RECORD STORE TALES MkII: Getting More Tales
#372: Top Five Reasons Why I Love Kiss
A while ago I recorded this segment for a proposed podcast over at KingCrimsonProg. The podcast hasn’t come together yet, for the moment anyway, but I’ve decided to use my segment right here because it’s a subject of interest. Listen to the embedded video below to hear my Top Five Reasons Why I Love Kiss!
RECORD STORE TALES MkII: Getting More Tale
#367: Greatest Hits 2
A sequel to #364: Greatest Hits
The last time we talked about greatest hits albums, I listed seven reasons that die-hard fans usually shun them. Readers came up with some of their own, and also arguments to defend greatest hits albums. I usually advise fans to buy key studio albums rather than compilations, depending on the person. Yet I still own a few hundred greatest hits albums. There have to be good reasons.
And what about you? How many do you own? What are your favourites? Why did you buy them? I asked myself those three questions too. #1. I don’t know. #2. There are many, but Double Platinum and Killers by Kiss are up there. #3. Let’s talk about that in depth…I broke it down into seven points:
1. There are some artists that I barely know. Neil Diamond or Kenny Rogers, for example. There might be a handful of songs I like, but not enough that I have heard to take the plunge and buy an actual album. Or, I know it’s an artist that I don’t want many albums from. I have a feeling that I only want one or two CDs, so one of them is usually a greatest hits. I collect a lot of music, but I can’t collect everybody. Sometimes I’ve done the research to know that I need one or two CDs and nothing more.
2. Exclusive tracks are often dangled as bait. But sometimes greatest hits albums are stuffed with exclusive radio edits and remixes that aren’t obviously credited. Kiss’ Double Platinum is one such album. Aerosmith’s Greatest Hits had a number of special edits of songs. Collectors like myself often look for such versions. They make for an enjoyable way to hear a familiar song with a slightly different slant.
3. Artwork. Younger folks might not understand why this matters, but I come from the age of physical product. With some bands, you don’t want just the music. You want all the album covers too; they are sometimes as important as any other aspect of the music. Iron Maiden is the first, obvious example. I own several Iron Maiden greatest hits discs simply because I wanted to own all the Eddies. There is a certain satisfaction in viewing them all lined up in order.
4. Historical importance. Some greatest hits albums are just historically important. Best of Van Halen Volume I for example – even if I didn’t buy it for the two new songs, I would have wanted it for the significant role it played in breaking up Van Hagar! You might want to own Their Greatest Hits by the Eagles for the fact it’s the top selling hits album of all time.
5. Sometimes, I actually do listen to greatest hits! Sure, not often by comparison. But if I’m in the car with the Mrs., she might prefer a Deep Purple greatest hits set to a 5 disc version of Made in Japan. I own ‘em, so if they’re good I may as well play ‘em. Also, If I’m going somewhere and I only have an hour or so to listen to music, a greatest hits album often scratches whatever itch I have.
6. Gateway music. My entrance into the world of Thin Lizzy was one CD (Dedication: The Very Best of).
That point is the most important one. Using a greatest hits album to delve further in the discography is such an excellent experience. My first two Deep Purple’s were greatest hits. Now my Purple collection is of a prodigious size. I don’t even know how many I have. 100 maybe? More? And it keeps growing!
My first Floyd? Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd. My first Rush? Chronicles. First ZZ Top? Greatest Hits. See where I’m going with this? These are bands that, today, I am still collecting. I still buy whatever’s coming out. Which brings me to my last point.
7. Personal history. I’ve developed a relationship with some of those greatest hits albums over the years, even if they have been superseded by better ones. Something about the familiarity, I suppose. But even though all my first greatest hits albums were on cassette, I still went and bought CD copies of them all. In some cases, vinyl too!
What are your favourites? Does it bother you to own multiple copies of the same songs? If your favourite band came out with a greatest hits album tomorrow, would you consider buying it? Let me know!
