1980's Unmasked was a terrible flop. It barely got gold status. 1981 saw Music From The Elder, which was an even worse flop. After your last few albums have been flops, what do you do? You release a greatest hits album with four atrocious new songs.
I was seven, and I was just getting into KISS. After hearing songs like "Rock 'n' Roll All Nite" and "God Of Thunder", I just knew that the four masked musicians were the greatest rockers to ever walk the Earth. They simply amazed my young little eyes at the time. I asked my father what a good KISS album was, and he simply replied with "Alive II." So, the next Saturday, I went out with my grandparents to Media Play, and saw Alive II. I was going to buy it, but my grandparents said that it was too expensive. It was twenty dollars, and of course my fifty-something year-old grandparents weren't about to shuffle out that much money for a KISS CD, even though they had enough.
So what did I do? I looked at the next album, which was Killers, and my elderly grand-folks shuffled out those nine dollars for it. The album began with "I'm A Legend Tonight", a terrible song, one that I even hated back when I was seven. This song is atrocious. It has a bad disco-ish song feel to it, with no redeeming qualities at all. "Down On Your Knees" has a heavier feel, but it too is another throw-away track with a somewhat similar sound to the opening song.
What I was treated next with was "Cold Gin", a hard-rocking track with Ace Frehley on the vocals. This is one of the best tracks on the album, and I was surprised that it made it on the album. There were so many other hits for KISS. Anyway, this is a pretty good song. The lyrics are about something that Ace does best: Drink. The guitar has a rough sound, but it fits with the song. "Love Gun" is next, and it is one of the band's heavier songs, like I said in my review of the album of the same name. For my description of this song, you could just look in that review. For those of you too lazy to do so, I will say that this is also one of the album's highlights. The lyrics are mildly stupid, but the overall sound of the song is top notch.
"Shout It Out Loud" is also one of the greatest songs on the album. It's a remix of the original, and of course the original is better, but this is very good. The lyrics are about partying of course, and this track has Paul Stanley on vocals, providing his showman-like sound. The guitar is actually pretty good by KISS standards, especially the solo, even though it is insanely short. The streak of very good songs is ended with 1979's Dynasty's "Sure Know Something". This is a poor song, and it's an insanely pathetic attempt at disco, but it just turns out to be a badly done rock song.
What do we have next after that poor effort? More lame material. "Nowhere To Run" sounds very similar to the opening track, and it's just as bad. "Partners In Crime" is the last and the best of the four newly recorded tracks, but even then, it's still very, very, very mediocre. The catchiness saves it.
"Detroit Rock City" and "God of Thunder", two Destroyer cuts, are next, and these are great songs. The guitar solo in Detroit Rock City is actually pretty impressive, with an F-Zero sound to it. "God of Thunder" is much better live than on studio, but it still manages to be a very good song, with a dark and heavy feel to it that every KISS fan loves.
"I Was Made For Lovin' You" is another track from the disco album Dynasty, and it's a good song. It's even sort of funny, because it's just so stupid. You have to love it though. Stupid lyrics throughout, and this may turn most people off, but it adds to the stupidity and funniness of the track. The whole song is disco-ish, and it's insanely catchy. Even the guitars manage to have a disco sound. KISS made this song for money, and they got a ton of money, but hey, I like this song.
The poor compilation ends with a live of version of you-know-what. This is a great way to close the album. It's got catchy guitar, it's got catchy lyrics, and it's the band's signature song. If you haven't guessed it by now, you're a retard. Rock 'n' Roll All Nite! At least this album ends on a high note.
So there you go. Another poor compilation album. Seven songs are good, and there are twelve songs. Seven songs is not a good greatest hits album, especially for KISS. I suppose that couldn't have put too much on this, because just a few years earlier they had released Double Platinum, a double-disc compilation with every KISS song you need pretty much.
The atrocious newly recorded songs could have been thrown out and replaced with maybe a few lesser-known KISS gems from Rock N Roll Over, which is one of the band's best albums. Even though this was my first KISS CD, this is a very bad album. The tracklist appeals to you at first, but once you listen, you finally understand that this album
sucks.
Pros:
+ A few decent tracks
+ Instrumentation is impressive sometimes
Cons:
- Sure Know Something
- The four newly recorded tracks
- Everything else
NOT RECOMMENDED AT ALL
~2/5~
