And I Shall Live My Life...Under the Rose!

I am just a boy,

And my future is unveiling

And I'm so frightened of failing...

I used to consider myself a very passionate, faithful KISS fan.  Inasmuch as such a thing can define a person, I would have considered it one of my defining traits.  But it was a lie.

About a month ago I popped in the classic debut album for about the thousandth time, heard the fat thunder of the drum intro to "Strutter," and felt a walloping sort of malaise sink in.  This again.  Even "Deuce" had, in that moment, lost its usual rousing magic for me.  I ejected the disc and placed it back in its case.  I looked at the album cover, and I just couldn't connect with those four faces the way I always had been able to in the past.  

I slept fitfully that night, full of fears impossible to articulate, sliding down a giant tongue towards the lake of fire that I have always believed officially represents middle age, at least from a pop-culture perspective.  I woke up in a cold sweat and thought about the KISS songs I knew and the albums I had listened to all the way through.  Greatest hits; the most classic of all their albums - these were the things I based my fandom on, and my delusions of KISS Army grandeur.  No wonder I had grown bored - in a catalog of dozens of albums and hundreds of songs, I had explored a mere fraction!

I drifted for a few days through a wilderness of confusion.  "Am I really a KISS fan?  Do I deserve to be called a KISS fan?"  I decided that I did not, but rather than turn away from the iconic painted faces in shame, I would earn my right to be a soldier in the KISS Army.  And the best way I could think of to do this would be to immerse myself in the world and music of the band's most divisive, least popular, most reviled album of all time.

I decided to enter the world of The Elder.

"Do you understand?  Will you sacrifice?"

I knew of "Music From The Elder" only in passing.  It was the worst album of the band's career, a complete and utterly fetid turd from start to finish, and was the death-blow of the band's rapid and stunning late-70's fall from grace.  I was surprised when I went online to find that, over the years, the album had undergone a major reappraisal, and for every cry of "SHIT!" I found another that claimed the album to be the band's ultimate achievement, a mature masterpiece unlike anything the band attempted before or after.  

Color me intrigued.

The history was this: KISS had released six classic, heavy studio albums in four years, plus two iconic live albums.  They had achieved the world domination that had been their goal from the start.  The only thing bigger than their success were their egos, so large had they grown that it threatened to tear the band apart.  As a measure to placate each band member, it was decided that all four would record and release (on the same day in 1978) solo albums.  These albums were seen (and rightfully so) as a grossly indulgent publicity stunt.  Between the four records, there would have been enough stellar material for another classic KISS album, but spread across eight sides of vinyl, the whole affair came across as a bloated cash grab.  Fans began to worry.

With their solo ventures out of their systems, one could have been forgiven for assuming the band would get back to rocking on their next collaborative effort, 1979's "Dynasty," but what KISS delivered instead was an album that was painfully aware of popular trends, and which even flirted with (gasp!) disco in places.  It was commercially successful, but the band's new sound, coupled with the rampant KISS marketing (which has never really let up) of the era led many of the faithful to leave the fold.  1980's follow-up album "Unmasked" actually took the band farther in this new direction, and was a commercial and critical disaster.  Drummer Peter Criss was fired from the group, adding further turmoil to an already troubled time.  KISS was spiraling fast.

Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley promised a return to form with the band's next effort, actually declaring that it would be "the heaviest album they'd ever done."  To try and reconnect with their glory days, they hired uber-producer Bob Ezrin, the mastermind behind the group's triumphant 1976 album, "Destroyer," who was fresh off his involvement with Pink Floyd's opus "The Wall."  Ezrin heard the heavy demos the band had been preparing and said, "Boys, what you need is a concept album."  Excited by the potential for a GRAND ARTISTIC STATEMENT that would restore the band's popularity with its fans, and earn it a bit of much-needed critical respect, work was taken to turn a short story by Simmons into a full-fledged conceptual masterpiece.

Not only was the resultant album NOT "the heaviest album they'd ever done," it featured classical music, mystical lyrics, and choirs.  They band had revamped their look, paring down their costumes and hairstyles and adopting a more serious image to match their more serious sound.  Word got out about this travesty, and the record-buying public stayed away in droves.  "Music From The Elder" became the worst-selling album of the band's career, and signified rock bottom for the group.  They quickly tried to distance themselves from the entire enterprise, and released a follow-up album a mere six months later, with crunching guitars and a monolithic drum sound, self-consciously delivering on their promise to drop their heaviest album up to that time.  But it was too little, too late.

