Dammit if Sonic Boom doesn't kick ass...
I digress,,,
Faves
KISS
Hotter Than Hell
Destroyer
Double Platinum
Solo Albums
The Elder (Yes I said it!)
Revenge
Psycho Circus (Yes I like it. Period)

Bfunkthe1 said:

The link established to P-funk is quite on the point, I'd say. KISS always got flak for being so visually oriented, but why doesn't that typical criticism concern the 70s funk acts too in the minds of music journalists? There's a bit of a double-standard going on there, I'd say. Also I remember reading bits of their "substandard musicianship" even in the 90s on the music magazines, but now when you listen to those old records it's hard to see what such views were exactly based on (due to this thread I've relistened many of them - Detroyer is quite nice actually). Compared to most rock musicians today, these guys could actually play their instruments and also played them in a manner that made them work together as a unit. It's also one of those bands were you've had several good vocalists, and Stanley's voice is one of the most recognizable in rock music (in fact it defines a certain stereotype or a cliché by itself - but that's just because he was one of the original ones)..

Blackguitarist mentioned "Great Expectations" and it's often overlooked that they were able to pull off such compositions as well. There's still quite a lot of brave mixing of styles, and the "disco" element they added to their stuff at one point did give it additional drive. Of course, the funniest aspect to me is their influence on black metal aesthetics:



I swear I can hear even traces of the "machine gun" guitars on some of those records too. Few other aspects too (sorry for making the reference to Norwegian black metal since it's often such an openly racist genre - doesn't concern the above band though - but in some ways the influence of KISS on BM is still humorous).
[Edited 10/11/09 8:59am]

Well said novabrkr. They were a band that could work well (musically) as a unit.

And "Great Expectations" borrows a melody from Beethoven's Piano Sonata in C Minor. (Op 13, No. 8) I always thought that was cool.

Yes and some of those death metal bands have mentioned KISS influenced them visually. Why is it that they have the hardest band logos to read?

it was good! .. they/ cheap trick, kiss, aero all left the stage smoking that night. Since i love all 3 equally i was in concert bliss it was perfect. Ive seen Trick alot over the yrs sometimes they can really blow u away i dont think ppl give em enuf credit i love em so its cool but that night CT were on fire.The lights stayed on,theyre speaker set up was simple nothing amazing but then they started and it was like the air sucked out ure lungs n it was on full blast full throttle.They brought theyre high heat jam that night n left me so happy i made the trip i love CT. Kiss comes out wall to wall speakers n that was it, it was Kiss all out.I know every song,I love Stanleys voice,Its Kiss they rock what are you gonna do xcept get ure ass rocked... it was beautifull. top it all off Aero i mean cmon.. it was insane. sometimes the gods smile down on things n give u shows like this.
[Edited 10/11/09 10:30am]

Oh, I didn't know "Great Expectations" borrows from classical music. Well it's what you make use of it that matters in the end.

Black metal and Death metal are often quite different, the black / white -facepainting thing is associated with black metal. I believe their band logos are just hard to read due to no other reasons than it just being "something they've always done". The musical movement was basically started by just a bunch of teenagers who were initially also into things like J.R.R. Tolkien, role-playing games as such - so some of those asthetics they favoured got just carried on and fused into what the whole thing became later on. I guess they also remind of mystic runes or something equally silly.
[Edited 10/11/09 9:37am]

cool stories everyone! takes me right back

..... pretty much had similar experiences including dressing up as Paul for Halloween at age 12 and using pool sticks and tennis rackets to play air guitar with my friends

in fact one of my friends back at age 12 used to pretend to be Gene and spit ketchup out of his mouth - and he looked just like Gene, or so we thought

now that same guy is one of the main weathermen on the Weather Channel

anyway i just found this clip of the first concert i ever saw (Largo, MD 1979) and i used to love Gene's voice.....check out around 50 seconds mark when Ace looks kinda funny and Paul kinda reminds him not to start singing (drunk maybe?)

either way it is interesting to watch this clip now as i see them as people now and not some mythical creature


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[Edited 10/12/09 4:50am]