PETER CRISS – One For All (2007 Silvercat Records)
I decided to be lazy tonight, and write an easy review on a shitty album. It’s easier to tear something down than to build it up. I dove into my Peter Criss folder, and grinned as I selected his 2007 post-Kiss reunion solo album, One For All. Peter re-teamed with his Criss bandmates, Mark Montague and Mike McLaughlin. He also called in some favors from the Letterman Show’s Will Lee and Paul Shaffer.
And then everyone took a giant shit, recorded it, and they called it an album. A long, drawn out and painfully slow and tuneless album. One For All consists entirely of slow, slow numbers. Call ’em ballads, call ’em whatever you want. It’s 100% schlock, 0% rock. Peter: I am telling you right now man, and I’m sorry to have to be the one to say this, but your voice is gone. It’s done. It’s not pleasant to listen to anymore, especially when you try to reach notes so far out of your range that you’re whispering. Note accuracy is also a problem. It seems to be that if Peter didn’t hit the notes, but was in the general vicinity of them, that was a take. I am guessing at the quality control standards; I wasn’t there in the studio with Peter, who self-produced this bad boy. Not a good idea there, Pete m’boy.
The best tune is the title track and opener, “One for All”, on which Peter is backed by the mighty All Boys Choir from the Church of Transfiguration. Their voices (which unfortunately don’t come in until close to the end) save this song and make it something a little more special. It makes you wish they were singing on more of the album! Also, any time backup singer Jen Johnson is audible, then everything’s fine.
Worst tunes: A tie between “Send in the Clowns” (yes, that “Send in the Clowns”) and “Space Ace”. I’m not going to insult your intelligence and tell you what “Space Ace” is about. Now that Peter has written songs about himself (“The Cat” from his EP) and Ace, I’m waiting for him to come up with “Star Child” and “The Demon”. Milk it Peter, for all its worth. May as well, since everybody else is too.
Quality control beef from the lyric sheet: the song “Doesn’t Get Better Than This”.
Remember George, and his guitar,
John and Paul, and Ringo Star.
Seriously, they spelled Ringo Starr’s name wrong in a song about the Beatles!
Sorry Peter. This album gets the dreaded LeBrain Shit-Bomb.
0.5/5 stars
MOMOIRO CLOVER Z vs KISS – “Yume no Ukiyo ni Saitemina” / “Samurai Son” (2015 King Records Japan CD singles, sold separately)
Here they are, the new singles featuring the Kiss vs Momoiro Clover Z collaboration. “Samurai Son” appeared on the current Best of Kiss 40 CD, billed there as the “U.S. Mix”. That meant there are other versions out there, so I ordered the singles (two separate releases) from Japan. Even if I did not like the other versions of the song, the single covers were cool enough to keep as collectibles. As it turns out they are printed on high quality textured parchment style paper, and have stunning inner and outer art. They also come with transparent outer shells with shiny embossed symbols and writing. For packaging, it’s 5/5 stars for these singles.
Between the two singles, there are four different mixes from the “U.S. Mix” of “Samurai Son”. All feature Kiss, to a certain degree. Here’s how the versions break down, from “Least Kiss” to “Most Kiss”:
5. “Yume no Ukiyo ni Saitemina”. This is the full-on Japanese version with the spotlight primarily on Momoiro Clover Z. They take the lead vocals and their elements of the song and style and brought up in the mix. It’s funny to hear Kiss singing background vocals in English, underneath the Japanese lead vocals! Who know if the words actually go together in any way.
4. “Yume no Ukiyo ni Saitemina” (instrumental version). Kiss are the backing band on this track and you can clearly hear Tommy soloing, but the Kiss and J-pop elements are mixed fairly equally here. These first two renditions of the song are on both versions of the single.
3. “Samurai Son” (instrumental version). From the CD with the artwork emphasizing Kiss. This instrumental is based on the Kiss rather than the Momoclo version of the song. Tommy is in the spotlight a bit more on this version, as the instrumental mix leaves more room for his guitar licks to take the spotlight.
