Defending...

KISS "Music From the Elder"

2007-05-16T07:29:00.000-07:00

KISS is a ridiculous band. This is not meant to demean the band; if anything, I'm probably paying them a compliment. They're not the first ridiculous band in the world and they won't be the last. Still, they probably embrace their ridiculousness more than any other band as a symptom of being blatantly commercial. Accuse KISS of selling out? Positively hilarious. I'd bet that Paul Stanley was probably watering down lemonade to increase profits as early as age 6 and defending flavor changes to hardcore lemonade stand visitors by age 8.

KISS has always been about KI$$ and there is no point in trying to convince yourself otherwise. This is a band that is more than willing to admit it loves its fanbase as long as the constituents have the money to pay for the love. Gene Simmons once said that he prefers a whore's honesty to the conniving of a wife. Therefore, I surmise that the band's massive commercial appeal stems from the ability to appeal the most whorish, disloyal fans possible. Fans who would only play "Brown Eyed Girl" in a bar cover band until the DJ kicked them off the stage are most welcome at a KISS concert and these people probably comprise a decent 35% of the population.

So it's no surprise that the band displayed a tremendous amount of disloyalty to its "core" fan base in the late 1970s and early 1980s. If you fall on the side of the fence where KISS fans stand, the canon declares 1977's "Love Gun" as the "end of classic KISS." Basically, a plethora of "rock n' roll ooh yeah do me, screw me" songs occasionally punctuated with songs that furthered the out-of-this-world image. However, KISS (read: Gene & Paul) must have felt that this genre of music would only serve them financially for so long because the band soon went off the deep end trying to do everything in their power to keep their sound up with the trends. "Dynasty" featured a disco-rock single and "Shandi" from "Unmasked" is a ballad so syrupy and over-produced that it makes "Beth" look like a Cannibal Corpse record.

Then came the imminent departure of Peter Criss and the boldest failed attempt at commercialization ever: "Music From the Elder" in 1981. The idea? To take Bob Ezrin's Pink Floyd formula for "concept albums" and apply it to KISS. The idea was that people wanted to see bands actually trying to make "art": that abstract term that describes entertainment that actually strives for some sort of meaning. It's a familar trend in music: trying to sound "uncommercial" when in fact, you're being just about as blatantly commercial as possible. KISS had a pre-existing relationship with Ezrin (Destroyer) so it seemed a natural fit. Instead, the album tanked.

I'll never quite understand why. Sure, I know that the stereotypes of a KISS fan-- beer-swilling fratboys and stars-in-their-eyes strippers-- probably found it to be too much of "sissy" record. Horns, strings...and orchestral arrangements. Still, the point remains: KISS is a ridiculous band. Look at them, for crying out loud, they're grown men wearing Halloween costumes on stage every night! Watching Paul Stanley do the "Paul Stanley dance" is enough to send anyone into spastics. They had a lunchbox, dolls, a pinball machine, just about every piece of merchandise you could imagine made in their images.

KISS is so ridiculous, they could be a comic book. In fact, they were. Which is why "Elder's" financial failure makes no sense to me. It stands a perfect comic book idea. You would think that a group of slavish comic-book lovers would line up to consume it. The concept, which is either sadly complicated or sadly simplistic, is as follows: a Boy is recruited by the Council of Elders of the Order of the Rose. They assign Morpheus to guide the Boy through a journey to heroic manhood, culminating in the Boy declaring himself ready to fight evil and Morpheus concurring.

I smell trilogy.

This never happened. Make no mistake, "Elder" judged on musical merits is not without its low points. When Paul Stanley coos "I'm just a boyyy" in the second track, it seems an overly contrived excuse to show off the falsetto. The clap sequence in "I" is embarrassing: not even suited for an aerobic workout. Speaking of which, the look that KISS adopted for the "tour" (something like four or five shows) for this album was laughable, with Paul donning a purple headband stolen from Jane Fonda's closet. The outfits were "streamlined," missing the larger-than-life element that gives KISS characters their life.

