Gene Simmons 1978 Album

Kiss Gene Simmons

Another decidedly odd effort, but in a different way. Gene really had no desire to go solo and this was much more of a lark for him, as a good chunk of these tracks were rejected demos from the Destroyer sessions. It has much more of a pop feel than normal Kiss music, but it belongs on its' own weird wavelength as well - many songs are drenched in awful female doo-wop backing vocals, and crossed Ezrin touches like faux-classical piano and violin passages, which gives it a mock Electric Light Orchestra feel, as well. I hear whiffs of late-70's Cheap Trick in this, too, which makes sense, because Rick Nielsen guested on the record. Bonus idiot savant piece of trivia - one of the backing vocalists was none other than Peggy Bundy a.k.a. Katey Sagal.