SPILL BOOK REVIEW: MARTIN POPOFF – KISS AT 50

MARTIN POPOFF – KISS AT 50

MOTOR BOOKS

BOOK REVIEW BY JAMIE LAWLIS

KISS hailed from New York City in 1973. 50 years later Martin Popoff brings us into the realm of The KISS story, illuminated and spread out into 50 chapters. This goes a long way down the rabbit hole of KISS trivia. The music plays only a minor background role here when in real life the wheels were spinning in the KISS machine. Nobody can deny their presence in pop culture, no matter the age.

All the important stand out moments are covered here, making this a welcoming engagement for KISS fans to see how one of their own, found in Martin Popoff, offers explanations, and gets critical in his case studies. He manages to amuse by visiting moments of conflict aligned with a series of subpar records — damaged by oversaturation and how Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley missed the mark a few times trying to keep up with The Joneses with disco seduction, and decades later by the inevitable stranglehold of grunge.

One thing for sure, the band was in the public eye whether you liked them or not. Most of the stories presented here will bring the KISS fans back to many familiar stories. The KISS army was the original fan club and its nice to see a whole chapter here dedicated to a movement that started it all. The fans are loyal and are guaranteed to be reading this book. This is for music fans in general who are old enough to remember the hot mid ‘70s period, who will be happy to go back to that timeline, especially during the KISS renaissance that saw the back-to-back releases of Alive! and Destroyer.

The chapters have dedications to each record, all the hits and misses. The Elder gets a reputation for being a big miss. It was a failure in the world of KISS that became a financial disaster, and to some it was an overambitious venture. To others, it was a pleasurable concept album. We see a great amount of unreleased old band images, including the ‘80s transformation of taking off the makeup, leading up to the ‘90s when the makeup went back on where it has stayed ever since.

The book covers a fascinating timeline with layers of smashes, thrashes, and misses. It is also up to date in current language, focusing on the moral decency of the band members, not unlike what we would find in a comic book hero. We are also coming at it through the eyes and ears of Martin Popoff, someone who was there in ‘70s Canada, taking it all in as a teen fan. There is also the familiar tales of old KISS folklore covering the likes of Ace Frehley, Peter Criss, Eric Carr, Vinnie Vincent, Mark St. John, Bruce Kulick, and Eric Singer. There is plenty of cookie cutter KISS candy found in the many pages here, but who needs all that when one can simply enjoy a fascination with The Elder. Unlike that album, this book is getting a 9/10. A real close champion.

ISBN-13:‎ 978-0760381823

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