If you listen closely to "Elder," there are more than enough moments to appreciate. New drummer Eric Carr was better than Peter Criss (more bass-drums and better fills). His heavier sound did not turn up on "Elder" (though it did on the also underrated "Creatures of the Night") but he showed a knack for songwriting by co-assembling "Under the Rose." Calling it "epic" would be an overstatement but would give you an idea of the mood it gets near, using synth to create a sense of uncertainty (which is what our "hero" is presumably going through at that point of the album). "Odyssey", despite some lyrical smaltz, manages to communicate a certain amount of the "destiny," "odyssey," "galaxy," "luminescentity" the band is shooting for. I admittedly made that last word up.

The use of strings works very well in these songs and, I think, communicates something a lot more understated about the character so that the build in confidence (presumably communicated by guitars) "The Oath" features a scorching riff that the band would borrow from itself for the better-received "Exciter" on 1983's "Lick It Up." "Dark Light" is a decent Ace Frehley effort, an uptempo riff-based song that lacks the punch of "classic KISS" but is not as out of place with 70s rock as KISS heads might think. It's also refreshing because the band usually didn't really allow Ace to do very much besides get drunk and ruin hotel rooms.

Some of the lyrics in "Music From the Elder" are of the "so bad it's good" variety which only speaks to the comic concept that the whole album centers on. Being a pop band underneath it all, the band strives to rhyme even when trying to communicate abstract concepts that a simple rhyme scheme can't communicate. "Only You" (I would argue the weakest track on the record) features this gem: "I can't believe this is is true, Why do I listen to you?, If I am all that you say, Why am I still so afraid?" "A World Without Heroes" (admittedly somewhat awkward with an elevator music lead-in) chimes in with "a world without heroes, is like a bird without wings, or a bell that never rings, just a sad and useless thing." Something about "bell that never rings" always cracks me up. "Just a Boy" offers possibly the best/worst: "For I am just a boy, Too young to be sailing, I am just a boy, and my future is unveiling, and I'm so frightened of failing."

Personal bias also affects any interpretation and Gene Simmons' no-drinking stance is something to which I've always been able to relate. He takes it to a new level on "Elder" by seizing two of the last songs on the record: "Mr. Blackwell" and "I." The villain in "Blackwell" drinks to sorrow, of course. Whereas the now-come-of-age hero in "I" doesn't "need to get wasted, it only holds (him) down." Preachy? Yes, and probably violating the sacrosanct bond that the band built with fans in 1973 with "Cold Gin" to boot. KISS was never one to not kick their old self while he was down.

It all sounds like condemnation but I do not seem to be anything on his record that would be that far removed from a DC or Marvel Comics page. Consider Spider Man's journey: from unsure bumbling nerd to gradually accepting his powers to fully confident superhero. Clark Kent's journey is not much different. Both are fairly moral characters; I'm sure Clark Kent wouldn't be doing shooters and telling his fans to "rock and roll all night and party every day." I'm sure the "Elder" journey could have made for at least 20 editions of the KISS comic in its own right. And once you're doing COMICCON conventions, you've got a gig for life!

That might sum up, however, why most KISS fans reject the "Elder" album because it reminds them of just how dorky the themes explored by four guys in Halloween costumes can be. Maybe it reminded KISS of it too because they only put out one more album under the paint before a 13 year paint-free run-- which actually resulted in looks far more ridiculous than anything 1970s KISS ever did. I don't see anything wrong with having at least *one* testimony to the comic book world shrouded in the "do me, screw me" universe the band carved out for itself. It's not as though it cost Gene any tail or anything.

In synopsis, I think "The Oath" and "Under the Rose" are among the finest songs KISS recorded. In fact "Oath" probably was the most rocking track KISS had done since the "Love Gun" album. The overly flowerly lyrics on the album are not too much of a distraction since KISS never wrote the greatest lyrics anyway ("Rock on! I wanna be president!"). "Elder" is certainly not the type of record you want to throw on if you're specifically in the mood for KISS (Paul himself defends the album as "a good record, but not a good KISS record"), but when compared to the band's post-1977 output, it ranks favourably.

"Music From the Elder" stands as a failure on the KISS fanbases' behalf to be just as ridiculous as the band they admired. Ironically, the album that was supposed to be very "serious" is taken too seriously, hence it is underappreciated. I choose to drink it not as watered-down lemonade but a different beverage altogether: not the original, but pretty refreshing if consumed on the right day.

