I’ve long had a man-crush on soft spot in my heart for Paul Stanley, Kiss’ lead vocalist and most musical member. He’s the best singer in the band, a commanding stage presence, and his songs are the best things on every one of the dozens of albums the band has shat out since their 1974 debut (sure, Gene Simmons might claim to have written 300 unreleased songs, but they all doubtless suck, just like most of the ones that got released). And at age 57, he can still bring it live, whether in seven-inch leather heels with Kiss, or in more modest foot apparel in his solo shows. Check out his DVD One Live Kiss for a primer on playing great rock and roll well past what most people consider an acceptable sell-by date. Seriously, he’s only six years younger than my father, and Dad had to give up playing to sold-out stadium audiences in his early 40s. It’s exhausting.
Stanley’s put out two solo records in his career—1978’s Paul Stanley (part of Kiss’ stunt of releasing four solo records simultaneously) and 2006’s Live to Win. Each has plenty to recommend it, if you’re into the kind of melodic rock on which he’s built his career.
“Hold Me, Touch Me (Think of Me When We’re Apart)” was the sole single released from the 1978 album (peaking at Number 46), and it features many of the instrumental hallmarks of the day, mainly the shimmering acoustic guitars, dead-sounding drums, anonymous background vocals, and faux strings (courtesy of something called an “Omni string ensemble,” an analog synthesizer that, coincidentally, was also responsible for powering Mork’s journey from Ork to Earth that same year).
Stanley is in his most sensitive pillow-talk voice, doubtless laying on his back in a state of repose, fingers gently playing with his own chest hair, sensitively addressing the chick he’d just met backstage six hours before:
Though I know that you are sleepin’
Girl, there’s somethin’ I must say
Though the road may wind
My love will find the way
That’s a really nice sentiment, Paul. Certainly, this divine maiden would be charmed as all hell by your wooin’ and philosophizin’ about winding roads and such. But she’s asleep. You acknowledge this in the first line. She’s probably even snoring a little. This fazes you not a bit, though, cuz you go on: (more…)
Any good label manager would tell you: don’t name your album something a reviewer could turn into a catchy, snarky counterpoint. But as we know far too well, most of the labels are hanging by a thread, the management inside reduced to bean counters versus quality controllers and, heck, if Hollywood keeps naming their movies in blindly self-insulting ways, why can’t the record industry follow suit?
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