Ladies and gentlemen of the music blogosphere:
I’ve gone off the deep end with this Pirate Bay nonsense.
How do i know this? I spent this weekend downloading seventeen Alice Cooper albums and twenty-six KISS records.
Twenty-six.
Look, as a struggling noise-rock musician, i understand the value of downloading music; people unlikely to gamble a Hamilton on our latest CD without knowing what we sound like can go online, give it a listen, be blown away, and then put it in their share folder for the rest of the Solarseek world to enjoy. Maybe they’ll buy the physical copy; maybe not. But one more person will be won over. That’s cool with me.
But twenty-six KISS records? Even i understand how overboard this is.
Let me be perfectly clear: I. LOVE. KISS. As a band, they have never pretended to be anything they’re not–they are pure entertainers and capitalists, there for the benefit of their fans, and eager as hell to give their fans what they want. Two albums a year through the 1970s? Sure! Four “solo” albums released concurrently in a “divide and conquor”-style takeover of the American hard rock fan’s wallet? OK! KISS lunchboxes? Fill mine with KISS lollipops, please! KISS Kondoms? Oh, for fuck’s sake, what the hell. I’ll probably get dumped if i try to use them, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?
However, i’m not about to sit here and view the band’s recorded output through any type of rose-colored KISS-brand lensTM. The truth is that about 75-80% of KISS’ recorded output is complete shit. Fortunately, for every twenty “Let’s Put the X in Sex”es (how the hell do you pluralize a song title, anyway? I should know this), there’s one “Detroit Rock City” to instantly forgive them all. For every dozen “Forever”s (a power ballad co-written by Michael Fucking Bolton! How much does that rule? Be sure to point that out next time you find yourself in front of a 50-something overweight assembly-line operator in demon makeup who declares “KISS is the hardest rocking band in the land, not like that adult contemporary soft-ass Rod Stewart shit!”, a situation i find myself in with alarming frequency), there’s a “King of the Nighttime World” or “I Love it Loud.”
Still, simply forgiving the crap doesn’t erase its existence, so, in honor of my KISS-Army-like excess in downloading twenty-six goddamn KISS records (no, i’m not about to get over the ridiculousness, and so you shall suffer), it is time to pay tribute to The Lyrical Genius of Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons.
Let’s start with KISS’ ode to feminist empowerment, “Lick it Up,” from their 1983 album of the same name:
Dont wanna wait til you know me better
Lets just be glad for the time together
Lifes such a treat and its time you taste it
There aint a reason on earth to waste it
It aint a crime to be good to yourself
Lick it up, lick it up, its only right now
Lick it up, lick it up, ooh yeah
Lick it up, lick it up, come on, come on
Lick it up, lick it up
Dont need to wait for an invitation
You gotta live like youre on vacation
Theres something sweet you cant buy with money - lick it up, lick it up
Its all you need, so believe me honey
It aint a crime to be good to yourelf
This song displays the softer, gentler, and like i said, female empowering side of KISS. Now, obviously, we all know what the female in question is being told to “lick up:” delicious Jell-O Instant PuddingTM. By telling the female subject of the song that “there ain’t no crime in being good to yourself,” Paul Stanley is letting their female fan base know that, contrary to popular arena rock fan belief, women do not merely exist to make men happy; in fact, they are free to chase their own desires as well! So yes, lick up the chocolate creaminess of Jell-O–
…What’s that? You say they want her to lick up …Oh. But that doesn’t make any sense at all. All this time, i thought Paul Stanley was a dude-loving mincing queen.