2. “Samurai Son”. From the same CD as the above track, this is a Kiss-heavy version similar to the “U.S. Mix” on Best of Kiss 40…but not quite the same. It follows the same blueprint of Kiss being up front and the Momoclo girls audible in the background and on the chorus. It has vocal, guitar and J-pop parts that are not as apparent in the “U.S. Mix”. Gene’s vocals also sound higher in the mix. It’s audibly mastered way, way louder than Kiss 40, as you can see from the Audacity waveform below. Track 3 from the CD is on top, the “U.S. Mix” from Kiss 40 is beneath.
1. “Samurai Son” (U.S. Mix). The Kiss 40 version; the mix that is geared to appeal mostly to Kiss fans. Logically, it sounds the most like Kiss. It’s only on Kiss 40; neither of these two singles have this mix which makes it a little more special for Kiss fans.
There are more tracks, but I’ll be frank — I didn’t even rip them to the computer. These tracks are vocals and instrumental covers by Momoiro Clover Z of “Rock and Roll all Nite”. I listened to it; it’s cute. If you want to try and get your little niece into rock music, this might be the way to do it. It has some guitars but it’s very cutesy. (Probably still better than Poison’s version though, Mr. Rockett.)
Finally there is the Blu-ray containing the music video, that I cannot play due to region restrictions. That’s why they invented Youtube, I think….
I give Kiss credit for doing something different like this and making it accessible to different audiences. My favourite version is the one on Kiss 40, but that one was custom built for people like me. These two singles are fun additions to the collection. It’s one of those conversation pieces you can show that one guy you know who says he has “all” the Kiss CDs.
3/5 stars
KISS – 40 (2015 Universal Japan single CD Commemorative edition)
Wait a minute, I’m confused — did I just buy Kiss 40, again?
Wait a minute, it’s 2015 now — shouldn’t this be Kiss 41, or something??
Wait a minute, what the hell is “Kiss vs. Momoiro Clover Z”???
Eager to buy anything new from Gene and Co., I got this new single CD version of Kiss 40 without really knowing what it was about.
Now that the CD has arrived at the door, I discovered that Momoiro Clover Z is a Japanese all-girl pop group with similar intentions as Kiss themselves. They dreamed big dreams for themselves and aimed to entertain and bring a spectacle to the people. They have colour coordinated members and characters, so perhaps a Kiss collaboration seemed like the next step for them. I don’t know how the collaboration came to be, but the result was a brand new Kiss song written by Paul Stanley and producer Greg Collins.
This edition of Kiss 40 commences with a Kiss-heavy mix of the new collaboration, “Samurai Son”. There are other versions available on two singles and on iTunes, but reviews for those will wait until they arrive at LeBrain HQ. The good news is that the “U.S.” mix of “Samurai Son” has no problem hanging out on a Kiss greatest hits CD. Musically, it’s not too much of a departure of the direction from Kiss’ last album, Monster. It’s just more produced, polished and embellished. The girls from Momoiro Clover Z come in during the chorus, but it’s not the first time Kiss have had female backing vocals on their albums. It’s the first time since 1989, but remember old classic tunes like “Tomorrow and Tonight” from Love Gun, and “Sweet Pain” from Destroyer? Female backing vocals. The new twists this time are the lines in Japanese, and the very slight J-pop slant. It’s not too far of a departure.
Collector’s card included inside Kiss 40
It may not be to your taste, but I love “Samurai Son”. The lyrics address Kiss’ experience of hitting Japan for the first time back in 1976:
“I took a flight into Tokyo,
Into the Land of the Rising Son,
I heard my song on the radio,
Blowin’ my mind like a shot from a gun.”
Paul then proceeds to tear it up all over town, “Livin’ life with no regrets.” The words suit one of those fast paced Kiss rockers that they’ve been doing of late — think “Hell or Hallelujah”. There are some cool Thayer licks and you can tell that Gene Simmons showed up for the sessions, because you can hear him singing on the choruses. The overall impression is that “Samurai Son” is one of those solid Kiss catalogue rockers. It’s like the new material on side four of Kiss Alive II: pretty good but living in the shadow of the Kiss greats.
