Lately I've been addicted to Carnival of Souls, there's some monster tracks on that album as In The Mirror, Master & Slave, Jungle, It Never Goes Away and Rain
"It Never Goes Away" is freaking awesome. I think that COS is a great album. Not sure why Paul is so hell-bent on disowning it; like the article says, it's not like they haven't dabbled in genre tourism shamelessly before. As far as genre experiments by non-native bands go, it's by FAR one of the strongest examples. (And I like "Unmasked" a lot too.)
Unmasked is one of my favorite albums of all. The drumming of Anton Fig is so great and I like all the songs. I like The Elder too, but Unmasked is my all time favorite.
i l o v e d the "unmasked" album. it was a pop album but a nice change in their musical developement. "Easy as it seems", Shandy""s that you" - never get tired listening and enjoying these tunes.
I absolutely agree about The Elder and Unmasked, though I think Unmasked could maybe be remixed without all the keyboards and turning up the guitars and be okay. I would take Carnival of Souls over Psycho Circus and the 2 Scab albums. Jungle kicks ass, Hate is kinda Unholy part 2 and heavy as hell, it's another trend following album which they have been doing since Dynasty though...Great video brother 🤘🏻
Unmasked was an exceptionally well written, well played, and well produced album that would have sold 3-4 million copies IF... any unknown band other than KISS had released it. It was terrific pop-rock, with 4-5 solid singles.
OMG FFFFFFF-SHMAKAMAGOBB Doooood!!! "Childhood's End" is one of Gene's few transcendent numbers!! in all of the KISS Kannon!! Mon Dieu!! .. Paul is right though, Unmasked, The Elder & Carnival are the three reaches, with Crazy Nights hanging stage left.
I love all 3. Elder is all killer no filler. Unmasked took some getting used to but I like it in a cheesy way when I’m feeling silly. As far as Carnival it just sounds so rich n powerful on my pioneer speakers in my office. A great drinking album when friends are over.
The Elder would appeal more to fans of Progressive Rock I think. There aren't any sex, drugs, and rock n' roll party songs on it, but it's still an excellent Kiss album! I don't think I've ever played Unmasked all the way through, and I went AWOL from the Kiss Army long before Carnival was released, so I can't tell you about that one either.
@@VoltageGuycan't stand the 3 sides of the coin guys. I criticized KISS for playing a show after Paul had that heart attacked and they banned me. Accused Gene being more concerned about the money than Paul's health, I would of been extremely disappointed in that show if I was there. I said, just cancel the show and reschedule it. I got banned, think it was their Facebook page.
I don't care what anyone says, Unmasked is a good album. If it wasn't done by a hard rock band and people expected something else I bet it would have been a hit. Hit or not I love Unmasked.
I do actually like all 3. Unmasked being my favorite and I know I am probably alone on this but Unmasked is in my top 5 favorite KISS albums. My least favorite KISS albums, the ones I listened to some when they came out but not since is Crazy Nights and Hot In The Shade. No offense to the fans of those albums. And there are a couple good songs on each I think. Good girl gone bad, Thief in the night. Love me to hate you.
@@Music4thsoul yes sir I agree with that. Asylum was the current album when I became a fan of KISS and I do like some of the songs on it but it's not as good as Unmasked
Agree absolutely. "Unmasked" was great because of Ace's stuff like "Torpedo Girl" and Talk to me" and Paul had great material with "Is That You" and "Shandi"
Agreed...Carnival of souls sucks !!! Love Unmasked & The Elder better than most of their 80's Albums...thats just me. There were way too many other Bands in the 80's that put our better Music than Kiss. Rock on Ralph. We all here love your News Channel !!!
4:34 "It Never Goes Away" ❤ on Carnival Of Souls, I love the hell out of it! Paul may hate himself for not being good enough? But on all three mentioned albums: Paul rules!👑
Loves me some Music from the Elder, and Carnival has some good tracks; but as long as Pawl Thtanley of KITH is tormented by those records I would enjoy them all the more. He is right about Unmasked, although I do enjoy Naked City. If he had any musical integrity he would acknowledge that Crazy Nights and Hot in the Shade both blow his bald head.
"Hot In The Shade" had like three good songs and the rest of the album was pure flotsam. I heard "Read My Body" once when I first bought the album and avoided it ever after.
9:53 "Anybody sucks but me"🤣. Funny. But it doesn't root in the text of "Face The Music". Paul has a tendency to self-bashing. He wrote: "We'd lost the plot". Then: "MY" songs were nothing to write home about". I was shocked, because I love his songs. Meanwhile in a recent interview Paul said: "there were times when I was too tough to myself and to others". He knows.