In many ways, KISS have been running from "Elder" ever since.

Serious artists, the "Elder" era

So, perhaps it was that I was punishing myself for my shallow devotion to this great band by choosing "The Elder" as the pool I would dive into.  But I was honestly intrigued by the dual nature of the reactions the album has drawn from critics and fans over the years.  Depending on who you ask, it is either the greatest or the worst thing KISS ever did.  That can't help but spark at least a little curiosity, right?

First, I've never bought that whole argument about bands "selling out" by changing their sound.  To me, a band's catalog albums are like pieces of a bigger picture.  Let's say a debut album is blue - the band has added that color to their picture.  The next album is red - it goes on the picture.  If the third album is also red, well, it adds nothing new to the picture.  In defense of the KISS albums from the late '70's that alienated so many fans - at least they added new shades to the picture.  "Shandi" (from 1980's "Unmasked" album) is pop lite, but why not?  If you want to hear "Strutter" again, play "Strutter" again.  It doesn't mean the band sucks, or that they have sold out; it just means they are trying to grow.

In that regard, "The Elder" could be regarded as KISS' masterpiece.  No joke - in a long career filled with taking it safe and never veering too far from the same formula (as successful a formula as it admittedly is), "Elder" is the biggest risk that KISS ever took.  And even though their popularity was at an all-time low which would indicate they had nothing to lose, they really had everything to lose with this album.  And for the most part, that's exactly what happened.

I don't think anyone gave the album a fair shake in 1981.  It seems both fans and critics punished KISS for trying to be more than they were - a big, loud, dumb rock band.  Sure, "Elder" is held down somewhat by the limitations of the band - it's no "The Wall," but I find the story accessible and suitably compelling, the plot clear, and the songs strong.  Indeed, before diving into "The Elder," I had assumed the entire album would be strings and syrupy synths, when in fact it includes some of the band's heaviest rockers.  Mostly, the tracks are either "heavy" or "not heavy," but there are places where the disparate sounds really come together, as on the epic, cavernous "Under the Rose," one of the album's best tracks.

There are a few missteps, as well.  Paul's falsetto on some tracks is corny, and the bloated track "Odyssey" (the only track not written at least in conjunction with a member of the band) sounds like it would have fit in with one of the roller-skate disco musicals that seemed so popular at the dawn of the 80's.  Campy to the max.  And the orchestral "fanfare" that begins the album is superfluous, but it's only 90 seconds long, for crying out loud!

Overall, though, "Elder" kicks ass, and I would venture to say that a certain amount of mystique has built around it over the last few decades.  Modern KISS shows invariably feature fans howling for tracks from the album, and roaring approvingly at only a mere few seconds of a familiar riff from it.  Gene Simmons' excellent track "World Without Heroes" got performed at various unplugged events for the last twenty years or so, and the band has whipped out a full-on performance of "The Oath" at shows in the last few years.  

Could a full-blown, orchestral live rendition of the complete album be on the horizon?

Ha ha, fat chance.  But listening to basically nothing but "The Elder" for two weeks has really opened my eyes to the greatness of the primal classic rock force that was and is KISS.  I went back to the beginning and can now say I've listened to all the "makeup" albums from start to finish.  Rather than finding the well-known classic tracks surrounded by clunky filler, I was surprised to find each album so packed with quality material and so many unexpected surprises.  Everybody knows "Rock 'n' Roll All Nite" (from 1975's "Dressed to Kill"), but when was the last time you listened to "Torpedo Girl" (from 1981's "Unmasked")?  It rocks.  You should hear it.

Here it is:

I wasn't alive when "The Elder" was released, but coming to the album (and the two albums that immediately preceded it) today, with fresh ears, I can't understand what inspired all the anger.  I guess disco was the Great Satan to rockers and metal-heads in the late 70's, and KISS' forays into these realms was an unforgivable breach of rock 'n' roll trust.  But take away that drama and what you are left with over three decades later is simply great music.  Bands today make take years between album releases - KISS released at least one new album of music every year between 1974-1985.  And listening to them sequentially, it's readily apparent that artistic growth was happening within the band members, if the end product all seems to blend together in retrospect.  Their progression wasn't as dramatic as, say, that of The Beatles, but it was there, nonetheless.