From this point on, Kiss 40 (the 2015 abridged version) continues with the “best” hits from the full length 2 CD version…but not quite. There have been some major tweaks to the tracklist, perhaps to maximize the listening pleasure of consumers who just need one CD of Kiss in their lives. The classic live version of “Rock and Roll all Nite” has been replaced with the studio version from Dressed to Kill. Same for “Shout it Out Loud” and “Detroit Rock City”, here in their original full Destroyer guises instead of live. I like the way the car crash ending of “Detroit” merges into “Calling Dr. Love”. “Dr. Love” and “Love Gun” were thrown into the pile here, even though they weren’t on the original Kiss 40 in any form. A little further down, a different song was plucked from Kiss Killers: The superior “I’m a Legend Tonight” replaces “Down on Your Knees”.
Moving on from the makeup years to the non-makeup 1980’s, the original version of “Crazy Crazy Nights” replaces that unreleased live version from the double Kiss 40. That sums up the song substitutions; the album still continues chronologically to the current era. I’m pleased that even though early songs from the first two Kiss albums were axed, songs from the last two Kiss albums were not. I think Sonic Boom and Monster are Kiss albums the band should be proud of, so you get “Modern Day Delilah” and “Hell or Hallelujah”, as it should be. Other albums excluded from this compilation are The Elder, (surprisingly) Creatures of the Night, Hot in the Shade, the live records and the solo albums.
With all these tweaks and alterations, the overall listening experience is enhanced albeit at the cost of some deeper tracks. It’s a give and take, so the overall score for the new Kiss 40 remains:
4/5 stars
Me after my first week or two at my current job in 2007. Iron Maiden shirt!
RECORD STORE TALES MkII: Getting More Tale
#359: Autodidacticism
I was very excited to begin my current job, back in 2007. I was hired as sales coordinator for the “custom forming” department at a steel company. I would mostly be dealing in railcar parts (weighing anywhere from 4 lbs to 3000 lbs each) and shipping them all over North America (and once even Dubai). It wasn’t all new to me, but a lot of it was going to be. I was replacing someone on a maternity leave, before I was hired on permanent in 2008. She was absolutely meticulous and had a real talent with Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. I was inheriting all this and I hadn’t much experience with Excel. I used it at home for budgets and whatnot, but upon seeing my predecessor’s work, I realized I knew relatively very little about it in reality. I had to self educate very quickly.
What does this have to do with rock and roll? asks the bored reader. I’m getting there!
I learn by doing, so I sat down with Excel for a few nights to get myself up to speed. I began making some spreadsheets and familiarizing myself with the software…I just couldn’t figure out what I wanted to make a spreadsheet of! Then it hit me: let’s make it fun. Let’s chart all the different official Kiss albums!
It actually ended up being a lot more fun than you might think! I added an on-the-fly (but somewhat arbitrary) album rating system and then calculated the mean and median ratings. I added up studio vs. live. vs compilation albums and made a pie chart of them. I made it look as visually appealing as I could. In my job I would be creating spreadsheets that went to VP’s and the president of the company, so I wanted everything to look perfect. And it was fun to do. This is obvious, because looking at it today, I even kept updating it into 2008, a full year after I made it!
My final observation is that when I abandoned this spreadsheet in 2008, I apparently hadn’t yet learned that the Kiss Alive! 1975-2000 box set had an iTunes bonus track, because that information is omitted here.
Yeah, I’m a nerd! Always have been, and hopefully always will be!
