Post by Erik Rupp on Mar 5, 2015 0:39:10 GMT -5
In 1983 KISS released their, "Comeback," album, Lick It Up. That was the album revived their career after four straight years of disappointing album sales. Of course, taking off the make-up and the resulting media attention didn't hurt, but as the years (and decades) have gone by the album itself has become fairly well respected and is considered to be one of the biggest highlights of KISS' non make-up era.
But is the album really as good as all that? Maybe. The highlights certainly are. But on the whole is the album better than it's predecessor, the fan favorite Creatures Of The Night? Or is it even better than it's successor, the much maligned (despite the fact that it was KISS' biggest selling album of their unmasked years) Animalize?
Maybe not.
Conventional wisdom says it is, but is the conventional wisdom really all that wise in this case? Again, maybe not.
Let's compare the equivalent tracks from each album to get a clearer picture. (And, yes, I do know that this is all opinion and not, "Fact," but we can still get a better idea in general by going track by track with the equivalent songs from these two albums.)
Opening track:
Exciter VS I've Had Enough (Into The Fire)
This one's tough because both of these tracks are great. Both songs were modern Heavy Metal (at the time) in a Judas Priest sense, and both were well written and performed, but I have to give a slight edge to, "I've Had Enough." Animalize wins this one by a very narrow margin.
Lead Single:
Lick It Up VS Heaven's On Fire
No contest. "Lick It Up," is catchy, and it helped revive their career, but, "Heaven's On Fire," is even catchier, punchier, funkier, and just all around better. Animalize wins this one fairly easily.
Gene's songs:
With Lick It Up you go from excellent (Not For The Innocent) to fairly good (Young and Wasted) to energetic, but embarrasingly mindless both musically and lyrically (Fits Like A Glove), to utterly mediocre (his attempt to ape AC/DC with Dance All Over Your Face), to complete failure (And On The 8th Day - an ambitious track, attempting something of substance musically, but just failing).
On Animalize Gene has similar results. "While The City Sleeps," is very good, but while, "Burn Bitch Burn," has some good riffs the lyrics are so embarrassingly bad they ruin the song. "Lonely Is The Hunter," is mediocre - nothing terribly good, nothing terribly bad - but, "Murder In High Heels," has crap riffs and bad vocal melodies. How that one made it on to the album when he had better songs available is hard to figure.
This one goes to Lick It Up by a very slim margin.
Paul's songs (other than the lead single):
On Lick It Up Paul did a good job, overall, but had a Gene-esque clunker on there to go with the catchy, but mediocre, title track. "Gimme More," is a high energy burst of uptempo Metal and Roll from Paul and Vinnie. Musically, it's OK. Kind of generic uptempo stuff, kind of Ted Nugent through a Judas Priest filter - with the dopiest lyrics either band could ever write. Lyrically, "Gimme More," is worthy of Gene at his worst. Musically, It's just OK at best. The song is basically a, "Fail."
But, "A Million To One," is special. It's a very Def Leppard (circa Pyromania, of course) kind of track. Paul & Vinnie came up with a winner there for sure. And, finally, Paul & Vinnie reworked one of Eric Carr's submitted songs and changed it from a Kashmir-esque song into a Rap Metal song. It's a cool track with some very good music and catchy vocal melodies. It works, and it works well.
On Animalize Paul doesn't have anything as bad as, "Gimme More." "Get All You Can Take," is a solid album track. For his weakest track on the album it's certainly not bad. "Under the Gun," which Paul took from some riffs that Eric wrote was a high energy, double bass KISS Metal song that worked well both live and on the album. It's a good song. Very good. "Thrills in the Night," is a very well written track, and has some real musical substance. I don't know whose idea it was to not use the snare drum in the chorus (which they changed when they played it live), but that's the only negative with this song. It's kind of, "A Million To One," Part 2. Yes, the original is better, but not by much.
So with Paul's songs other than the lead songs and the singles it's a tie.
Tallying it up, that gives Animalize an edge over Lick It Up, 2 to 1 (or 3 to 2 if you want to count the tied category as one for each album).
