Kiss - The Abomination

I got triggered today. Someone on one of my FB music groups started a conversation thread on the band Kiss which apparently is one of his favorite all time bands. However, he asked for opinions even if in his words you think Kiss is a total abomination which of course I do.  This person is a self described huge fan of the band in the late 70's/early 80's and states that their first album was their best and the quality of their albums went down over the years even as they sold more records over the next ten to fifteen years.

So, my take on this. I totally agree that Kiss is the Abomination and an obnoxious cliché that embodies everything bad about rock and roll. IMHO, they were a joke. And a bad one at that. Just a comic book fantasy for prepubescent adolescent boys to bounce around together in a circle jerk before they moved on to more obnoxious devil voice metal. 

I should first add that at the time the first Kiss album hit the airwaves and record stores I was in college after having finished a four year hitch in the US Navy where I traveled all over the world and was now living in a house with other student vets and serious music collectors like myself. Kiss actually released two records in 1974, another in 1975, two more in 1976, another in 1977, those four solo albums in 1978, and then one a year for the next decade or so through the 80's. So I was obviously not in the targeted audience for this obnoxious marketing scam to separate money from little boys and their parents.

Back in 1974 we really thought Kiss was a bad joke but they struck a chord with the comic book crowd of middle schoolers. After I had gotten out of the service I spent a lot of time and money building up my record collection that I had neglected somewhat because of my time overseas living on a Navy warship for the past several years. Fortunately I did not need to spend any money on my education because I went to a state university where veterans did not pay tuition or fees and in addition had the federal GI Bill monthly checks to live on. I was also fortunate to have a job at the local Veterans Administration office that was close enough to walk where I earned the money to regularly see live music and buys lots of records.

Now back to Kiss. I really hated everything about them. Their costumes, their face paint, their stage act. I had seen Blue Cheer, the Velvet Underground, the New York Dolls, Alice Cooper, Slade, Transformer era Lou Reed and Kiss was a very cheap imitation of some high quality rock and roll. By the late 70's their shows were mostly children and their parents.

I was also a DJ for parties, weddings and bars from the late 70's through to 1986 where I never ever played a Kiss song in any of my sets.

Kiss had a profound influence on touring because they radically upped the cost of putting on a show because of all their stage effects which was a way of coving up their lack of skills, talent, and musicianship with makeup, pyrotechnics, stage gimmicks, spitting blood, cliched destroying guitars, etc. Kiss was directly responsible for the rise in concert tickets and in general the high cost of touring.

It was in the mid 70's that I gave up on attending large concerts in arenas and stadiums. Not only were they a rip off money wise but it became more about the spectacle than the music thanks to acts like Kiss. I figured I would much rather see up and coming acts in small venues where one could really appreciate the music which was what I was looking for.

Back to that guys thread on Facebook... I think I'll comment with some of the stuff here but also about a group that had a good first album and then went downhill for the rest of their career despite continued ongoing success. I'll have to come up with a band that had what I think was their best album first and then had more successful albums later.