RECORD STORE TALES MkII: Getting More Tale
#353: Hotter Than Hell
Grade 8 was a shitty year. I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of that shitty school. I had it up to here [holds hand right below chin] with the bullies and teachers. I had a fight with a bully at the beginning of the year, which at least kept that one off my case for the rest of it. That was also the year I got mono! The only thing that really helped get me through was rock and roll, and especially Kiss. Way back in Part 3 of Record Store Tales, I acquired Hotter Than Hell on LP, in very bad condition. I almost immediately traded it away for a bunch of other records and swag, but not before dubbing a copy on a terrible Scotch blank tape. As explained in great detail in Part 3, I grew to love Hotter Than Hell despite its flaws. Sonically, it was arguably Kiss’ worst album. I was listening to a scratched LP via a 120 minute Scotch tape that was prone to stretch and warble. I had Kiss’ worst sounding album on the worst sounding format! Yet something about it kept drawing me back.
Sound issues aside, there’s no denying Hotter Than Hell is a powerful record. Perennial Kiss klassics such as “Got to Choose”, “Hotter Than Hell”, “Parasite”, and “Let Me Go, Rock and Roll” can be found right here. It also has one of Peter Criss’ best tunes (albeit written by Paul Stanley) called “Mainline”. I found myself immediately hooked on Peter’s raspy voice. I surmised that “Mainline” wasn’t a hit, since it neither appeared on Alive! nor Double Platinum. I couldn’t figure out why. “If Kiss have songs this good that never became hits,” I reasoned, “the rest of their albums must also be pretty good.”
Right after “Mainline” was another amazing song that I fell for: “Coming Home”. This Stanley ode to the road was chosen many years later as the opening track for Kiss’ MTV Unplugged. Back then, to me it was another classic that should have been a hit. The nucleus of the album became four key songs that I could not get enough of: “Coming Home”, “Mainline”, “Hotter Than Hell” and “Got to Choose”. Later on, “All the Way” expanded that list to five.
Those tunes kept me going. If I was having a rotten day at school, I could hum “Coming Home” to myself and feel better. For a French assignment, we had to record an introductory paragraph about ourselves, approximately 30-60 seconds long. We were allowed to do this with music in the background. I chose the opening riff to “Got to Choose” for mine. First chord — then, “Je m’appelle Michèle…” I talked for the instrumental part, and was finished before the opening line of the song. But I kept the tape running for a moment longer before I did a fade-out: “Baby, you know I heard the neighbors say…” Just so I could work a little bit of Kiss into my French class. I was probably the only one who noticed.
The bullies picked on me pretty hard in grade 8. I was assigned “flag duty”, which meant I was the guy who had to put the flag up every morning. Drawing attention to myself was never a fun thing in grade 8, and I had to do it every morning. Walking down the hall to the coughs of “Fag Boy” — a clever name derived from “Flag Boy” — was a daily torment. They also liked to make fun of my boots, which today would have been cooler than hell, since they were vintage, but then just added to misery. Thursdays were wood shop class, which meant a bus ride to another school downtown. That bus ride was without a doubt the worst part of each week. I was prone to getting sick on Thursdays, for some reason….
When I got mono (for real) I missed most of the end of grade 8, but not before being shamed in front of the entire class by my teacher. “Shame on you!” she said, because I picked the wrong school. We all had to choose which highschool we wanted to go to. We were usually expected to choose the Catholic school, but there was no way in hell I was doing that. You couldn’t have dragged me along with those kids, believe me. There was just no way. I chose Grand River Collegiate, which was closer. Plus my best friend Bob, who was two years older than me, went to that school. It would be cool to see him every day at lunch time. We never had any classes together for obvious reasons, but we conspired to get lockers side by side once. We had a great time in highschool. Those were the golden years!
Certainly better than grade 8. I’ve never told all of these stories publicly before. It is what it is, and all is certainly forgiven now. The interesting thing is how these experiences collided to really galvanize my love of that Hotter Than Hell album. Listening to it today still brings back memories of gym class, waiting for it to finally end, humming “Coming Home” to myself. And that, friends, is why such a terrible sounding record is so important to me!
