We'll start this whole shebang off with a deep cut off of Crazy Nights. Unless you're Michael Brandvold, (Three Sides of the Coin reference number uno), no one really thinks said album is one of the band's best, but hiding amongst the singles that were varying degrees of successful, "I'll Fight Hell to Hold You" is a choice Paul Stanley hidden gem. Written by he, Bruce Kulick, and Adam Mitchell, "IFHTHY" was never performed live but I still prefer it to the proceeding album opener almost-title-track at least.
Ace Frehley was kicking some ass when the 80s began and Peter Criss was on his way out. For the second great pop-Kiss album in a row, Ace had three songs featured on Unmasked and they all have terrible lyrics. They're also all still awesome. "Torpedo Girl" has some fantastic bass work from none other than Ace himself and the main riff is one of his better ones. Overall, this song is pretty silly and intentionally so. Of course every Ace written song is funny since his words are on par with a 6th grade poetry class, but everything else here far transcends that grade.
On his last Kiss album, Eric Carr finally got to belt out his own composition, "Little Caesar". Carr got some lyrical assistance from Gene and mainstay, 80s Kiss co-writer Adam Mitchell. And Bruce Kulick helped heavy up the original, more R&B inspired track that was brought in. But otherwise, it's Carr's jam, (slight pun there for Kiss fans). He handles the drums, vocals, and bass and the title comes from a nickname that Gene gave him so it's rather autobiographical. 12-bar blues inspired with a mighty fine riff, it's a sadly rare showcase for Carr but a solid one nonetheless.
I wasn't just gonna have 80s Kiss songs take up this entire list, in case some of you were getting concerned. Closing out Kiss' most overrated album Destroyer, (sans that crazy "extra" track), is "Do You Love Me?" which has Peter Criss doing his best Ringo Starr impression, I'm-a-rock-star Paul Stanley lyrics, and a the-late-Kim Fowley co-write. I prefer how the band began performing this once the reunion tour happened, with the extended outro breakdown. Kudos to whoever's idea that was.
Alright, back to the 80s. More from Crazy Nights, "Turn on the Night" is noteworthy both as the album's first single and for being co-written by Dianne Warren of all ladies. And yeah, you'd be correct in assuming that I like this a whole dick of a lot more than "I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing", which is one of the worst songs that ever happened. "Night" is Kiss-lite to be sure and I love every single the band did in this decade. Probably because they were all Paul songs basically so how can you lose?
Some more hidden album jams, this one comin' at ya off of Unmasked. A Paul and producer Vini Poncia co-write, "What Makes the World Go 'Round" was actually put out as a single along with "Naked City" but didn't chart anywhere. The nerve of the record buying public. It's a fine choice for a single and a damn fine pop-Kiss song. Poncia had a hand in writing eight out of eleven Unmasked tracks and the collaboration may not have produced a high selling album, but its endured plenty well for this here Kiss fan at least.
Most Kiss lyrics leave zero to interpret and even more of them are simply about boning. Enter Dressed to Kill's opener "Room Service". Paul wrote this in-studio for the Dressed sessions and it's about exactly what you think it's about; getting "room service". Of course of the naked female variety because Kiss. At this time in the band's early days, they were willing slaves to the road, going from city to city, hotel to hotel, and studio to studio as was the style at the time. So this was pretty much the daily routine romanticized slightly. Mr. Peter Criss very much delivers on here as well as the entire D2K album. Some mighty fine groovin'.
There are only two Kiss songs released in the last eighteen years that I've included on this list and surprising to even me, one of them is a Gene cut. Sonic Boom is a flawed album that for the most part was unfortunately disappointing coming after so long of a wait for new material. But thankfully, Gene stepped up to the plate with "I'm An Animal". Many of the words come from a way older song "Feel Like Heaven" that Gene wrote for Peter Criss's album Let Me Rock You, (oddly enough), the lyrics sounding like Gene trying to write what he thinks Kiss fans want a Gene Simmons song to be. But the riffs are fucking fantastic and is the reason it's appearing here.
The best Ace song on Unmasked is "Talk to Me" and judging by it's numerous single releases in various countries besides the US, it seems the band at the time agreed. Written solo by Ace, (as was "Two Sides of the Coin"), "Talk to Me" is the best crafted pop song the original Space Man ever came up with. Most of the axe-slingers compositions were slammin' and riff-based, but this one is more akin to New Wave goodness. In other words, it's very early 80s. Ace still busts this one out in a live setting at times nowadays, much beloved it is still. Certainly beats him daftly playing "King of the Nightime World" in solo form for whatever "he did lots of drugs in the past" reasons.
Yeah son, solo album Peter Criss. I have always liked this album and I don't know if it's because it's mutual drummer love or because I'm secretly a grandpa rock fan. Both this and "You Matter to Me" off Peter Criss were released as singles but neither charted as the album to this day has had a harder time than any of the other official Kiss solo joints to find an audience. "Don't You Let Me Down" was originally a demo for Criss' pre-Kiss band Lips which was brought back for this album and much approved upon. It's just a good ballad, mild enough on the sap to be delicious.
