Song Of The Day 1/11/2013: Gene Simmons - "Living In Sin"

Okay, kids, let me try and explain what happened. Back in the late '70s, KISS was the world's biggest traveling pyrotechnic show, with music. They played a brand of hard rock that went down much better when they had makeup on their faces. They made up some personas to go along with their makeup. One guy was a spaceman, another guy was a "starchild" -- how that is different from a spaceman I am uncertain -- another guy was a devil/vampire/slasher, basically malevolent figure, and the last guy was a kitty-kat. The kitty-kat got to sing the ballads and play the drums. Never been able to reconcile that in my head.

So KISS made some albums and had some perfectly decent songs about a rock city named Detroit, a sixteen-year-old named Christine, and a woman named Hard Luck. They were very successful. They released albums that the RIAA certified platinum. In fact they named one of their albums Double Platinum, just so they wouldn't have to wait around for the RIAA to tell them it was platinum. "Um, yeah, duh, we called this Double Platinum, guys. Quarter Pewter didn't have that ring to it. Thanks for checking in." That, kids, is thinking one step ahead.

But here's the cautionary tale part of our story, okay? KISS got huge. And when a band gets huge, sometimes they decide that it's more effective to divide and conquer. It's sort of like when your mom and I go Christmas shopping. But KISS divided and -- well, they divided, and released four solo albums. One by each member. Strategically, this seemed like a sound idea. But sometimes strategy can get in the way of common sense, kids. Remind me one day to tell you about the Yugo.

Not all the songs KISS put on their solo albums were bad. In fact, the spaceman's album had a couple great ones, and one of them was even an instrumental! The starchild -- well, he tried. He probably tried harder than the other three did. Remember that you should always try.

But the devil-man did something called "Living In Sin," that featured his friends Bob Seger and Cher, and a couple of people doing some vague aboriginal chants in the distant background. Kids, this one's special. I'll play it for you now. Then we'll have lunch and I'll tell you all about Richard Hell. All right? Okay, super! Let's just...

What's that? Oh, the kitty-kat's solo album? Well... um... you know, kids, there are some things we'll talk about when you're older, when you can handle them. Things like diphtheria, and latex, and where grandma really went when she "won that Yukon vacation." Why don't we just save our talk about the kitty-kat's solo album until then?