Ha,I always liked this cover you know Leon Sphinx! But what was on the inside is kinda a mess of epic perportions! Like all the other albums that Kiss released I bought quick and well I think you can gather that by now right?!
And well oh well this is my last 3/4s Kiss Week Filler Blog and some of you are probably going where’s The Elder? Too be honest I thought it would be here but nope it has its moments of Brilliance(did I just fuckin say that) with The Oath,Escape From The Island, Dark Light,I, some goofiness like Just A Boy…some dumb Simmons rock like Mr Blackwell but man I hated The Elder in 1981 but 2015 it’s a tolerable Kiss Record(did I just fuckin say that!)
You know by 1989 Kiss was in trouble and when they plucked Hot In The Shade out in 1989 this album it took me only about a few spins to realize that there was a tons of filler on this album.
1989 when I think of big rock records three come to mind rightaway! Motley Crüe with Dr Feelgood,The Cult with Sonic Temple and Aerosmith with Pump! 3 classics for sure in the songs (especially Pump) and in production once these albums were spun on my cd player Hot In The Shade took a total backseat! The reason it’s simple ..the songs Yep,there’s a couple of pretty good tracks but man there’s a bunch o junk here I will explain!
Hot In The Shade when I first read about in Circus or maybe Hit Parader was that it was gonna be 15 songs! Holy crap that’s impressive sez I! So come Sept of 1989 here comes Aerosmith, Motley Crüe and Limping towards the finish line Kiss!
Gene and Paul dropped the ball with lots of so so songs, a few good ones (which I will talk about)
GOD OF BLUNDER ….BAD ROCK N ROLL
RISE TO IT- this is a good song! A bluesy intro and boom drums guitar bass it’s all here and Rise To It is off an running! It kicks pretty good cool verses,good solo and Stanley delivers a great vocal!
BETRAYED- Shit man Simmons delivers the $$$ on this track! And lookie he co wrote this with Ace Frehley oops I mean Tommy Thayer the dude who now is Ace Frehley in Kiss but it’s not surprising as Thayer was in Black N Blue a band Simmons had produced but they lay down a great song here one of Simmons best songs since like Creatures! Good solo and Eric Carr drums this thing into mashville! Good stuff two songs in two winners….
HIDE YOUR HEART-so 1989 and both Kiss and Ace Frehley release there own versions of Hide Your Heart and quite frankly I couldn’t care less! Well,I shouldn’t be too harsh on Frehleys version as I only heard it a few times as my younger bro Todd had a copy of it on cassette tape! This studio version of Hide Your Heart is ok i mean whatever it’s single time fellas and too be honest with Ya I prefer the live version video from the HITS that I posted. Check that one out especially at the 3 minute mark when Stanley uses a woman’s high heel shoe as a guitar pic! See it to believe it!
PRISONER OF LOVE,READ MY BODY- didn’t like these songs in 89 not revisiting them in 015!
LOVE IS LIKE A SLAP IN THE FACE-Simmons cowrote this with Vini Ponica! You remember him right from Monday’s post he botched the sonics on Unmasked! Actually I don’t mind this song it’s later day Gene singing and plodding along on his bass and well it’s a mid tempo rocker better than the two previous tracks for sure.
FOREVER-this is power ballad 101 and this song basically saved Kiss’ Ass as the record was tanking down the charts and viola Stanley croons FOREVER and Michael Bolton who co wrote this cashes his royalty cheque from Forever at the bank! So even if you never heard this record you have heard this song! No! I’m not showing the vid! But I will say myself ,Tbone,Darr and Rugg have laughed and made many remarks about Simmons and his music stand in the Forever video!
SILVER SPOON-Paul takes the vocal reigns on this one and it’s another no fascinating straight ahead rocker. Not even really worth talking about!
CADILLAC DREAMS,KING OF HEARTS- Nope and Nope!
THE STREET GIVETH AND THE STREET TAKETH AWAY-Kulick begins this track with some cool acoustic and bam into the full rock meal deal with drums,bass and electric guitar. This is one of the back end of the albums better tracks! Simmons kinda of and I say that loosely kinda pulls this one out of the fire! Check out the vid…..
YOU LOVE ME TO HATE YOU- alright than, I dunno 1989 and I was just tired of all these big ass power ballads being everywhere and in saying that this song was no where to be found….skip……..
SOMEWHERE BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL- Nope don’t care……
LITTLE CAESER- ok so after 9 years of being a good employee Gene and Paul let Eric Carr(RIP) take the lead vocals on this track. It’s too bad the song is kinda lacklustre. Nothing to really write about…..but man why did not Kiss tap into Carrs vocals more oh yeah I know Gene and Paul that’s why!
BOOMERANG- that’s what i want to do with this record but if it’s a Boomerang that means it would come back to me…um no thanks!
IN CONCLUSION-The hype for this record was sold to me on 15 tracks that Kiss was putting out and I bought the hype of course! But pretty soon after purchase I just could not wrap my noggin around this record and it quickly faded away from my sonic senses!
I think Kiss even new this as when they went out to plug this record on tour they played like 3 tracks off of it and they played mostly 70s stuff as that was what the fans wanted. The live stage was awesome and it would have been the tour to see!
My bro Todd was out in British Columbia with the family in August of 1990( I was working and did not go) and he got to see this show with Winger opening! My bro loved Kiss and man he called me a day later saying that he bought me a Kiss shirt and it had a bunch of dates on it and Thunder Bay was one of them! I was like “You fuckin kidding me?” Yep,it was there (wish I still had the T shirt)
As soon as I got off the the phone with my brother I called the Fort William Gardens(local barn/arena) to see what was going on. The lady told me they had Kiss pencilled in for Oct 7th 1990!
What a score this was gonna be for me and Tbone as we had tickets to see ZZ Top in Winnipeg on Oct 6 1990! I called the Winnipeg Arena and they too said they had Kiss pencilled in for Oct 5 1990!
BAM! So here’s the plan! Me and Tbone would go to Winnipeg a day earlier see Kiss on the Saturday night! Catch ZZ in Winnipeg Sunday night and than high tail it back to Tbay on Monday and catch Kiss on Monday night! Done Fuckin Deal!
Paul Stanley broke some ribs and a bunch of dates including The Peg and Tbay were scrubbed! Bummer man…..ZZ though was awesome!
Kiss though I think they know they released some scrap but come 1992 when they knocked out Revenge it restored my faith…man that’s a great friggin album!
Thanks for reading my Kiss Filler Week and if you dig these three records more power to Ya and I hope we can still be cool with each other! That includes you Gene And Paul! Hahahaha…..
NEXT……check out a don’t expect the expected Sonic Waves Kiss review tomorrow….
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