Casablanca, 1978
Acquired: Love Garden Shotgun Room, Used, 2008
Price: $1
Alright! After that fucking pussy shit (which could also be translated as “cat shit”) put on Peter the Cat's awful record, it's time to fuckin' rock with Gene Simmons, the Demon, the tongue, and the obnoxious fucking asshole of the group. Seriously, look up all the awful shit this guy has done. It's all on Wikipedia. I mean, homeboy even put out a solo record called Asshole, and that's precisely why I think Gene Simmons is awesome: He's an awful, awful person and he knows it and does not give a fuck what you think. So, that said, I'm sure he doesn't care that I openly believe this record is a piece of shit. Is it better than Peter Chris's record? Yes, yes it is. By a lot, actually. But it has surprisingly less balls than I was expecting. Seriously, he's grimacing and his mouth is DRIPPING BLOOD on the cover, which does not sync up with the lame, repetitive power-pop of “Radioactive” (“She's radioactive!”). This is a serious snore, Gene. I expected more! MORE BALLS! What's with the fucking orchestral flourishes on “See You Tonite” (and the misspelling of tonite, huh?)? I mean, who do you think you are? This sounds like you trying to cover Big Star or something. Well, at least he wrote all his songs (for the most part). “Tunnel of Love” is kind of rad though, but only because it's so uncool. It's kind of catchy, and it sounds like Gene's trying to be ballsy or something but the thumping synth thing in the background just makes this sound like dated trash. The melody and structure of “True Confessions” are so stilted it makes the song really hard to listen to. It's got this honky tonk thing going on with the piano and the guitar riff (Peter Criss did this a lot too) and it's got gospel back-up singers (which Peter Criss ALSO did), but that just makes it sound really lame. There's no real purpose to it, it's just like “Hey, let's add some gospel singers, why not?” It's weird, thinking about pre-80s. There aren't sax solos yet, but there are plenty of ugly sounding synthesizers. There's also a LOT of power-pop-esque stuff on these records, and it's really weird. Although, I will say it kind of works on “Man of 1000 Faces,” which is easily the best song on this album, and the one where the composition is actually thoughtful. But seriously, it's not the music that ruins these. Well, yeah, it's mostly that. But seriously, lines like “I'm living in sin/ At the Holiday Inn” make me wonder if I'm supposed to take this seriously. That one has gospel back-ups too. It's awful. And you know who else is doing back-up vocals on that song? BOB FUCKING SEGAR! And you know who else contributes to that song? FUCKING CHER! And do you know how many copies of this record got sold? 1,000,000. It's a strange, strange world we live in, especially given that this record ends with a cover of “When You Wish Upon a Star.” I shit you not, Gene Simmons covers Jimminy Cricket. I don't even know how to comprehend this. It sounds absolutely faithful. Full of sweeping strings and CROONING.
No comments:
Post a Comment