Can someone please explain th band KISS to a Milenial?

They were a very intelligent group of performers who took control of their own financial interests. They were able to milk their image for everything it was worth and by avoiding the drug problems that plagued most performers of their decade were able to keep most of their money. By producing their own records they kept the lions share of all profits and then made several good business decisions. Their music never matched their image but their life style did. Extremely dorky, but still managed to lay insanely beautiful women at regular intervals and dabble in VC. They realized that branding was everything before it was popular.

jamin wrote:

It appears I don't "get" it. Was it supposed to sound like a perfectly generic rock song? Was that supposed to be the genius behind it?

No one said "genius". It's catchy, that's all a song needs.

And if you are looking for people to explain to you why a band, from another generation, that pumped out "perfectly generic rock songs" can get really popular, why don't you first explain to the rest of us why Foo Fighters have been so popular/successful during yours????

(Full disclosure: in ways, I straddle both generations. I was a little kid when KISS was reaching their peak, and a 20's something when FF were starting. Most of my little classmates dressed up as KISS for Halloween. I had little knowledge of their music, and what little I heard did not appeal to me. This has always been how I feel about KISS. I liked the first FF album and a few of their other songs. I saw them in concert. But I think they have, with a few exceptions, pumped out nothing but generic, "catchy" rock, with almost no originality. )

If they're such wild rockers, how come they want to rock and roll all night but only "part of every day"?

Oh Please wrote:

As a "gen x" person, I can't stand Kiss. Never have.

From the 70s, I'll take Van Halen and Pink Floyd, from the 80s I'll take Slayer and Metallica.

Lol - Pink Floyd. I wish I could take credit for this but I can't:

"[Pink Floyd's] mind-bogglingly pretentious musical wankery makes Radiohead look like Smash Mouth. They engaged in, or in many cases were responsible for, just about every reprehensible, over-serious prog-rock abomination that you could possibly think of; they’ve got the double-gatefold concept albums, they’ve got the expensively animated album-film, they’ve got the children singing the lyrics, and they’ve got the notoriously high-concept concerts where workmen build a wall in front of the band as they play and sh*t like that. Rick Wakeman’s “Camelot on Ice” disaster, frankly, seems rather cute when compared to the kind of crap that Pink Floyd likes to pull. The music behind all these nauseating concepts is densely layered pop music for below-average high-school misfits who mistake spooky sound effects for creativity. Many teenagers go through a Pink Floyd phase in high school; if you were or are one of them, I’d seriously advise you to cut your losses and give away all your Pink Floyd records now, lest you become one of the creepy stoned burnouts who spend their lives wearing faded Floyd t-shirts like reeking albatrosses, forever unable to find gainful employment anywhere but a head shop."

They were crap.

jamin wrote:

It appears I don't "get" it. Was it supposed to sound like a perfectly generic rock song? Was that supposed to be the genius behind it?

Wrong way around. It became the perfectly generic rock song.

Kiss was big in 1976 when I was 10 years old, and at the time, most 10-year-olds loved Kiss, myself included. Crazy makeup, very secretive about their appearance without makeup, famous for pyrotechnics on stage and rock songs with lyrics you could actually hear and understand.

All these years later, I recognize that they aren't a great group of musicians, but they were great as a band. I Wanna Rock and Roll All Night still takes me back to being in 4th grade, sitting on the front porch with my shirt off drinking a Hamm's.

When I saw them in 1984 they were "washed up," over the hill and out of fashion, but somehow somebody forgot to tell them and still they play...

I also saw The Who in their 25 year farewell tour in Vancouver in 1989. It's been a long farewell...

We saw Fleetwood Mac in Winnipeg in 1990 or 1991, at the time a one shot reunion of a long ago disbanded band. And still they tour from time to time... :-)

You were drinking beer in 4th grade Flagpole?

Turns out being able to play "Beth" was a great way to get laid.

You had to have gone to one of there shows to really see what they were all about. They were loud and nasty and made you feel like it was your generation. The explosions were only part of the reason you went home deaf.

Love Gun wrote:

party rock wrote:

Typical lazy Millennial asking others to explain rather than doing his own research and formulating his own opinion.

+1

So you two think it's better to read random things on the internet than to ask living people about their thoughts and opinions?

Nice...

Breathe in breathe out wrote:

You were drinking beer in 4th grade Flagpole?

Just seeing if anyone was paying attention.

You win.

The best way to sum up KISS, as was once quoted on some VH1 documentary;

"While most bands wanted to be the next Beatles, KISS wanted to be the next Coca-Cola."

They were marketing geniuses.

They were a pop act. Their hook was their painted faces which got them on TV, which got them on radio, which sold records and booked shows. Quality had nothing to do with it.

Pop music is not about the music, it's about everyone doing the same thing at once. It's a mass experience much like a religious ritual or a football game. Michael Jackson's fame was a result of TV marketing and a teenage personality cult. Def Leppard's inexplicable success resulted from MTV getting teens to veg in front of the tube.

Def Leppard is the real mystery, not Kiss. How did they record the same song 12 times, call it an album and dominate the charts for two years? Everyone who owned "Hysteria" should be ashamed, including me.

There are crappy TV shows that are highly rated because of the chemistry and charisma of the cast. Sometimes with bands, it's the same thing. I think this is the case with Kiss. They were charismatic. Their music wasn't horrible--serviceable pop rock. In fact, I enjoyed Kiss Alive when it first came out (I was 13 in 1975). It was a good live recording for its time. I never bought anything else by them. Same with Peter Frampton. Great live recording, tons of charisma, but never liked the sound of his studio stuff. 40 years later, I think Frampton's live album holds up better than Kiss Alive. He's actually a fantastic guitar player. His performance on Do You Feel Like I Do is stellar.

KISS is not really a Gen-X band. KISS was popular from about 1974-78.

I was born in 1967 and never thought what they did was cool.

jamin wrote:

They look like a heavy metal band but sing dorky songs like "I wanna rock and roll all night" and have no instrumental or lyrical talent as far as I can tell. Can a Gen Xer explain what was the appeal of this band?

The root word is Millennium. Want to guess how to spell it? I thought you younger folks had the typing all dialed and that writing and cursive was for squares?

Bad Wigins wrote:

They were a pop act. Their hook was their painted faces which got them on TV, which got them on radio, which sold records and booked shows.

So was Nirvana. Their hook was slacker ennui. Nirvana can be summed up with classic pop structure:

Intro

verse

chorus

verse

chorus

bridge

chorus

verse

chorus-chorus-chorus

outro