SOUNDTRACK: KISS-Sonic Boom (2009).
Kiss has been kicking around in one incarnation or another for the last few years: original line up with make up, another line up with no make up and now this new line up: original makeup with two new people in the Peter and Ace positions (I wonder what happened to Bruce Kulick?).
There’s something disingenuous about having a fake Ace and a fake Peter, because in the past they always changed makeup for new members. So, this gives the impression that the original members are here (even though you can see that they are different men under the makeup).
But, Gene says it’s about the band, not the people. So, whatever. The first song, “Modern Day Delilah” is as good as any song they’ve done in two decades. It’s heavy and catchy and the band sounds great. But I feel like each song produces diminishing returns. “Russian Roulette” loses me because the lyrics are seemingly for two different songs: one in the verses, one in the chorus (not that one should ever look too deeply at Kiss lyrics).
“Never Enough” sounds like a pretty typical 90’s Kiss song (except the melody is totally Ozzy’s “Flying High Again.” “Nobody’s Perfect” is one of those poppy Gene songs that’s kind of throwaway but works well as a light-metal song.
The most egregious errors on this disc are the two anthems. If ever there was a band who thrives on anthems, it’s Kiss. But their best anthems are about partying and rocking. These anthems are about standing united together (and we’ll ask the former members of Kiss about that). “Stand” is about being there when you’re down. “All for the Glory” is a similar theme (we’re all for one), but it fares better musically. It is weird though that fake Peter sings it in voice that sounds a little bit like real Peter. It’s also weird that “When the Lightning Strikes” features fake Ace that sounds a wee bit like real Ace.
On some better notes, I rather like the silly pun of “Danger You, Danger Me, Dangerous.” And, “I’m an Animal” sounds a like Creatures of the Night era Kiss, which is a good thing. The final song is an anthem that they got right. It’s about partying and features a silly “Say Yeah!” chorus. And that’s what Kiss does best.
The bonus disc is this new lineup re-recording classic Kiss songs. It’s a weird thing and number of bands seem to be doing it lately. I’m not entirely sure why. Most of the songs sound exactly the same, but where they deviate from the original I don’t think they work as well (yes, I’m traditionalist). Although I like the less disco-ey version of “I Was Made for Lovin’ You.” But if you’re not going to radically change anything, then why bother?
And to hear the by now 60-something year-old Gene Simmons singing about a 16-year-old is just majorly creepy (before it was statutory, now it’s statutory and gross) if he keeps going, he’ll be living the lyrics of “Goin’ Blind,” “I’m 93, you’re 16.”
So, this is a good effort from the band. It has received pretty rave reviews, which I don’t think it quite deserves. But it’s better than a lot of their middle period discs.
[READ: March 20, 2010] School of Fear
I ordered this book for our library’s Spanish collection. When it arrived it looked intriguing, so I found an English copy and set out to read it. I enjoy this sort of children’s book: adventure, schooling, fears, books that don’t insult kids’ intelligence.
And this book doesn’t. I’m not even sure exactly what the age range is supposed to be because some of the jokes are quite sophisticated. However, as I will get to shortly, the older the reader is, the less likely that she will fall for the “surprise” of the book.
But let’s start at the beginning. The premise of the book is that if you have a terrifying, crippling fear, The School of Fear will cure you of it. But the school is incredibly secretive, so secretive, in fact, that no one knows about it (except for the precious few who can help you get help there).
And so, we have 4 kids, each with a crippling fear: Madeleine Masterson is completely afraid of bugs: she wears a veil and carriers bug spray with her everywhere. Everywhere! Lulu Punchalower is claustrophobic. She is also very snooty and rahhhhther upper class. Garrison Feldman is afraid of water. All kinds of water. And his father hates sissies, so he’d better not be afraid of water for much longer. Theodore Bartholomew is afraid of just about everything, although more specifically he’s afraid of his family dying, and he knows how somebody could die from doing just about anything, hence, he’s afraid of everything.
Each one of the kids has a personality quirk that makes him or her unlikable (which leads to tension, of course). Madeleine sprays bug spray everywhere. Lulu looks down on everyone. Garrison is a tough jock. Theodore won’t stop talking about anything, fears mostly, but really anything. But when they finally arrive at the school (after Madeleine sprays it for bugs, Garrison makes sure they’re not going over water and Theodore has his phone taken away (so he can’t compulsively call home to make sure every one is alive), they meet Ms. Wellington. Ms Wellington runs the school of fear. She is a batty old lady who tries to teach them all about being a beauty queen (or king). They spend all kinds of time learning poise, eating disgusting food and thinking of a way to escape.
The only sane person at the school is Schmidty, Ms Wellington’s servant/butler/all around gopher. He is slightly blind (although Ms Wellington thinks he is slightly deaf) and sports a tremendous comb-over. He tries to take some of the harshness away from Wellington’s plans, even though he is a devoted servant to her precious dog Macaroni (Cheese died, sadly).
And then, the surprise happens. And it throws everything into chaos. And there is a real concern for what could happen to Schmidty, the only person they like, and someone who does not deserve bad fortune. Can the kids work together to fix the situation?
So, the surprise is not really much of a surprise. And I don’t want to say too much more because I don’t want to give anything away. It just felt very obvious to me. That didn’t ruin my enjoyment of the book, but it did keep me sceptical of the ending.
The other problem I had was that Theodore is a fat kid and there are all kinds of jokes about his weight. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but since his fear is really vague, he doesn’t really serve much of a point in the story except to be called Chubs, and to stop in the middle of fleeing to pick up a sandwich [!]–come on! If his fear were more grounded, more specific, they could have worked to conquer it rather than just an unspecific fear of death. I’m not entirely convinced that his fear would have been solved. But I guess your children’s book needs stock characters.
On the plus side, each chapter opens with a definition of a (mostly obscure) fear. My favorite of course is Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia the fear of long words. But some other cool ones are Peladophobia the fear of bald people and Mottephobia the fear of moths. The chapter heading fears have nothing to do with the story inside the chapter, but they’re fun nonetheless.
So overall, I did enjoy the book. There were parts that were laugh-out-loud funny (somewhat more grown up jokes thrown into the general gross-out humor). And I was definitely intrigued by what would happen in the story. And, yes I admit that even though I figured out what the surprise was, I did enjoy the way it was dealt with.
So, although I think it could have been better, School of Fear is certainly an enjoyable book with lots of humor, and food for thought.
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