On Saturday night, Dok and I continued our spirited KISS debate from the night before, this time focusing on the best Gene Simmons songs from the 1982-1992 post-makeup era (though we included Creatures of the Night for some reason).  Dok loves the non-makeup KISS, while I believe the band really tanked creatively during those years, and yet even with his enthusiasm and dedication, my old buddy still couldn’t pull out more than a few worthy Gene songs. On my end, I went through every song from their catalog…Creatures of the Night through Revenge (I don’t consider Carnival of Souls to be a legitimate KISS album so for a “best of” list I would leave it out)…and the only song by Gene that stands up and earns a B-minus is Killer from Creatures.  It has a cool groove to it, the lyrics are dumb but Gene makes up for that by spitting out the words like he really means them, and for once Gene doesn’t simply phone in the bass.  Everything else he wrote during the non-makeup years I consider C-minus or below.  I can’t even pick two others for a Gene Top Three list!

Here are some excerpts, notably the Dok Stryper highlights:

Creatures of the Night:

DOK:  Dub, I think Gene still had his groove during Creatures of the Night.  Saint and Sinner is fantastic.  Eric Carr wins big props for killer drums on this one.  I don’t know about the lyrics but the groove is great.  I already mentioned that I am a huge fan of I Love It Loud and War Machine.   As an original fan, I have to say Creatures deserves to be included in the good pile.

DUB:  The good pile!  What bothers me about I Love It Loud is that it was an attempt to re-capture the spirit of Rock and Roll All Nite, right?  Another party/rock anthem?  Sure.  But what a lot of people seem to forget is that they already tried to re-capture that spirit in the form of Shout It Out Loud.  And succeeded, I might add.  So they completed the book-ends right there. How many more times does one have to love it loud, or raise his glass, or accept rock and roll from God, or pledge allegiance to the state of rock and roll?

So whether I Love It Loud is a good song or not, who knows? You like it or you don’t. But to me, it is a ham-fisted over-attempt to re-capture something that they had already re-captured.  

DOK:  Killer is a strong tune.  Gene was a rock god on this one.  Still had the groove.  I think Creatures is a must-have KISS album.  And Dub, that is 4 Gene tunes on the first CD right out of the gate!

DUB:  Creatures has always been a puzzling album for me in terms of KISS’s place in the rock world, and how they viewed themselves.  And, of course, the music.  At the time, they were still getting over the failure that was The Elder, and they proclaimed that they would “return” to their heavier sound. I am pretty sure they say this after every record, but whatever. Now, Peter Criss is a jazz-influenced drummer, and Ace Frehley is a rock guitarist.  They were never heavy prior to Creatures.  So as we’ve discussed before, Creatures was more of a knee-jerk reaction to The Elder than a conscious effort to “go heavy.”  By “going heavy,” they simply were trying to wash away the stench of the lighter stuff on The Elder and Unmasked.  And as I said the other day to you and Def (Warrant, Dub’s brother), Revenge was the knee-jerk reaction to wash away Hot In the Shade.

Note, also, that the KISS sound has largely been shaped by the style of the second, non-Paul guitar and the drums.  Eric Carr + Vinnie Vincent = shift to very heavy rock…pretty much metal.  Eric Carr + Bruce Kulick = glam rock with flashy guitar leads.  Otherwise, like with Carnival of Souls (the second big head-scratcher), they made a conscious decision to pursue a certain sound, and work the instruments…just the guitar, really…to fit that preconceived sonic result.  It goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway) that the key members of the band, Gene and Paul, are almost irrelevant in terms of their instruments, because Paul’s guitar never shaped the sound, and Gene is a barely-average bass player.

DOK: Are you done?

DUB: No. So it was 1982, and they “went heavy.”  Gene was writing lyrics that were, for the most part, acceptable (for Gene), and similar to his 70s output, but the band’s sound was completely new and came across as not really forced, but something that clearly showed the fans that something strange was happening.  I can actually remember the first time I listened to Creatures, after having survived the Unmasked*/Elder years, and thinking, “What the hell is this?”  The Creatures sound came completely out of left field. 

*I liked Unmasked back then, but it was extremely uncool to like KISS during this 3- or 4-years stretch, as we both know.  You remember telling people your mom wouldn’t let you take anyone into your room because it was so messy?  What was the real reason?  All those KISS posters!

I have softened my views on Creatures a bit only because, yes, there are some passable songs on the record that keep the band rooted to the pre-1980 band, but also because all of KISS’s catalog must now be viewed in historical context [Dub has been doing some book-learnin’ – Ed.], and Creatures is leaps and bounds ahead of the subsequent 5 albums, 4 of which arrived before the end of the 80s.

Lick It Up:

DOK: The true beginning of the 80s. Why they waited to take off the make-up and put Vinnie on this cover still boggles my mind. They ruined the biggest card they had up their sleeves.

DUB:  Agreed. I have found that while the 80s stuff is largely sub-par, the gems can be found, and the “hits” are not the gems.  For example, I fail to understand why Lick It Up is such a classic song and makes the live set list year after year.  It is caveman rock!

DOK:  But Young and Wasted is awesome.  Only Gene tune worth it on this one. 

Animalize:

DUB: This is an album where Gene truly phoned it in, if even that.  Creatively absent and what he did contribute was pure crap.  Animalize is an album that makes me question Paul and Gene as producers, and question the people they choose as producers.  Dok, really, are there any good Gene songs on this one?

DOK:  Um, no.

Asylum:

DUB:  What about Animalize?

DOK:  No Gene tune worth a crap.

Crazy Nights:

DUB:  What about Crazy Nights?

DOK:  I give Gene no points!! 

Revenge:

DOK:  I am already on record as saying that this is one of my favorites.  This is the album that pulled me back in. I love Unholy. To me this is Gene going back to the God of Thunder well and I am so okay with that.

Domino…a finely-crafted rock and roll song.  They should still be playing this one live.

I’m down with Thou Shalt Not, too.  That’s three for Gene so far on this one.

Paralyzed!  Are you kidding me!  I am spitting blood as we speak.  A rock and roll classic and another that should be played live.  “Man I’ve been lobotomized.”  Turn this !@#$%^&* up!!

Fantastic album.

DUB:  You are smoking crack, Dok.  Revenge blows across the board.  Gene’s songs blow.  Paralyzed is a disaster!

Hot In The Shade:

DUB:  I consider Hot In The Shade a perfect example of what happens when the main songwriters in a band have lost their inspiration and have lost their identities and direction.  A total pile of crap, this one.  These songs have cookie-cutter, pick-out-of-a-hat titles (which is standard for Paul and Gene), and the Gene material is practically farce. And how long is this stupid record?

DOK:  May be my least favorite KISS album.  Hide Your Heart is good but trying to be so Bon Jovi…it’s sick.  I like Prisoner of Love, but more for Eric Carr than anything else.

Verdict:  Big fan of the non-makeup years, Dok Stryper, could come up with only TEN songs by Gene Simmons that are worthy of some sort of mention. And the list would include only nine songs if not for Eric Carr’s drumming on Prisoner of Love.  Seven albums…11 years…and yet only 10 songs.  And 4 of those songs came from 1982’s Creatures of the Night, when the band still had the makeup on.

One day soon we’ll debate Gene’s lyrics from this same time period.  

[Dub Warrant and Dok Stryper, ©2020]