Here’s the same boring blah blah that everybody is posting — site stats! The best part of site stats are the Top Commenters of 2014, so I’ve saved them for last. There are also the Top Search Terms of 2014, which hold a few real WTFs…
Top Ten Posts of 2014 by hits
Top Videos of 2014
Top Ten Search Terms of 2014
And lastly…
Top 5 commenters of 2014*
keepsmealive – 1116 Comments
Heavy Metal Overload – 749 Comments
Sarca – 631 Comments
1537 – 471 Comments
Jon Wilmenius – 436 Comments
Regardless, all five readers have excellent sites that have supported me, and I support in turn. I recommend that you check each one of them out. Aaron and James at keepsmealive write mostly about music, and music related anecdotes. Their site goes back to 2007 and there is plenty of content there. Scott, our Heavy Metal OverloRd, always has something interesting to check out in his Buying Round-Ups and reviews. If you like music, books, video games and coffee (who doesn’t), then you need to check out Sarca at Caught Me Gaming. She is also the founder of the #cupfacecrew. If you like quirky music reviews with Lego re-enactments, then the fine 1537 is the site for you. Joe’s photography is just as interesting as his writing. Then for everything in the Swedish and world hard rock scenes, Jon Wilmenius runs e-tainment news and reviews. I swear to God, I had no idea Sweden had so many rock bands! His annual Sweden Rock Festival reviews are always a treat.
Happy New Year to you, and keep on rockin’ in the free world!
I saw the sad news this morning that my childhood friend George, whom I spent many afternoons taping Kiss albums with, has passed away. George started my Kiss collection. He was an instrumental part of my musical discoveries at a very early age. I don’t know what happened.
George always liked Gene best, so here’s a song for you, buddy. Rest in peace. Damn.
Disclaimer (1537!): meat and music content ahead!
It has been an incredibly busy week here at Chez LeBrain. They tell me it’s Saturday. I’ve lost all track of time. The first week of my holidays are gone! I have a feeling that the next week will be filled with lots of music….
After our annual family Christmas Eve dinner/gathering, we re-convened for Christmas Day. My Grandma’s 90th Christmas was also her first since breaking her leg in the summertime. She did awesome! Another amazing Christmas, all finished. Hard to believe.
On to the good stuff!
First up: the fun stuff. Some Kiss dolls. Is it Ace and Peter? Or is it Tommy and Eric? Who knows! A Kiss keychain to boot. Got some Transformers too. Should I open up the rare Treadshot figure? Or no? I can’t decide! Jen also bought me a Transformers pen with a light in it that acts like a Bat signal…but it’s a Bee signal!
Some assorted goodies…
That Fart game looks interesting.
Finally got the game Risk: Legacy. Interesting twist on this one. It must always be played by the same group of players. Changes you make to the game are permanent. What you do in game 1 may come back to haunt you in game 6. Cards and the board itself are modified permanently as you go. Most elements of the game are completely secret until you reach the point where you can break seals on additional instructions. Cool eh?
Lastly, the music! Here we go.
The first five Zep remasters! Holy Zep overload! These are all doubles. Queen Live at the Rainbow ’74 — also a double. Dio live in ’93, another double. Several CD/DVD sets: Bon Jovi New Jersey deluxe (yes!!) with 2 CDs and a DVD. Journey’s Escape Tour CD + DVD set. (Listening that one right now, actually.) Whitesnake Live in ’94 is another CD + DVD set. Then some new music: Foo Fighters and AC/DC’s Rock Or Bust! I really like the packaging on the AC/DC disc. Can’t wait to hear it.
Last but certainly not least: ZZ Top’s The Complete Studio Albums 1970-1990. 10 CDs, baby! As if all that Zeppelin wasn’t enough, now this! Thank you, Mrs. LeBrain’s Mom, for this one! I only had one of these albums before, which is Eliminator. Some of these discs are available separately with bonus tracks, but that’s OK: this box set is the only place you can get several of these Top albums in their original mix. Remember in the 80’s when they remixed and re-released the Top back catalogue? Those 80’s mixes have persisted on CD for a long time. This box set represents the first time you could listen to albums like Rio Grande Mud in their original form on CD. I like that very much.
mikeladano.com 