Lick It Up was a vitally important album for KISS, and the high quality of the best tracks on the album saved KISS from what seemed like a commercial doom, but Animalize's outstanding highlights, basically Paul's songs, give that album a slight edge.
But is the album really as good as all that? Maybe. The highlights certainly are. But on the whole is the album better than it's predecessor, the fan favorite Creatures Of The Night? Or is it even better than it's successor, the much maligned (despite the fact that it was KISS' biggest selling album of their unmasked years) Animalize?
Maybe not.
Conventional wisdom says it is, but is the conventional wisdom really all that wise in this case? Again, maybe not.
Let's compare the equivalent tracks from each album to get a clearer picture. (And, yes, I do know that this is all opinion and not, "Fact," but we can still get a better idea in general by going track by track with the equivalent songs from these two albums.)
Opening track:
Exciter VS I've Had Enough (Into The Fire)
This one's tough because both of these tracks are great. Both songs were modern Heavy Metal (at the time) in a Judas Priest sense, and both were well written and performed, but I have to give a slight edge to, "I've Had Enough." Animalize wins this one by a very narrow margin.
Lead Single:
Lick It Up VS Heaven's On Fire
No contest. "Lick It Up," is catchy, and it helped revive their career, but, "Heaven's On Fire," is even catchier, punchier, funkier, and just all around better. Animalize wins this one fairly easily.
Gene's songs:
With Lick It Up you go from excellent (Not For The Innocent) to fairly good (Young and Wasted) to energetic, but embarrasingly mindless both musically and lyrically (Fits Like A Glove), to utterly mediocre (his attempt to ape AC/DC with Dance All Over Your Face), to complete failure (And On The 8th Day - an ambitious track, attempting something of substance musically, but just failing).
On Animalize Gene has similar results. "While The City Sleeps," is very good, but while, "Burn Bitch Burn," has some good riffs the lyrics are so embarrassingly bad they ruin the song. "Lonely Is The Hunter," is mediocre - nothing terribly good, nothing terribly bad - but, "Murder In High Heels," has crap riffs and bad vocal melodies. How that one made it on to the album when he had better songs available is hard to figure.
This one goes to Lick It Up by a very slim margin.
Paul's songs (other than the lead single):
On Lick It Up Paul did a good job, overall, but had a Gene-esque clunker on there to go with the catchy, but mediocre, title track. "Gimme More," is a high energy burst of uptempo Metal and Roll from Paul and Vinnie. Musically, it's OK. Kind of generic uptempo stuff, kind of Ted Nugent through a Judas Priest filter - with the dopiest lyrics either band could ever write. Lyrically, "Gimme More," is worthy of Gene at his worst. Musically, It's just OK at best. The song is basically a, "Fail."
But, "A Million To One," is special. It's a very Def Leppard (circa Pyromania, of course) kind of track. Paul & Vinnie came up with a winner there for sure. And, finally, Paul & Vinnie reworked one of Eric Carr's submitted songs and changed it from a Kashmir-esque song into a Rap Metal song. It's a cool track with some very good music and catchy vocal melodies. It works, and it works well.
On Animalize Paul doesn't have anything as bad as, "Gimme More." "Get All You Can Take," is a solid album track. For his weakest track on the album it's certainly not bad. "Under the Gun," which Paul took from some riffs that Eric wrote was a high energy, double bass KISS Metal song that worked well both live and on the album. It's a good song. Very good. "Thrills in the Night," is a very well written track, and has some real musical substance. I don't know whose idea it was to not use the snare drum in the chorus (which they changed when they played it live), but that's the only negative with this song. It's kind of, "A Million To One," Part 2. Yes, the original is better, but not by much.
So with Paul's songs other than the lead songs and the singles it's a tie.
Tallying it up, that gives Animalize an edge over Lick It Up, 2 to 1 (or 3 to 2 if you want to count the tied category as one for each album).
Lick It Up was a vitally important album for KISS, and the high quality of the best tracks on the album saved KISS from what seemed like a commercial doom, but Animalize's outstanding highlights, basically Paul's songs, give that album a slight edge.
