I *loved* kiss. Once.
Anyone old enough to remember them in the 80s? going to one of their concerts back then was still amazing, but not because of the show and the music any longer, it was because of the audience.
after licensing their image for anything that made them money, from comics to toys (a practice that still persists, only these days few care about kiss anymore), you'd go to a concert and you'd see children as young as 3 made up like one of the band, on the shoulders of their parents (also made up, and generally as peter criss/the cat), and the punchline of the joke was that a great many of these parents did not generally like either the band or the music outside of a couple of tracks.
it was their kids, that playing with kiss toys, reading kiss comics and buying into their stage personalities, became "fans" of the band.
seriously, i lived it, but you can look it up.
this was the very reason for the beginning of their decline, which then forced them to abandon the make up in an attempt to reverse the trend and return to their serious rock band days; which at that point didn't work, because by that time their mind set had switched from musical excellence to commercialism, so they lost that spark that made them special in the 70s.
things like the kiss casket, the kiss condoms, the terrible commercial lectures of ... some of the less wise members of the band, the return to the times of makeup, the GODAWFUL movies, either with the whole band or just with Simmons, and now, in the 2010s even after recognizing what a mistake they were, we're back to that. absolutely anything to make a cent regardless of its wisdom, quality, value or lack of it; it's disappointing in the extreme, also ridiculous and sad.
they were an unstoppable musical juggernaut with one of the best live shows ever, these days they might as well change the name to "MISS", not to mention the harsher alternative.
seriously avoid.
Anyone old enough to remember them in the 80s? going to one of their concerts back then was still amazing, but not because of the show and the music any longer, it was because of the audience.
after licensing their image for anything that made them money, from comics to toys (a practice that still persists, only these days few care about kiss anymore), you'd go to a concert and you'd see children as young as 3 made up like one of the band, on the shoulders of their parents (also made up, and generally as peter criss/the cat), and the punchline of the joke was that a great many of these parents did not generally like either the band or the music outside of a couple of tracks.
it was their kids, that playing with kiss toys, reading kiss comics and buying into their stage personalities, became "fans" of the band.
seriously, i lived it, but you can look it up.
this was the very reason for the beginning of their decline, which then forced them to abandon the make up in an attempt to reverse the trend and return to their serious rock band days; which at that point didn't work, because by that time their mind set had switched from musical excellence to commercialism, so they lost that spark that made them special in the 70s.
things like the kiss casket, the kiss condoms, the terrible commercial lectures of ... some of the less wise members of the band, the return to the times of makeup, the GODAWFUL movies, either with the whole band or just with Simmons, and now, in the 2010s even after recognizing what a mistake they were, we're back to that. absolutely anything to make a cent regardless of its wisdom, quality, value or lack of it; it's disappointing in the extreme, also ridiculous and sad.
they were an unstoppable musical juggernaut with one of the best live shows ever, these days they might as well change the name to "MISS", not to mention the harsher alternative.
seriously avoid.