BMN

Chicago "Chicago 17" (1984) (and, for a paragraph, REO Speedwagon's "I Can't Fight This Feeling")

2007-03-09T19:10:00.000-08:00

A genre of bands made itself prevalent in the 70s & 80s that sometimes gets into my head. I find myself unable to justify liking it, even as its' most famous songs are instant roadtrip classics that cause frattier 20-somethings to suddenly become emotional mushheads. That genre is "we wanted to rock hard but our ugly-man-doing-pretty-boy-pose lead singer decided to wussify us into a power ballad band and we put up a token resistance until we realized it was easier to give in and started cashing checks on all of the 16 year old girls suddenly flocking to see our shows." You won't readily find this genre description on your local music store shelf, but a number of its bands became famous: Journey, Styx, The Doobie Brothers, REO Speedwagon. And no, this is not going to be a defence of why I like REO Speedwagon's "Can't Fight This Feeling."

OK, I can't resist— one paragraph because it's just the clichéd "camp" defence. The music video clinches it. I honestly have no idea if it has ever been featured on Pop Up Video but if it was not, something was seriously wrong with the VH1 staff. As you watch the opening image of a solitary baby in seeming contemplation and the closing image of Kevin Cronin as ninety year old poof, you realize this director was convinced he was directing a remake of 2001: A Space Odyssey. All while Gary Richrath adopts the single phoniest "sensitive guy" pose in the history of rock while playing a guitar solo that he wants to erase from his memory, but no amount of liquor will suffice. Yes, I like the song and the video but will not defend the vision behind it. It succeeds in spite of itself; unaware that more than half of its nostalgic value will owe itself to sparsely attended sock hops where the teachers don't understand it's 1991 and no one wants to hear it anymore.

For the rest of this space, however, I am more interested in defending an oft-forgotten band that modifies the aforementioned schema: Chicago.

They put a different spin on the genre. Rather than rocking hard, the band jazzed it hard with simple pop sensibility here and there with forgettable songs like "Saturday in the Park," perfect for 60 year olds who want something to dance to that isn't John Tesh. I understand that sentiment. People can say that Chicago was milquetoast, but they're missing an overriding point: they were milquetoast with horns, which really wasn't anything many other musicians were doing. At least when you turn the radio on and hear a late 60s, early 70s Chicago song, it has a fairly distinct sound. This is why the band didn't need faces. Their quintessential logo combined with brass and woodwind instruments doing both rhythm and even sometimes lead reminded you of who they were.

Second, Chicago's integrity as jazzier pop was not destroyed by an alienesque limelight hogging face but rather a front man who a) really wasn't supposed to be a front man and b) was actually generally perceived to be good looking. Peter Cetera is actually the perfect 1980s male sex symbol: the physical embodiment of a yuppie. Perfect teeth, boring haircut, looks like he takes bi-monthly weekend siestas to the Hamptons but still tries to manage his stock portfolio, even as his wife tells him to concentrate on steering their overpriced yacht. Steve Perry, this man is not.

People are loathe admitting they like Chicago 17 is because it wreaked Hiroshima-levels of devastation on pop music. It solidified producer David Foster as a bonafide U.S. success. Thus radioactive damage we Canadians were enduring spread to our southern neighbours (considering Foster's greatest villainess is fellow Canuck Celine Dion, I'm amazed more Americans haven't rallied to bomb us. Were I American and Foster/Dion crossed my borders, I'd strongly consider it). It gave inferior 80s hair rock bands an easy hit record: the bombastic second or third single that the record company would put out after conceding the actual rock songs were bluffs. It may be duly summarized as the father of "adult contemporary" (although that would be short changing Barry Manilow).

One friend even argues that you can see the imprint of 17's tour-de-force power ballad "Hard Habit to Break" on Creed's "With Arms Wide Open." For this alone, I'm seriously reconsidering my defence even as I'm writing it. Yet I can basically boil my argument for 17 down to a comparison between the two songs.

My friend compared the songs for their crescendo endings to emotionally stimulate you. For starters, Chicago doesn't need an orchestra for their crescendo; their 3 man rhythm section of trumpet-trombone-saxophone tears apart anything Creed's classicals-for-hire turns out. The call-and-answer is reduced to call-and-re-call (you're hard (you're a) habit to break (habit to break) just can't go...) that insinuates Cetera into your brain but never quite irritates you fully because Bill Champlin cuts in with his more baritone call (I'm addicted to you, baby!). Even better, Chicago offers an anti-acappella acappella effect in the middle of the song, another call-and-re-call (I can't go" (just can't go) "can't go ONNNNNN!) As another friend describes it, this is where the high school dance either completely breaks down when people realize they can't slow-dance or the couples just madly make out in a frenzy that makes the chaperones fiercely jealous Elvis never put anything with equal urgency into his ballads.

