KISS once again snubbed by Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

[OldManC]

I've read, heard, and seen that story a hundred times over the last 30 years, yet watching that video still made me feel like a kid, stupid grin and all.  

[Chaser001]

I found this to be a pretty good article about the RRHOF.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nelson-montana/how-lame-is-the-rock-and_b_340111.html

[Dave W]

Well, I've been there and I have to say, there are so many artists who have such a thin link to R&R it makes my head spin.  I wouldn't mind if KISS got in, it makes more sense than rap, disco and other non-R&R folks.  Next thin you know they'll be inducting Carol Channing for her rendition of "Hello Dolly."

Louis Armstrong's already an inductee, makes perfect sense to pair him with Carol. 

[Freuds_Cat]

I'm a Kiss fan. I love a lot of the glam era bands. I might be selective about the individual songs that I like to listen to but Kiss were a big influence on a lot of me and my musical peers even if some of them today find it a little uncool to admit it. We all loved Status Quo and Rush, Zeppelin, Purple, Bowie, Stones et al but Kiss were without a doubt in that mix of influence.

Everything I've read about the RRHF makes it sound like a waste of time with little credibility. I can imagine that Genes ego would still prefer them to be inducted.

[uwe]

They'll probably get there one day. With an apology. And Gene will leer something into the microphone at their induction speech along the lines of: "All I wanna know is why it took you so f***ing long to inaugurate the best band in the world?" And Paul will beam because he is always craving for recognition from "serious musicians".

I like Kiss as a concept and their endurance, they've also written a handful of good songs over something like 20 studio albums and recorded - under the shaping hand of Bob Ezrin - one great album with Destroyer. But much of their music lacks finesse though Paul at least sometimes attempts it. They lack the r'n'b (in the old sense) roots of other great American acts such as Aerosmith or Grand Funk. Nor do they sound as organic. They are unelegant in their arrangements, but hardly ever achieve the primal charm of AC/DC. Gene and Paul are great Beatles fans and anglophiles, yet with a few exceptions such as Crazy, Crazy Nights, Kiss never got the knack of writing power pop tunes in the vein of Slade or Cheap Trick. Yet they are nor really heavy either, even Gene Simmons says that they never wer and never considered themselves a metal band. A lot of their material is rather unspectacular riffs (in which I hear more a third rate Led Zep than a Deep Purple influence) cobbled together with a minimalist chorus.

In a way, they got out of the early seventies rehearsal space in Queens or Brooklyn, but the rehearsal space never got out of them. I hear more development and subsequent refinement in Black Sabbath (listen to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath in comparison to War Pigs) than I hear in Kiss (the Bob Ezrin produced albums excepted). For many people that is part of their charm, but I sometimes wonder whether after 37 years of doing it, shouldn't they not sound a lot more refined by now? Even my bass playing sounds a lot more refined than it did thirty years ago!

I still lik'em though. And Gene Simmons is probably one of the most entertaining dinner guests on earth. : - )

[OldManC]

Uwe, I don't disagree in general but one thing I saw with them is that they did progress at first, but dialed it way back when that progression failed. Dynasty and Unmasked showed huge strides in their song craft, but nobody wanted to hear a refined, more poppy sounding KISS and their fans rejected where they were trying to go. I think the same thing happened with Revenge and then what became Carnival of Souls. The band had obviously made a conscious choice to ape the grunge thing at the time, but beneath that label were many songs with more Beatle/British Invasion influence than anything they did before. Bob Ezrin being involved on Revenge made a difference as well, I'm sure. Then the possibility of a reunion came along and any thoughts of progression or artistry went right out the window again.

In the end I don't think the majority of KISS fans wants or wanted anything other than the original formula, and Gene, being someone with a product more than an artist chasing a muse (though I think he is the actual artist in that band), finally decided he wasn't going to mess with the recipe any longer.

[uwe]

True, they did make attempts to progress. And I'm someone who does not hate The Elder, but found Rock'n'Roll Over a huge disappointment after the elegant Destroyer which could have been an Alice Cooper Band album. Revenge was goog too, especially the Gene Simmons stuff. I still have to hear Carnival of Souls, it's probably the only Kiss album I've never heard.

[OldManC]

I think I'm probably one of three people that actually like some of the songs on Carnival. The heavier stuff on it is fairly leaden, but the Beatley stuff is cool in my book. My inner Beatle nerd will always respond to loving paeans for that band.

I've come to like Rock and Roll Over but felt the same way when I first heard it. I thought Love Gun's production was a good middle ground. I go back and forth on the Elder. The disappointment to me comes from knowing they could have done so much more with it if they'd really committed to the direction they seemed to be trying to go in. I read a great interview with Bob Ezrin recently that kind of summed it up well in my mind. I don't remember if I saw that link here...

http://tiny.cc/TheElder

[Big_Stu]

Seems odd to me that Kiss aren't in the RRHOF, but as has been stated, that isn't really an artist's measure of sucess. ...................I like Glam, the showy, cool english bands of the '70s ( Slade, T-Rex, Mott, Bowie and of course Alice Cooper!) are still amongst my faves.

I heard an i'view recently that said that "Rock N Roll All Nite" was deliberately mis-spelled like Slade used to do with their songs, and the album "Kiss Alive" was named as a nod of recognition towards Slade who's 1st live album was "Slade Alive".

[Highlander]

I always thought they wrote some pretty good hook-lines over the years...