I love both Unmasked and The Elder big time. Naked City in my opinion is a phenomenal Kiss song. I have Carnival Of Souls album, but I still haven't given it a proper listen. I hate Grunge music.
If all 3 sold a million copies, Paul would say they're the best albums in the catalogue. He loves 1 of their worst, Crazy Nights because it sold well and he was proud of his high Olivia Newton John high vocals! Too bad he didnt wear his Elder bandana during the Crazy nights era! I love all 3 of these albums he shits on.. Psycho Circus is also shit compared to this 3.
The world never needed a first rate sound garden.metellicrap or nivana/alice in chains to start with.They all are so depressing they make you want to Cobain yourself !
I disagree with Paul on Carnival of Souls. That album is one of my favorites. In my opinion it was much more of a Mean Gene Simmons album than it was a Paul album. Revenge and COS, Gene was back with a vengeance. I agree with you on Child Hood's End, Ralph. I don't hate Elder or Unmasked, but not a big fan of those albums either.
It's so interesting how Paul changes his opinion on albums. There's nothing wrong with changing opinions over time (we all do), but Paul does it for effect/to look better and that is not the right reason - in my opinion. I like all three albums, MFTE being the best - I will probably never get tired of this record. "Unmasked" is a nice pop-album and there are tons of nice memories attached with this album, for me. Timeline seems to be very important with music, I guess. COS isn't as bad as he thinks/or says it is. It is not KISS-like, but was "Dynasty" KISS-like!? And "Dynasty" is a great album - except for the first song. ;-) The album that Paul should really hate is "Crazy Nights"! And even on CN are some good songs, but the production sounds like plastic (if plastic had a sound). Anyways, Paul seems to be a very troubled person - like Vinnie Vincent, just in different ways. By the way, keep up the great work! I still enjoy your videos - even if I don't always agree.
Master and Slave and Childhood's End are the 2 tracks from _Carnival of Souls_ that I remember and liked. It's very true that _Unmasked_ had no balls. It sounded quite generic. Two Sides of the Coin is the only song on that record that I really enjoy. _The Elder_ was vastly underrated. As for _Crazy Nights_ ... Well, it has some good 80s Hair Metal tracks on it, but it's never going to be one of the classics Like _Destroyer_ , _Love Gun_ , _Creatures of the Night_ or _Revenge_ .
I actually like all three and the song Childhood’s End is a song I really like. Another song I also love all of Ace’s contributions to Elder and Unmasked (Two Sides of the Coin, Dark Light, and especially Torpedo Girl). So maybe I’m just odd.
I wouldn’t say I “love” all three, but I like the majority of songs on each, at least. Paul also dissed Psycho Circus years after the fact, for what it’s worth.
I absolutely love Unmasked. Music from the Elder I hate. Carnival of Souls I can’t comment on since I haven’t listened to the full album, but I did hear a few songs from that album and thought they were ok. I heard much worse. Oh though I was not surprised that Paul Stanley mentioned those albums because they probably are the worst selling albums in their catalog.
What I don't like about Unmasked is how Gene and Paul wanted Ace to sound too mainstream on his songs. Such a difference from his 78 solo work. I totally love MFTE. To this day I don't understand what the creepy chanting was in Mr. Blackwell. What I really love about COS was the first song, Hate. It's not a KISS song, it's a Gene Simmons song. There's a difference between the two. From R&RO we get Ladies Room, Dr. Love, and even See You In Your Dreams. Gene sang them but they were KISS songs. Fast forward to Love Gun. Christine Sixteen is sung by Gene but it's a KISS song. In reference to Almost Human, that's a Gene Simmons song. A Gene Simmons song is a song that personifies Gene as The Demon. I hope people can see what I'm talking about. And both Unholy from Revenge and Hate from COS are definitely Gene Simmons type songs.
Finally he mentioned Unmasked. I cannot imagine it back in the day: 1980 was one of the best Metal year and Kiss released a pop album. There was no USA tour. How come nobody saw it coming? There is an excellent Julian Gill regarding that era.
I like all three and I don’t like “Crazy nights”; especially “Unmasked” and “The elder” (I was 14 and didn’t have the prejudice about that Kiss was a hard rock band and liked every style they made, and I loved Kiss doing a epic fantasy album, because I’m from Spain and didn’t knew Kiss songs were about… sex😂)
I’m not really able to say Sonic Boom or Monster because I’ve never heard a full time off either album. But I’m still gonna throw them in there. It took a little trying but I’ve come to really like Carnival.
