Really? I'm not exactly a fan, but I've never disliked their music, and their act was definitely a common predecessor to later makeup rock acts.

Gene Simmons is an awful homophobic Republican Zionist pig-dog, but his band is pretty solid.

I don't really hate Kiss just the Kiss Army.

But you're our favorite member of the Kiss Army!

It makes sense that Gene Simmons was on "Celebrity Apprentice". I think Trump fired him early on, because the show only needs one of him.

Kiss Army? I wouldn't even join the Kiss Coast Guard. The band's fandom are a bunch of brain dead dweebs who would buy turds as long as they had the Kiss logo on them.
That facepaint had nothing to do with Kiss, that was more of a wrestling thing, which excludes WCW's Kiss Demon, cause he sucked.

You're very much against fan loyalty to a well merchandised brand?

I'll just wait for a response.

Contrary to what you may think, my home is not crammed with WWE merchandise. All I have is a few DVDs, T-Shirts, action figures, and an Ultimate Warrior wrestling buddy. I'm condemning extreme levels of loyalty to a well merchandised brand. I worked with a nutter who had a whole room in his music store just to keep his personal Kiss collection. He even bought the Kiss casket. That's just buying crap from a band that's just a shell of it's former stuff. I love the Misfits, but I don't buy their shitty post Michale Graves music.
Another thing people have absurd collections of that I hate are Funko Pops! figures. I fucking hate those things. I also know folks who could almost fill a room with their collections. They look stupid. Funko Pops! of Steven Universe characters were the first SU figures to come out. I didn't get them, they look nothing like the characters.

If they put MLP on a bag of cat litter, you'd consider eating it.

I don't even own any MLP merch. It's possible to enjoy a show without filling up your house with plastic crap.

"their act was definitely a common predecessor to later makeup rock acts. "


A) you say that like it's a good thing. I mean, The Misfits were slid and Gwar made some good music videos (although they owe a lot less to Kissthan the Green Jello)

B) Arthur brown had been doing it with good commercial success while also playing actually good music for over half a decade already when they formed, and Screaming Lord Sutch had been around for most of a decade already when Arthur Brown started. Kiss just had especially effective marketing

C) Their music is bad. This movie is probably the best thing they did.

Oh, and Genesis of course, and a bunch of glam rock bands, and weren't T Rex doing makeup a lot around '71? I don't really know that stuff so well (although I like the Tyrannosaurus Rex albums a lot, before they went electric).

Incredible String Band were doing a full costume stage show in 1970 at the height of their fame.

Coven weren't very successful in the long run but their costume stage show was notorious in the late 60s.

Graham Bond was doing an occult themed stage show around 69 or 70 until he died.

My point is don't give Kiss too much credit, their main achievement was dumbing down an existing trend enough that it was marketable to kids.



And I didn't even mention Alice Cooper (second best selling rock act in the world at the time, doing basically the same thing but with a lot more variety) or Frank Zappa's dabblings in stagecraft.

There was a moment, before the marketing took over completely, when Kiss was a great live band. They broke through by being a great live band. Their record company, Casablanca, was about to go under when they took the crazy risk of releasing a double live album for a band that wasn't selling records, and it went double platinum. That was 40 years ago.

It's been a while, but "Alive" is probably the only Kiss album worth listening to, though the canned 70s stage patter and the 7 minute drum solo would probably seem dated, and the outright sexism of some of the songs would be hard to ignore.

Hats off OZ, I went to bed before writing a response and woke up to find that you had beat me to it and cited all the right examples. People can like what they like, but when the topic of Kiss' legitimacy as an objectively "good band" comes up, I feel compelled to express myself.

I love stupid rock bands, but Kiss is just too boring and too stupid even for me. They might be a good live band, but that doesn't make their studio albums any better. My friend who likes Kiss accuses me of "hating fun" whenever this topic comes up, but, unlike other bands that are stupid and fun, I just can't let beef go with Kiss.

Also, is there another band that has generated more literal, physical trash than Kiss? I feel as if they could be classified as a pollutant... Somewhere there's a dolphin choking on a little spiky plastic guitar

Also Gene Simmons had a beef with N.W.A's induction to the rock and roll hall of fame.

I've been defending Kiss for decades, it's kind of a reflex. I almost can't stop myself,

But at this point, it's not so much a defense as a footnote to your completely legitimate distaste. The minute this band achieved success, Gene Simmons' shitty capitalist philosophy began to take them on a 35-year journey into SUCK. If you believe, as I do, that they were good for a moment, and they pissed it away for more money than anyone can possibly need, that's actually a pretty good reason to hate them, maybe the best reason. Also, they were always a misogynist nightmare.

Watching the Trump campaign for a year has really destroyed the last of my affection for this band that I loved as vain, shallow youth. They stand for pretty much the same things Trump stands for. I remember an article in Rolling Stone from 1976. Gene Simmons shows the reporter a scrapbook, Poloroids of all the women he's banged on the road, all beaver shots. Showing the pictures to another man to show off, that's the part that seems really seems horrible now. Maybe it's not wrong. Maybe the women signed on for being a part of Gene's collection... but it still seems horrible.

"I wouldn't even join the Kiss Coast Guard" I feel like this should have gotten a bigger pop.

One of the first things to go was the choreography of the original shows, which I was lucky enough to catch in December of 1975, just as they were breaking. It was exactly the right time to catch them in their careers. I saw them a second time, sometime in the 80s, and they just looked tired.

Because not even Peter Criss wants to be Peter Criss.

This movie is a tough one because it's just really, punishingly boring.

how do you feel about boxxy dropping the makeup?

Catie hasn't made a video in almost two years. She's been working as a voice actor for cartoons, mostly for the Disney channel. It's a typically smart move for her. Nobody's going to be able to make a living longterm in the crazy fishbowl of internet videos, and as an attractive young woman trying to work as an actor, she'd face huge competition against women with bigger tits for shitty roles that she'll be too old for in five years. And she's way better at voice acting than I would have expected.

OH WAIT! I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE!