Confession Number 1
In my pre-adolescent days I listened to KISS. I owned their records, knew the lyrics to most songs, and could name the members while most of my friends would refer to them as the Cat or the guy that spits blood.
There were some signs that indicated that I should not be listening to them. They were, even to my young ears, misogynistic. Later, I realized that the music was remarkably one-dimensional, some of it insipid, and most of it generally pointless. Of course, the worst offence was Beth. I realize that some of you may have sentimental attachments to that song. The truth is that I enjoyed many slow dances back in high school to that song. But, let's face the fact that this song will not be remembered as an important song or as seminal song writing, although I bet it led to the spilling of semen on a few occasions - get it: seminal ... semen.
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18 comments:
As an ElizaBETH, I hated that song ... all of the creepy boys would come up to me singing it! Yuck! What an awful awful song!
I was just a little too young for KISS, but I still knew their names. Great entry. And not so scary a confession.
I can only hope that you didn't sit around too long coming up with that literary gem :)
Well, I never liked KISS. However, I had some friends in a band that did a cover of Strutter, and we would go to their gigs and shout out, Play Strutter, until they finally did. I don't remember why we did that. Strutter is a stupid song. You go figure.
The best thing I remember about Kiss happened after they "unmasked". Gene Simmons was on a talk show with Cher. Cher asked him how long his tongue was. Gene answered "Long enough to keep YOU happy."
If you aren't sure of a name of a Kiss song, wait until the end of it and they will repeat it numerous times.
I hear ya Liz on hating the song. There are two songs that were popular (one in the 70s, the other in the 80s) that people often sing to me when they hear my name. And I loathe both those songs.
For me, older people sing the theme from an old movie starring Jean Tierney. (I am named after the movie.)
Slightly younger people sing a bad 1950s pop song.
Fortunately there have been no KISS songs with my name, that I know of, anyway.
ZF: There are worse things to confess, music-wise. No one was born cool. :)
Leonard Cohen was born cool.
KISS is one of those bands that has maybe two original, memorable songs...and neither of them are that deep or that creative.
I was too young to catch the KISS army, but I will always associate the song Beth with relatives in Bondo-covered GTOs, mullets, and confederate flag tee shirts.
KISS is a reminder of what happens when music is packaged, marketed, and shipped like a product...similar to where, I guess, we are now as a society. People will be feeling the same way about acts like Limp Bizkit and Lil Jon years from now.
Liz: Oh, I feel your pain. The song is corniness defined.
Leonard Cohen was born cool.
True. Bob Dylan was, too.
Most of us, however, had to acquire our coolness. Hence our past enjoyment of bands like KISS.
Music need not be cerebral. It need not be something that you can play while your baby sleeps to turn him into a genius. If it makes you feel good (or at least better) when you listen to it, it is good music.
Superhappy, I couldn't agree more. There are still a lot of songs that I know intellectually, are not musical masterpieces, but I still love them anyway.
LOL...I still totally dig "One Down, Three to Go" by the Meatmen, this obscure, rather vicious song about the death of John Lennon (as the title implies, not exactly a a warm and fuzzy tribute) and I'd kill to catch the Ramones in concert one last time.
Lord, the children sleeping visual...
If I ever have children, I'm now SO convinced that I'll end up raising the Antichrist, given my bizarre tastes in music :-)
Z, just thought I'd let you know that "your" post is up and running.
Not only did I listen to KISS (blushes) I went and saw them when they last came to Winnipeg (must have been a decade ago, I was still in University).
However, I have no excuse to give as to why I attended the Motley Crue concert in the Spring. Aside from the fact that me and my girlfriend were trying to hold on desperately to our younger, and much more foolish, days.
I saw them once without their wigs. SCARY.
My sister made me listen to KISS.
My strangest KISS related memory is associated with the summer I left my WASband, and decided to look up the man who was the best man at my wedding (as I remembered he thought I was so lovely--little did I know that he thought I was lovely because I was chubby). So we went out to dinner (Thai) , and a movie (A Civil Action), both were DISASTERS btw, we're driving around, and between listening to Kiss' "New York Groove" and Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire," he announces to me he's into rough sex and gals who have nipple rings... I realized, that my perception of BEST MAN would be so divergent from my WASband's. This is prompting a post on my own blog, btw.
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