Can't believe somebody actually spoke the truth about Paul's book, hell yes! I just finished Ace's and Peter's and was EXTREMELY reluctant to even give Paul's the time of day simply because I know how much he likes to shit on anybody and everybody that isn't him and....well, my fucking gut instinct has been right so far. Good thing I only paid 3 bucks for it LOL I can't speak on COS because I haven't listened to it, but as to The Elder and Unmasked, I like songs on both. Ace's on Unmasked, mostly. "I" "World Without Heroes" and "Dark Light" on Elder.
The "truth" about Paul's book is: he's bashing himself more than anyone else. "My" songs on Unmasked and The Elder are not worth mentioning etc. His self-critic shocked me, because I love his material on all three albums
Ok Ralph, so my OCD brain has spent a lifetime reimagining my favorite artist’s less successful albums the way they could have been. Envision this; If they had taken the best songs off of Dynasty and the best songs off of Unmasked and made one single album with Eddie Kramer producing. If they had taken the best songs off of each solo album and made one single KISS album also with Eddie Kramer producing. Take the studio songs off Alive ll (it should have been an entirely live album to begin with), and take the best two and use them to replace the insipid “Tomorrow And Tonight” and “Then She Kissed Me” on Love Gun, thereby making it as strong an album as RNRO. Finally, finish my revisionist plan by dialing back on the overexposure and over merchandising, and KISS would have ruled the 70s until the end. Whatya think?
@@almosthuman56 Yeah now that I’m older I don’t mind Then She Kissed Me so much. When I was 13 and playing my KISS albums over and over, I tended to skip it or not pay much attention to it. Funny how time and age can change your viewpoint sometimes.
I can see the advantage of an Unmasked special edition with the whole album remixed without the keyboards & lift the guitars & bass for a tougher sound ... always loved those songs ... thought the cheesy production really neutered the hell outta it ... the demos sound ok ... change that poxy cover art as well.
I reckon COS is great. Like you said... Kiss have had a crack at a few different sub genres of Rock n Roll over the journey. I reckon they do a great job as a heavy riffin grunge outfit. Pity they didnt explore that further. Oh yeah... I like Childhoods End. Its definitely grown on me.
I bought Carnival of Souls fairly recently and quite enjoyed it. Yeah, its derivative and trying to be Alice in Chains and Soundgarden, but its still better than albums like Unmasked, Animalise, Crazy Nights and Hot in the Shade IMO.
COS is one of my favorite Kiss album. Actually, I love all three he listed. In my opinion I think animalize, asylum, crazy nights, hot in the shade, psycho circus, sonic boom and monster are the REAL garbage. Paul should be embarrassed of do much of those horrible albums. Uh! All night or say Jungle? I’ll take the later.
The Elder and Unmasked are really good albums, IMO, but - I think that they just didn’t mesh with the expectations created by the previous half-decade. KISS created and lead the way for several years, but then became followers after that. Also IWMFLY is universally accepted as the beginning of the end, with people “embarrassed” by that song. But, during any concert with that song - the crowd would go bat-shit crazy.
Unmasked has about a 50% rating with me. Naked City, She's So European, Torpedo Girl, Talk To Me, and Is That You. Whilst, The Elder and Carnival I rate them at 100%
Destroyer was the last good Kiss album. It seems like after that they were just chasing trends trying to up their game without really any improvement to their product. Dressed To Kill is their best.
The COS album would have been the death knell of the KISS non-makeup years if they chose that over the Reunion tour. The Elder in KISS fandom was a non-realized tour which could have incorporated a 'lost cities' tour of North American venues not played during the Dynasty shows. Some KISS fans say Dynasty and Unmasked should have been incorporated as a double-album in '79 with a tour lasting from '79 through '80 with the Dynasty staging and costumes. It doesn't matter now it's just hindsight and what could have been.
I’ve always thought if they took the best songs off Dynasty and the best songs off Unmasked, and had Eddie Kramer produce it, it would have been as strong as any of their seventies albums.
For me, Carnival has it's moments..... I don't care too much for the ballads..... But I LIKE most of the album. I LOVE The Elder and wish they would extend it and repackage it and do all the things that they promised back before it came out, the movie, the amusement park on wheels tours, the whole shitshow sheebang! I also love Unmasked, although I think somebody needs to remix it and put some crunch in the guitars, some BOOM in the drums and bass and take the vocals down a notch or few..... The albums I loathe and detest are Hot in the Shade (the acronym says it all >GAK!
The Elder was a great album for them to be proud of, they didn't have the balls to stand behind it, maybe cause they really had to work their buts off to play the material,
