good example of how to manage a longer term career and garner the respect that goes with it.

KISS, on the other hand, began their career as being for the teens, and for the most part tried... with varying measures of success... to remain for the teens. That, I think, is what put critics off more than anything else. If "Phantom" would have been a really great film... not just popular, but a really interesting piece of filmmaking (cult classics like The Warriors and Phantasm come to mind) I'm sure it would have carved them a bigger niche in rock history. How much of a bigger niche though... we'll never know because the film was what it was, and that's that.

 

He was such a lovable guy. All the fans who met him adored him.

 

As Oatsdad professed above, the failure of Phantom was a symptom of KISS' moving away from who should have been their target audience. Hence, critics awareness of this audience distancing phenomena would naturally see an aversion to even covering the band in print. Why review the band if the band doesn't care about cultural relevance?

 

These are not the droids you are looking for

 

Yeah, the Scooby-Doo movie is shockingly... not bad!

Scooby-Doo and Kiss: Rock and Roll Mystery [Blu-Ray] (2015)

 

You're right that Frampton solo wasn't moving big numbers of records pre-"FCA", but a) 1975's "Frampton" made the top 40 in the US, so he'd started to earn a solo audience, and b) he had remaining "rock cred" from Humble Pie.

Even if he came into 1976 as a flop, though, it wouldn't matter, as "FCA" created that rock audience for him. Yes, "Baby" was a sappy ballad, but PF balanced it with lots of rockers.

That's why "FCA" was such a smash: both rock fans and pop fans got into it.

Then 1977 rolls around and PF's 1st new single is about the wimpiest thing he could do. The title song made "Baby" look like Black Sabbath!

And then the follow-up single is a poppy version of "Signed Sealed and Delivered" - not really gonna win over the rockers who loved "Do You Feel Like We Do".

I just ran through the whole album on YT - not a single legit rock song in the bunch.

And it comes with a cover that makes PF look like the next teen idol!

So PF went for pop stardom in 1977 and alienated most of his rock audience - and never recovered!

 

you can't be serious....please say you aren't serious.

 

Presumably a higher budget and something that wasn't made for TV. Though the film did get a theatrical release in Europe though.

 

You can find lots of "lovable guys" in bands. Doesn't make those bands good!

Carr didn't write much for Kiss, and he didn't sing leads. If Carr was so important, then Kiss would've become super-beloved in the 80s and people would view that era as their best.

The notion that Kiss would be the most beloved band of all-time because they had a lovable drummer... that's just about the most perplexing I've seen this year!