It's hard to imagine the KISS of 1974 having the confidence, musical chops, or imagination to tackle a project like "Elder."  But a mere seven years later, they were able to make their vision a reality.  It was ahead of its time, behind the times, painfully OF its time, and somehow, utterly timeless in equal measure.

Sort of like the band that spawned it.


   

And isn't it ironic...don't ya think?

Ten years ago, I had a mustache...

Here I am, sitting on the toilet in 2005, with a mustache, drenched in sweat.

I was 21 years old, staring down the rapidly impending arrival of 22, and I finally was able to grow the mustache that I had been trying to grow since around the age of 12.  I find I was not alone in this - lots of barely pubescent young men walk around with mocha-colored smudges gracing their top lips, feeling masculine and grown up, when really they just look like they drank chocolate milk and need to mop up the mess.

I was self-conscious of my mustache, and it was short lived.  There exists very little photographic evidence of it today.  I was self-conscious of it because I was informed on many occasions that a solitary mustache made anyone under the age of 50 look like a rapist, child molester, etc.  There were no wholesome and praiseworthy young men who wore them.  In the 90's and a few decades before, a mustachioed man likely would have been told he looked like a porn star.  Deep inside, this would be a comparison most men would likely have been proud of.  It is edifying to be told you have the facial hair of a sex industry worker.

But not a rapist.  

So I shaved it off.  I don't miss it, but sometimes I think about it.  The thing I've realized is that I could totally have a mustache today, and it would be okay.  It could be accepted because it would be an ironic statement on mustaches.  It has become possible in the last decade (probably far longer on the coasts, but this is the heartland) to engage in all sorts of previously unacceptable social practices simply out of irony.

"We eat what we like..."

I grew up seeing a series of commercials for Apple Jacks cereal that always involved totally hip kids and clueless adults.  The kids would be eating the cereal and the adults would say, "But it doesn't even taste like apples!  What the fuck?"  And the kids would laugh and say, "We eat what we like!"  It was iconoclastic and rebellious to eat Apple Jacks.  It appealed to every child's inherent desire to be cool and trend-setting.  It was the same with Dr. Pepper.  Everyone drank Pepsi or Coke.  But rebels with a disdain for the social order drank Dr. Pepper.  There was real gravitas to proclaiming yourself a "Pepper."  And Apple Jacks were like the leather jacket and switchblade knife of breakfast cereals.

In 1995, pouring Dr. Pepper over a bowl of Apple Jacks in mixed company and eating them under my smudge of a mustache would have certainly gotten me laid.  If only I hadn't been 12 years old.  Youth is truly wasted on the young.

Irony has taken the edge out of everything.  I suppose it's edgy to wear slotted shades and slap bracelets today, inasmuch as they are uncommonly seen.  It would be a fashion statement, at least, but the irony of the action would more likely garner you a "right on!" than a "get a haircut, hippie!"  And wearing a mustache, even in this renaissance of facial hair, would be taken as an ironic statement on how wearing one ten years ago would have gotten you branded a rapist.  

Wearing a "wife-beater" t-shirt would have been a rebellious act in 1998 - today it would be hilarious, and people would smile at you.  The very name "wife-beater" is so outrageous that even to mention such a shirt today would be ironic.  Irony has taken the teeth out of everything, and has robbed us of our fundamental right to express ourselves in a sincere and honest way.

In 1975, it was rebellious to admit to liking KISS; in 1977, it was cool; in 1979, it was lame; in 1988, it was ridiculous; in 1997, it was cool; and in 2015 it's ironic.  Ditto for most of the popular music of the 80's.  One can sincerely in their true heart have a deep-seated love of Duran Duran or Men at Work, but it is impossible to express it in today's climate as people would assume you were being ironic.  They would laugh and say, "Man, I totally get that.  I love them, too!"  And you may all wear vintage M.a.W. t-shirts and play their music on vinyl and dance and sing along and, outwardly to the untrained eye, appear to be having a legitimately good time.  And maybe you all are, but would it even be possible to know?  Are you enjoying it because it's honestly good, or simply because it's so ridiculous that it has suddenly become hilarious?  