Whereas Cetera leads but never dominates "Habit," Scott Stapp insidiously takes over "With Arms Wide Open." The "uuuuhhhhhh" and "yeyyyyeaaaaahhhh's" of Scott Stapp are simply too distracting and his Jesus-like complex so overbearing that you are loathe to want to ascend with the orchestra at the song's climax. The entire song is emblematic of the ongoing ruse in which Creed persisted, portraying itself as "not a Christian band." But it was! DC Talk at least told you they were worshipping when they sang without pretence. "Habit" may be saccharin but it never once tries to trick you from turning your personal, suddenly unrequited love into a "greater love." Peter Cetera is the leader, but he's not the messiah.

That's why "Habit"— and to lesser but still palpable extent 17 itself— works, "Arms Wide Open" doesn't and Creed forever sucks. There is always the looming omnipresence of another voice to prevent Cetera from completely overruling. It's a presence that the Matchbox 20s or Third Eye Blinds never had that could have given their laughably serious pathos some balance. Granted, Cetera handles the leads, and surely we all resent him for it. However, he never quite takes the reigns the way that Stapp does. You just know when you're watching Cetera adopt a Humphrey Bogart pose in "Along Comes a Woman" that he is becoming the annoying front man but he's not quite there yet.

The horns remain in the Chicago sound and if anything, don't seem a bit out of place in a mid-80s pop world try to funk up everything with synthesizers. If they can be married with the horns, all the better. No one would hate Howard Jones for it. The staccato synth-beat on "Stay the Night" threatens to annoy the ever-loving-piss out of you until you realize Champlin's voice will provide an out-of-nowhere closure (nothing can stop us, there's nothing that's in the way). It admirably completes a metamorphis from Cetera's annoying stalky-ness to a more affirmative lover-man that actually will convince the woman to stay the night. Basically, with one line in the song, Champlin bats clean-up, knocking in all the men on base that Cetera set up by taking walks with passive, melodic tones.

"Along Comes a Woman" is probably the most underrated of the commercial hits. Whereas other romance songs tend to go overboard in establishing our lover's sensitivity, "Along" just gleefully glides through Nik Kershaw-esque electro beats reminding us that love is a wonderful, fluffy feeling. It doesn't really take us beyond that into ungodly promises of lifetime devotion. That is left to "You're the Inspiration," which relies on a similar harmonics-outro plan to move it beyond passable. It wouldn't really pass muster for Lester Bangs, even if they had added a muted piccolo solo or something similar but somehow the video saves this song. Peter's just sitting on a couch playing his bass and it's like this song is telling you to relax: it's not putting up pretence of emotional greatness as much annoying AOR does. It's as close to any power-pop band saying "hey, we're just lazy Sunday afternoon troubadours trying to brighten up our day, and we're firmly aware your band can kick our ass but that's OK."

I won't stand for any more Chicago beyond 17. About 95% of what this band did post-1985 is tiresome schmaltz and could be prescribed as an alternative to anaesthesia. With Cetera gone from the group, you're left with a band trying badly to be Peter Cetera. Meanwhile, solo Peter Cetera was just.....Peter Cetera without Chicago. All of it stinks to high heaven. If you play "Will You Still Love Me?" from Chicago 18 backwards, it spells out: "Michael Bolton is cackling with glee and will soon be taking over your stereo." Meanwhile, Cetera's "Glory of Love" reminds us that Karate Kid II is better than the original, but that's about all it offers. The man's biggest duet was with Amy Grant— you might as well have just relegated him to a monthly gig at the Acropolis and called him Yanni at that point.

However, I will NOT stand for insolence towards Chicago 17. It seems we only associate bad with this record, the David Fosters, the AOR, the entire catalogue of Richard Marx. It's unfair Styx is given some level of street cred for having their songs pepper a soundtrack or two and Self can resurrect the Doobie Brothers' most emblematic Michael McDonald song with toy instruments, but no one wants to touch the one of the greatest 80s ballad albums with a ten foot pole. I defy you to tell me that 21 year old scenester females wouldn't forgive David Foster's sins and instantly melt if Sufjan Stevens laid into "Hard Habit" with full zeal and gusto.