Well I got nothing off Monster on this list, so here be the last appearance of any current line-up Kiss on here. "Modern Day Delilah" was the first "new" Kiss any of us had heard in quite some time as it was the lead-off track released before the full Sonic Boom album came out. And I was much pleased upon hearing it. I don't necessarily agree that the band should be churning out retro-rock currently, but at this point in their careers they certainly can and have done worse than "Delilah". Paul's high screams in this one sound like what they are which is a then-near-sixty year old trying to do high screams, but the riff is mighty tasty and it's easily the best song either he or Gene has written since Carnival of Souls.
Ace Frehley's second track and The Donna's favorite "Speedin' Back to My Baby" has arguably the best Ace riff there ever is. It opens the song and hits you in the face immediately, pretty much guaranteeing that whatever else happens in it shant defuse it's greatness. Ace threw his then wife Jeanette a bone with writing a line or two. Anything to help the lyrics is a wonderful thing where the Spaceman is concerned. They're still dumb and Ace doesn't bother rhyming as he'd usually not-do at least once per song, but musically you can't beat "Speedin'". It's debatable as the best song on the album and according to my mood, I give it such an honor often.
Lick It Up's opener "Exciter" doesn't kick you in the groin the same satisfying way that the previous year's Creatures of the Night title track did, but it's still some solid Paul-ness. One could say that about the entire Lick album as a whole compared to Creatures though both rawk accordingly. Co-written by Vinnie Vincent as nearly every LIU track was, "Exciter" oddly doesn't feature the Ankh Warrior on the solo. It was instead handled by Rick Derringer upon producer Michael James Jackson's request. Way to bring in a hellova ringer.
Plasmatics bassist Jean Beauvoir co-wrote and handled bass duties on "Thrills In the Night", Animalized's second single. Which was backed with "Burn Bitch Burn", clearly because the band just threw a dart at a list of Gene songs and it just happened to land on one of his worst far as what to choose. "Thrills" has some typical shredding from we-hardly-knew-ye Mark St. John and I will say this isn't one of my all time favorite Paul vocals, but the chorus is pure greatness and this is easily a highlight to Kiss' second non-make-up album.
The only anything song with a writing credit of Ace Frehley, Anton Fig, Gene Simmons, and (wait for it) Lou Reed? Gene and Mr. Reed had collaborated at some point around this time and had penned some lyrical ideas together, some of which found their way into Ace's sole vocal contribution to The Elder's "Dark Light". Ace was openly not interested in the band making a concept album or working with Bob Ezrin who liked to yell at him to actually show up to a studio and not be drunk, but he did manage to pull one of his best ever songs out of such indifference. The solo here is as shreddy as Ace probably ever got.
The one Kiss song that makes all the sense in the world for Six Feet Under to cover, "War Machine" closes out arguably the band's finest album Creatures of the Night. The debate still rages as to which extent Bryan Adams of all blokes and his song-writing partner Jim Vallance contributed to this Gene klassic. Adams insists he and Vallance pretty much had the song ready to go and Gene significantly tweaked it, while the Demon's story is that he wrote it on a keyboard and just had that one monster riff and a bunch of lyrics. Ultimately, none of this matters to the jesus as this still ranks as one of the heaviest Kiss songs and riffs and gloriously so.
Listening to Hotter Than Hell, you can scarcely tell that "Goin' Blind" is a ballad. Basically because the production on that album makes my ears cry. But as was the case with a few select cuts in the Kiss cannon, Unplugged gave us a far superior version of "Blind", production, performance, and all. The song itself pre-dates Kiss in one of Gene's older bands Rainbow, (not of the Richie Blackmore variety obviously), and was co-written by longtime friend and former bandmate Steve Coronel. Some lines were tweaked, namely Paul's offered "I'm ninety-three, you're sixteen". So yeah, we can thank he for ushering in the creepy part.
My love for Paul Stanley, (both the album and the Paul), I have always been open with and the best Kiss album ever ends with "Goodbye" because why would you put a song NOT called that at the end of your album? Paul fancies this one as he should since he's performed it on both his solo tours to date, back in '89 and for the Live to Win trek in 2006 and 2007. Paul Stanley is chock-full of highlights and a whole bunch of em are on my list here, "Goodbye" being the first such entry. Awesome chorus, awesome bridge, awesome Bob Kulick leads, beyond awesome album. Nuff said true believers.
The best non-single off Asylum, (an album with three of the best Kiss singles of all time says this guy right here), is also naturally a Paul song. Opener "King of the Mountain" begat life while the Animalize tour was soldiering along, Paul and new guy Bruce Kulick hashing out riffs and ideas. The best Kiss collaborator there is Desmond Child then came in and worked his magic and "King" now exists in it's present form. Eric Carr starts the song off with some fucking about, fancy drum fills and it's overall one of those uplifting Paul lyrics where he talks about how great he and everyone is and can be.
For the longest time I didn't really give too much mind to the part of "Rock Bottom" where "it gets rough", which is the Paul part. That's because the acoustic intro to this song dwarfs it and is one of early Kiss' finest moments undeniably. That's the Ace part and both live, (including on the Reunion Tour), and on the Double Platinum compilation, its length was butchered. The original, Dressed to Kill "Rock Bottom" has the full, lush intro that's as good as it gets. Though nowadays, I really do dig the rest of this one as a fine example of Paul just bashing some Free-worship out.
What?
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Blargh.
Goin' Blind should be much much higher.
Unmasked > Hotter than Hell. Yeah son
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