Well, fine. If you decide that “Lick it Up” is imploring a woman to “be good to [herself]” by tasting Onan’s Instant TapiocaTM (because it’s only right now), i suppose one could see it as vaguely misogynist. A good thing, then, that way back on the group’s 1973 self-titled debut, they released the song “Deuce,” a classic ode to degrading your boyfriend by pooping on him. Don’t believe me? Here:
Get up
And get your grandma outta here
Pick up
Old Jim is workin’ hard this year
And baby
Just do the things he says to do
Baby, if you’re feeling good
And baby if you’re feeling nice
You know your man is workin’ hard
He’s worth a deuce
Honey
Don’t put your man behind his years
And baby
Stop cryin’ all your tears
Baby
Do the things he says to do
Do it
Baby, if you’re feeling good
And baby if you’re feeling nice
You know your man is workin’ hard
He’s worth a deuce
And baby, if you’re feeling good
Yes baby if you’re feeling nice
You know your man is workin’ hard
Yeah, ok, sure, they’re imploring the young lady to “do the things he says to do,” but he clearly wants the woman in a position of superiority over him, right? Right?
Oh my god, i just got to the part of the Love Gun (”Love Gun!”) record where they cover “And then She (sic) Kissed Me” by the Crystals. WHAT THE FUCK. Paul Stanley, your clever gender transposition in the song title is fooling NOBODY.
By the way, i think it’s really nice that Gene instructed the lady to “get [her] grandma out of here.” No grandma needs to see what’s coming later in the song.
So, there you have it. I really have no proper way to tie this all together in the wrapup except to add this disclaimer:
Superstarcastic.com in no way endorses illegal filesharing or downloading without just financial compensation being paid to the artist, because it results in bored-at-work contributors attempting to apologize for some of the most cartoonishly sexist lyrics in the history of recorded sound. Please, for your safety, and the safety of the internet…keep buying CDs. Thank you and god bless.
9 Comments »
Speaking of Hot in the Shade, I totally neglected to point out that i love KISS despite the fact that, when going to see them on the Hot in the Shade tour (with Faster Pussycat and Slaughter opening!), Eric Carr’s enormous tank-like double-kick drums fucked up my right ear. To this day, the higher registers irritate my right ear way more than my left. Then he died of brain cancer.
They had a giant sphinx that sang part of “God of Thunder.”
Brilliant!
as is disabling comments in the “other place” so people will comment here… i’ve got to remember that trick.
Chris has really been getting into KISS lately actually.
to be fair, i’ve never listened to them much, other then the obvious choices of course.
-C.
DJ this is great… I hope Paul Stanly looses both the libal and the copyright lawsuit… against you…
Feminist empowerment? You assume that song’s about a chick. How about FLAMING HOMOSEXUAL EMPOWERMENT? yessss.
Well, as Eddie Vedder once astutely pointed out, lyrics should be intended for different interpretations for different people. You see homoeroticism, i see sisters standin’ up for themselves.
The moral relativism of rock music is exactly what makes it the TOOL OF SATAN.
(Don’t you mean sisters bending down for themselves?)
Okay- but the Alice Cooper albums…you did think to download both Easy Action and Pretties for You, right?
You might also mention that, having seen KISS, Paul Stanley’s between song banter had to be worth the price of admission alone.
Huh…as it turns out, the 17-album Alcice Cooper zip file i DL’ed didn’t have either of them in it. I’ll put them on my list to grab. I’m woefully lacking in Alice Cooper knowledge compared to the rest of my band (and many other people i know), and this is my effort to rectify that.
Dude, as far as Paul’s banter goes…i DL’d a zip file once containing 70+ mp3s of Paul Stanley stage banter. It’s glorious. Also, have you ever heard the segue into “Love Gun” on their Animalize tour video? It’s completely ridiculous. “So i was at the doctor because i’d been partyin’ just a LITTLE TOO HARD (points to groin), and in walks this nurse with the biggest tits i’ve ever seen!” (audience goes wild)
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Comment by literati — February 13, 2007 @ 3:19 pm
My roommate is the biggest KISS fan on the planet - he actually legitimately bought all 26 of those CDs. Even freakin’ “Hot in the Shade.” (Possibly the laziest album title in history.) He even bought the RECENT Paul Stanley solo record.
His girlfrend has been trying to convince him of Paul’s gayness for awhile, to no avail. We just watched the VH1 Rock Honors which featured KISS and Judas Priest. I think seeing Paul’s hairy chest right after the out-of-the-closet Rob Halford broke him.
“Okay,” he said. “Paul MIGHT be bi…”