Most people under the age of 40 understand that drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon or Miller High Life is a hilariously ironic statement, and many a bonfire has been warmly passed deep within this ironic glow.  I remember the first time a local liquor store started carrying PBR in glass bottles.  That made it even more ironic - can you imagine drinking this swill out of a glass bottle, as if it were of the elevated quality of say, Red Stripe?  Drinking a 40oz of Colt45 out of a paper sack was the ultimate ironic statement; unfortunately, it also acted as a gateway to alcoholism, which is lame.  It was a delicate balancing act.  Certain beers were so lame and pedestrian that they were outside the protective bubble of hipster irony.  Pretty much anything with Lite in the title was just lame, as was Corona - widely accepted as the go-to "exotic" beer for completely lame people.  However, I would not be at all surprised to find that these beers, found inexcusably lame just five short years ago, have been enthusiastically (and ironically) embraced by the new hipster elite.

It is possible if you let it for this "ironic paranoia" to creep into every aspect of your life, even the totally mundane ones.  When confronted with pepperoni, veggie, or beef as my three options for a slice of lunchtime pizza, my stomach said pepperoni, but my mind actually thought I should get beef - that'd be hilarious!  I didn't, however - my stomach won, as it always does.  But the mere fact that I considered purchasing a slice of pizza with a totally lame topping simply for the ironic value of it was alarming - especially since I ate lunch alone in my car.  If an irony tree falls in a forest, and there is nobody around to hear it, does it still rawk?  Would it still be on like Donkey Kong?  

I had made the honest choice for lunch, but as I sat in my car eating my slice I scrolled through my iPod looking for desirable tunage, and settled on Quiet Riot's "Cum on Feel the Noize," which I was actually so into in that moment in my life that I played it on repeat.  Into the second chorus of the third repeat of the track, I had a mini existential meltdown.  "Why am I doing this?" I spoke to my steering wheel through a mouthful of pizza.  I have always loved "Cum on Feel the Noize" but my ironic paranoia suddenly cast my emotional motivations in doubt.

I am spiraling, and I fear my ironic rock bottom is still very far away.  How much more of this emotional turmoil will I have to endure before pop culture returns to an age of sincerity?  WILL it ever return to an age of sincerity?  Sincerity itself is probably the most ironic gesture of all.  Will I eventually reach that age of pop culture oblivion where I simply stop trying to keep up, and finally allow myself to exist safely and peacefully outside its fickle embrace?  

(As I type this I am overwhelmed by the alarming possibility that this very topic may only be a figment of my imagination (and my generation) and that those ten years younger than I may find all of this completely impossible to relate to.  Suddenly, I wonder if I'm getting enough fiber in my diet...)  

Some companies have embraced the irony and are using it to their advantage.  I recently bought a stick of classic Old Spice (the translucent blue stick) because it was recommended to me as part of my ongoing fight against prolific underarm sweating.  On the label, it said, "If your grandfather hadn't worn it, you wouldn't exist."  Old Spice was lame, which made it ironic, which made it cool.  Popular deodorants like Axe and (especially) Bod Man are totally trendy, which makes them lame.  Old Spice is capitalizing on its newly-acquired ironic capital, which is lame and will likely hurt its popularity in the long run.  By the time that happens Axe and Bod Man will be so uncool that it will make them ironic, hence totally cool.

Even my underarms are not safe.  Like so many things, I suppose the best solution is to not think about it too much.  But I am prone to thinking about stuff like this a lot all the time, so that's not going to be easy.  But necessary.  I've always liked to think that I was pretty honest, at least with myself.  I refuse to believe that I would be willing to allow myself to embrace something simply for ironic value.  I am bearded today, but it's more from laziness than social statement.  I enjoy Rockstar energy drinks, but only for their caffeine and low calorie content.  Rockstar energy drinks are lame.  Enjoying them could be construed as an ironic gesture.  But I make this distinction - if I would choose to drink one when absolutely nobody would see me doing it, that's an honest action.  If I am with a group of people, or in a public place, and the simple act of people witnessing my action would be enough to influence my choices, that is truly living ironically.  Which would be a completely lame way to live, which would make it ironic.

But I would never allow myself to be controlled in that way, right?  I mean, I sort of do - at least in my head, but I never liked Dr. Pepper.  I haven't had one in years, and if it were the only soft drink available I would switch to water.  Because I am free.  Commercials reassure me it's true.  I am an American.  I am a target market.  I am beautiful.

I eat what I like!