Editor’s Note: This month, we’re posting not one, but two guides to the respective best and worst of KISS. The second, more explicitly negative part is going up next week; but even the first, technically positive installment is full of some pretty withering asides. What can I say? Something about KISS just fills me with equal parts joy and contempt. But, as I wrote yesterday’s post, it occurred to me that constructing brutal bon mots about the Goofiest Band in the Land isn’t exactly a new hobby for me; hell, I’ve been doing it now for almost a full decade, and that’s just counting what’s been preserved on the Internet. Here, for example, is the review I wrote of Paul Stanley‘s 2006 solo album Live to Win, released almost exactly nine years ago. It was one of my most widely-read, and also widely-reviled pieces, for reasons that will soon become evident. I would have included some of the scathing rebuttals I received from KISS fans in the comments, but they appear to have been lost forever. So just take my word for it: the KISS Army was not pleased with my evaluation of their co-commander-in-chief’s work. And, to be honest, I was a little unnecessarily mean at times; I’ve edited the post to soften some of the insults that, in my youthful verve, veered a little too close to verbal abuse. I hope it’s evident that my KISS-roasting skills have improved in the last nine years, even if my diplomacy has not. See you next week! – Z.H.
I’m no grizzled veteran rock journo, but I like to think I’m streetwise enough to know what to expect when I slam a classic rock icon; so here I am, beginning a review on the defensive. I like, and even respect, Paul Stanley. Maybe not as a human being (I wouldn’t know), and, aside from a few ironic giggles, certainly not as a constructed persona (his stage banter on last year’s Rock the Nation Live DVD was enough to make even the most ardent KISS fan crawl under a rock and die). But as a songwriter and performer, I consider Stanley to be a truly underrated force in hard rock. If you don’t believe me, just look at his credits: “Love Gun,” “Detroit Rock City,” “Shout It Out Loud“–“Got to Choose,” for Christ’s sake! So before the hate mail comes flowing in, people, let me get this off my chest: I’m not about to slam Live to Win because I have it in for Paul Stanley. I’m about to slam Live to Win because it’s an absolutely unforgivable, unlistenable load of tripe.
Neither the songwriting chops nor the sheer arena-rock thrills of the KISS classics listed above are in evidence on Paul Stanley’s solo “debut” (actually his second album, if you count his quarter
If this doesn’t seem like a real review, then you’ve got me — it sort of isn’t. But that’s only because Live to Win hardly qualifies as a real album. There are no high or even low points, unless you count its mercifully brief 33-minute running time. Every song just bleeds together into a mush of embarrassing, out-of-touch musical self-flagellation. Okay, here’s something: the monster ballad “Everytime I See You Around” sounds kinda like Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing.” That, if you can’t guess, isn’t a compliment either. In fact, the best thing I can say about Stanley’s exercise in irrelevancy is actually more of a compliment to his bandmate of 30 years. I never thought there would be a worse rock-dinosaur solo album than Gene Simmons‘ Asshole
You can buy Live to Win
