KISS - Radioactive - 1978

I felt the cover needed updating so I made a new one. I did not update the zip file so if you like the new cover you can right click on the image and choose save image as or how ever your browser like to do that sort of thing.

 

In 1978, between the releases of Alive II and the Dynasty albums, KISS released solo albums. What if instead they recorded a band LP. The idea for this is not new and is most likely on the verge of cliche but I thought it was a cool idea to tackle.

I took inspiration from this episode of the Three Sides of the Coin KISS podcast. Their premise was that you are the executive producer for the new album. You get to choose the producer and the songs, which will all come from the demo pool of songs that are on each solo album, and who will sing the lead vocals. Because of this, this is the first time I speculated on how the songs might be different from the actual official versions.

I went back and listened to each album to see what was there. It has been a while since I listened to any of them. When they came out I really only listened to Ace's album. I did have Peter's on 8track back in the day and listened to it often but not much since. I think I heard Gene and Paul's albums two or three times at the most. After a few listens I realized that nothing on Peter's album and only two or three songs from Gene were up to par. This meant that Paul and Ace were going to have to pick up the slack.

As this would have been the studio follow up to Love Gun I used that as a template. I chose songs that I thought had an overall KISS vibe then slowly narrowed them down to the final ten, arranging them for feel and flow.

Side one
1 Rip It Out
2 It's Alright
3 What's On Your Mind
4 Radioactive
5 Tonight You Belong To Me

Side two
1 Move On
2 I'm in Need of Love
3 Love In Chains
4 Tunnel Of Love
5 Speedin' Back to My Baby

Reality Notes

• Rip It Out - Written by Ace but sung by Gene. I prefaced this song with the last 15 seconds of the spooky intro from Gene's album. 
• It's Alright - Paul, used as is. 
• What's On Your Mind - Ace, used as is. 
• Radioactive - Gene - used as is minus the spooky intro. 
• Tonight You Belong To Me - Paul, used as is. 
• Move On - Paul, sung by Peter. 
• I'm in Need of Love - Ace, Sung by Gene. 
• Love In Chains - Paul, I did a slight edit on the first chorus to tighten it up by removing the second and third lines. 
• Tunnel Of Love - Gene, used as is.
• Speedin' Back to My Baby - Ace, Peter sings the response calls at the end.

What we end up with is what I feel is a strong album with four Gene vocals, three Paul vocals, two Ace vocals and one Peter. It was not unusual for the composer of the song to not be the lead singer. Before Love Gun which features the first Ace lead vocal someone else would always sing Ace's songs. Two of Paul's earlier songs were given to someone else to sing, notably God of Thunder by Gene and Hard luck Woman by Peter.

I honestly tried to find a song from Peter's solo album but in the end decided against it. His album contained a mix of covers and originals with the covers being mostly oldies and the originals already rejected on previous albums. I'm sure that if Peter insisted on having a song on the album the band would have reworked one of them into something more KISS like but I had a hard time visualizing any as contenders.

Gene's album is all over the place. There might be another song or two that could have fit but with so many great Ace songs available why try to shoehorn a mediocre song in. KISS during the time of the original lineup was an equal partnership so there was no real reason to fight for a songwriting credit beyond a sense of pride. Everyone received an equal share of the profits.

The second alternate cover was created using artwork by David E. Wilkinson. Check out his site for other KISS  and non-KISS related works.

Hindsight 

So it's been over a year and a half since I posted this and even longer since its construction. How has it held up? Very well indeed. I'm pretty confident in saying that if I did this on today it would turn out very much the same. The only thing I flip-flop on is on the speculation of how many Ace songs are given to Gene to sing. in particular I'm In Need Of Love.

I would have loved to see Ace get three vocals on an album like he did on Unmasked but this is supposed to be the studio followup to Love Gun which featured Ace's vocal debut. Ace has at least one songwriting credit on every album before that with the exception of Rock And Roll Over. While it would seem odd to go from no vocal to one vocal to three in the span of a few albums they were still putting out two albums a year and evolved quickly. In the end it would have been the producer's call and like George and Ringo in The Beatles, Ace and Peter were always looked upon as support for Gene and Paul.

Is it on my iPod? 

Yes. I have all of the studio albums on there up to and including this one. I then have two best of comps, one that covers the rest of the makeup era and another that covers the non-makeup era up through Hot In The Shade. From there I include all full albums that came after, minus live and compilation albums of course.