If you’ve got a KISS fan on your Christmas list and don’t know what to possibly get for he or she (though it’s probably a he…), fear no more! Your shopping stress just got a little easier with the arrival of the fine and fantastic new glossy tome KISS at 50 by Martin Popoff (192 pp., $40, Motorbooks/Quarto Publishing).
Popoff is perhaps music journalism’s most prolific scribe, with approximately 115 books and nearly 8,000 record reviews to his credit. Though as he says upfront, this subject is particularly close to him as A fan since the two bands he most cherishes are KISS and his own fellow Canadian countrymen in Rush.
Taking a track from some of his previous work, instead of a straight biography (of which there are several already), Popoff instead chooses 50 different events, albums, or important points in the band’s career to tell their story since their founding in 1973. And gets into the nitty gritty detail that a card-carrying member of the KISS Army can appreciate.
As in when he offers that Michael Doret, when he designed the cover for the Rock and Roll Over album, had already birthed from his mind the official logo for the New York Knicks.
Or that the actor who overdubbed all of drummer Peter Criss’ unintelligible (or not recorded) dialogue lines for the now-punchline TV movie KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park was by Michael Bell, who would later lend his voiceover talents to The Smurfs cartoon.
The story is evenly told across time, with attention even given to the years that KISS was creatively afloat and out of contemporary pop culture (this includes their forays into hair metal, soppy balladry, “grunge” and—gasp!—disco.
And what makes Popoff’s writing a bit refreshingly different here is that he seems to give voice to many varied and common opinions of fans about both the high and low points of KISStory.
Popoff covers pretty much everything here, with two nitpicky omissions. He could have devoted one of his sidebar chapters to books written by and about KISS, as well as a look at the merchandising from the most-merchandised band in history.
After all, there were not only dolls and lunch boxes and games and makeup kits for the original childhood fans, but later KISS condoms and deodorant. And, infamously, the KISS Kasket (which Pantera’s murdered guitarist Dimebag Darrell was laid to rest in, reportedly given as a gift from the group).
As usual with Popoff’s coffee table books, this one is visually stunning with more than 300 color images. There’s plenty of posed and live shots of the band over the decades, but the fun stuff is in the ephemera: posters, advertisements, rare album and single covers, backstage passes, buttons and even patches.
And while the original foursome of Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss get the most attention (including the latter two’s in-and-outs of the lineup), all other members of the family get ink as well.
Like a lot of other rock bands, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers’ previously-announced “farewell” or last tours have proven to be premature. But their current “The End of the Road” world tour—begun in 2019—will purportedly bring the party to a stop this December in New York City, the band’s birthplace. Most fans think this one will actually stick to that promise.
Although—as befitting his merciless marketing mind—Gene Simmons has floated the idea that KISS could continue with completely different players under that Kabuki-style makeup. In any case, KISS at 50 will make fans want to rock and roll—and read—all nite.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