I remind you Chicago 17 doesn't play well more than once every couple of months. No self respecting music lover can be that mellow for longer than 45 minutes. But those few times you are willing to enjoy it, it's (Solid?) gold. Best of all, you'll be cool enough to sing Champlin's parts. Or make them up where they don't exist.

BMN

Defending "Defending..."

2007-03-09T18:03:00.000-08:00

The perspective of this writer is simply this: anything pristine is wonderful to experience, but terribly boring to write about. It's unfortunate that this is the case as it likely causes us to seek out relationships we shouldn't have, drugs we shouldn't take, products we shouldn't buy.....and yes, music we shouldn't listen to. People generally prefer their lives to be poetic, even if that means making them awful, just to participate in the dramatics of describing them. In actuality, the best lives lived are probably those never written about and thus we never aspire to them.

Here I go, contributing to the problem.

I probably should, in some vain attempt to be a serious critic, try to win the reader's trust by writing about music they can reasonably expect to like. Built to Spill is a critically worthy act. Of course it is. You might not like the band, but you would probably respect it if I gave their album a four-star review. If not, you probably fell onto this website by accident.

This type of co-operation between critic and critic-of-the-critic is conducive to an entirely different genre of writing from what I'm aiming for here. Here, I'd rather take a premise someone completely disagrees with and make them reconsider it. Take, for example, someone who reviews the New Pornographers' Twin Cinema and gives it five stars. Then take someone who reviews Kevin Federline's album and gives it three. I don't want to listen to K-Fed, I agree wholeheartedly with the first review but I sure as hell will read that three star review first. It's like someone arguing that Charles Manson didn't do it: you know they can't be telling the truth but at the same time you're saying to yourself "oh man, this explanation has gotta be good!"

It's true some people can make great art into a great review. Others can make high approval of low art into a clichéd "so bad it's good" defense. I'm hoping, if nothing else, to take the piss out of myself by admitting to musical opinions I feel I shouldn't hold. I'm a critic who doesn't hold himself to be high and mighty, fully aware of the subjective absurdity of what he writes about. So hopefully you won't read my enthusiasm for early Stone Temple Pilots' work as some unabashed arrogance.

Adorno would likely consider me the biggest victim of the culture industry: resigning myself to a hackneyed revisionist defense of major corporation pap so that I don't give up the "drug" of bad music they've hooked me on. He'd probably be partially correct but I'd rather write about it rather than be silently hooked. Then if I'm wrong, at least I will have provided the humour of a delusional Manson defense that provides salvage from the wreck of some presumably terrible (or overblown) music.

Besides, it's worth puncturing the pomposity of anyone who tells me that I enjoy what I do with no good reason. Those who know me probably know how I relish in mocking Matchbox 20 fans for their acceptance of banal music that inspires the tepid emotion of an airplane instruction manual. I'm probably being a hypocritical snot for being pious enough to impose Pete Yorn's first album on them while I revel in RATT. However, if that person can entertain me with their defense of Matchbox 20, if they can offer me something beyond "their music is so beautiful" or "Rob Thomas is such a cutie," I will gain the utmost respect for them. Go ahead and stand up to me, let me know why you like Matchbox 20. You'll be wrong, mind you, but that's fine. No more wrong than half of what I'll write here.

It's also an effort to move past impersonal approaches of explaining how music works. If I can explain why a record works for me, then I can help unlock the mystery the readers have as to why I can derive pleasure from that which makes them vomit.

For the time being, most of what I write about goes back 15, 25, maybe 40 years. Why? What's the point of defending something that might one day acquire its credibility? I'm not ready to start explaining why today's failed hip hop record is going to become tommorrow's Paul's Boutique.

Many of the records or songs I defend, I might not even own or listen to with any great regularity. I'm not about to proclaim anything that appears here to be a five-star effort. If I think that way about it, I probably feel like it's not in need of defending. If an album appears here, I'm not saying "this record is a classic, buy the remastered version and don't even think of accepting the inferior experience of downloading it." I'm merely saying, "this might not be as bad as you think it is."

So, let us proceed. If you must, tear me apart at will.

BMN