Imagine it’s 1977. You’re a manager for the band Kiss. The
band’s popularity has hit a peak thanks to Destroyer, but their
last two albums have been dropping in quality. (Add in the rumors
that there is tension within the band, and you’ve got a juicy
timebomb that you’re sitting on.) What is one to do in order to
reclaim the glory that the band just grasped?
The answer might seem obvious: Kiss first grabbed the brass ring
with
Alive!, so why not unleash a second live set on the
masses?
Well, for plenty of reasons.
Alive II is a half-assed attempt at a live disc, hastily
thrown together and not necessarily capturing the band at its best.
And that’s being kind.
Think about it. It had only been two years since
Alive! had been released, so putting out a second live disc
seemed to be a tad too soon. It was also the fourth Kiss album in
two years – a possible sign that the band was suffering from
creative burnout. (Never mind that Kiss had basically been
releasing one album every six months since their debut came out in
1974.)
Oh, sure, you could argue that the inclusion of five new studio
tracks on side four of
Alive II meant that the band wasn’t running dry creatively.
Granted, “All-American Man” and “Rocket Ride” are better than half
of the sludge on
Love Gun. But including another cover -this time, the Dave
Clark Five’s “Any Way You Want It” – was a sign of bad juju. (Add
into this the rumors that guitarist Ace Frehley played on only one
studio track – “Rocket Ride,” which he also sings lead vocals on –
and you’ve got a further sign of trouble.)
And think about it again. What new ground could Kiss break with
Alive II? For an album that featured songs only from
Destroyer,
Rock And Roll Over and
Love Gun, Gene Simmons and company had greatly narrowed
their field of vision – in a sense, perhaps too much. It was a
mistake to completely ignore their pre-
Alive! history; if anything, Kiss should have pulled out a
few rabbits that weren’t taken from the hat the first time around.
(“Room Service,” perhaps?)
Think about it one last time.
Alive! was meant to show listeners where Kiss’s true energy
was – on stage – and to get people interested in their three
previous albums.
Alive II was basically thrown together to have new Kiss
material on the shelves for the holidays. Sound-wise, this is not
Kiss at their best; the recording sounds quite muddy, with the
crowd noise almost drowning out the band at times. There has also
been the claim made that a lot of studio trickery went into getting
this album ready for the masses – if so, couldn’t they have cleaned
up the overall sound, for Crissake?
Alive II is proof that the music industry is more about
marketing than it is about the music. If it were otherwise, this
disc would have been cut down and replaced with a better-sounding
alternative with a better track listing – and this “studio side”
bullshit would have either been eliminated, or included as a bonus
7-inch record. Kiss has yet to top the original
Alive! – and
Alive II suggested they were nowhere near accomplishing that
feat.
