Seriously, where do you start?
It's hard to dislike Kiss really, even if they're less a band and more of a strange mutated offspring of unchecked capitalism where nobody bats an eyelid when a group of paunchy middle-aged men turn up at your door- looking like they've just returned from a Dungeons and Dragons live role-playing game and decided to get their faces painted at the county fair on the way home-and try to sell you a pack of condoms with their faces on them. Gene Simmons is a postcard from a paralell universe where one man can dress up like Liberace's dungeon keeper, profess undying admiration for Margaret Thatcher, before showing off his admirably large tongue, spitting fake blood all over you and claim to have slept with over 1000 women. And he's the bass player. Gene Simmons will be 60 this year.
In a sense listening to Kiss's actual music is like going to a exhibition of Ronald McDonald's water colours, but there's a big part of me that knows I'm going to enjoy this record; I'm hardly expecting Brian Eno's 'Music for Airports', and I can pretty much guarantee you that I'll never have the inclanation to listen to this album again, but fuck it, it's Saturday afternoon and I'm adequately prepared to rock
00:30 It starts, like countless classic albums, with a radio report of a truck crash. The driver of the truck was uninjured in the collision
01:29 Strange sound effects, snatches of old Kiss songs...
02:30 I can now confirm to myself that 'Detroit Rock City' is a huge stinking turd of a song, I've never really given it enough attention before to make a fair and balanced judgement
04:24 Remember to vist http://www.Kiss.com/ and buy some official Kiss nasal spray, only $16.99
05;20 The song finishes with another car crash. These crazy Detroit drivers
06:15 Paul Stanley sings the chorus of 'King of the Night-time World' more like the king of Ovaltine and Radox baths, he has the singing voice of a man who's never stayed up past Crimewatch
08:33 Ok, both the opening tracks have been absolute pish. Onwards and upwards though, aye
09:08 Why on Earth would a song called 'God of Thunder' start with children shouting??
09:44 'I was raised by the deeeeeeeeeeeeeeemonns'
10:38 'I command you to kneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel before the God of Thundeeeeeeeeeer!'- this really is too ridiculous for words, it's going to be very hard to get through this album without mentioning Spinal Tap...
11:52 'I bring the dark to quease thee'- brilliant
12:51 Don't forget to visit http://www.kiss.com/ and book your official Kiss anti-natal classes, starting September, $245.66 a session
14:19 No, no, no, you can't seriously expect us to take a lighter-waving uber-ballad called 'Great Expectations' after we've just sat through 'God of Thunder'
15:30 Even Freddy Mercury might consider this a bit overwrought. Is that a childrens choir???
17:48 Most producers use a mixing desk, this one evidentally used a trowel, I think there's a song in there but...
18:51 After this, visit http://www.kiss.com/ and buy your very own official Kiss shoe-horn, only $12.84
20:15 Hehe, that song was called 'Flaming Youth'...
21:55 'Sweet pain': I personally don't think the world needs to hear Paul Stanley singing about S&M, but I guess it's too late now...
24:06 This is more like it!
24:24 'Shout it, shout it, shout it, shout it out loooud'!!!!!!!!! Finally I am awaken from my slumber, this is a classic slice of dim-rock
25:42 The air guitars are out now. Heeellllllllllllloooooooo Milton Keynes!
26:28 A piano, this can only be bad news
27:22 Words cannot describe the horror of 'Beth', it is truly, truly an abomination, I actually feel like I'm going to vomit
28:11 A fucking string section?? I thought this was a fucking Kiss album??? How are you supposed to vomit blood and spray fireworks from your crotch to this???
29:18 'You really like my limousine, you really like how the wheels roll'- wheels have other ways of rolling?? This is truly an insight into how the other half live...
29:36 'You like my seven inch.... platform heels'- very clever!
31:30 Have I mentioned http://www.kiss.com/? There's currently a sale on official Kiss colostomy bags, now just $45.52 for a box of 12
32:20 This song- quite literally- has bells on...
33:46 The album ends, in predictable preposterous and bewhildering fashion, with what sounds like a lazer fight in a football crowd, before that sodding childrens choir does a little reprise of 'Great Expectations'. Sweet Moses smell the roses
I'm not going to mince my words here; that was a unmitigated fucking turd-festival. I like a bit of pomposity and preposterousness (phew), and the odd ridiculously overblown ballad here and there isn't bad (although I draw the line at the horrendous 'Beth, which did at least twelve times as much damage to my health as the cigarette I smoked while listening to it), but apart from the (brilliant) 'Shout it Out Loud' the other 9 tracks didn't have half a tune between them, not even old tracks on the ground indicating a tune may have passed through days earlier, not even the encrusted droppings of a tune, not even a small mosquito of a tune, encased in amber, discovered millions of years later by curous scientists.
Kiss, you have wasted a half hour of my life, and I want it back
E-
