TOP ALBUMS:
1. KISS: KISS
2-4. KISS: Dressed to Kill, Destroyer, Love Gun
5. Jason Lytle: Yours Truly, The Commuter
TOP SONG:
KISS: Strutter
Do I need to explain. I can’t explain. Well last week it was midsummer and I did not spend much time listening to music. Except that I bought four KISS albums and spend the sunday listening to them. The summer is usually time when I try to fill some holes in my rock’n’roll education. Believe me, there are huge holes, because I know much more about 90’s power pop and indie rock than about rock history. This education of mine usually happens by just going out and buying a bunch of records in a short period of time. In the summer of 2007 I bought eight The Rolling Stones albums, In 2008 I bought 10 Tom Petty albums. This year KISS seem to be getting the same treatment and I started by buying those four albums. Surely I’ve been listening to a bit of KISS as a teen, but I wasn’t a big fan. And well for the last 12 years or so.. I hadn’t listened to Kiss at all. So it was about time and I’ve been really enjoying listening to them. Especially that debut album seems to be just wonderful. Some of it is actually really close 70’s rockin power pop. Oh.. and Strutter. What a song. First song on a debut album and it’s so damn great. Where do you go from there if you’ve started on the maximum level of perfection. That “Everybody says she’s lookin’ good. And the lady knows it’s understood” part is just perfect pop moment. I think I need to continue introducing myself to KISS by buying at least Hotter Than Hell. Maybe some of the late seventies stuff as well. I think I’m not yet ready to move to eighties. That sounds a bit too scary.
2 Comments
Hey, great to hear about your Kiss reacquaintance programme! EVERYTHING up to Creatures Of The Night (which, BTW, features a couple of tracks by Bryan Adams!) is worth getting, even The Elder “soundtrack” (with some warnings of it being the most pretentious and kitschy album they ever made). The late 70s period (Dynasty and Unmasked) may be hated by some fans, but from a powerpop viewpoint, it’s some of the best stuff they ever did, flirting openly with Raspberries-style powerpop and the current fads of the era (disco and US AOR). Paul Stanley’s solo record from 77/78 is wonderful in the same vein (Stanley even admitted stealing a trick or two from the Raspberries for the album) and Ace Frehley solo is one of the best records of all time, period.
Venturing further into the 80s may be a bit daring, but at least Lick It Up is a pretty good hard rock album.
Yeah. I think I definitely need to dig deeper into the Kiss back catalogue so thank you for the tips. The only problem I’m facing is that I’m stuck with Strutter and the debut album and always start by listening to it. Therefore I still need some work with the other three albums I bought before moving on. However, if I know myself at all, I think I will own a few other Kiss albums before the end of the summer. Hotter Than Hell and Ace and Paul solos seems like a good next step to take.