SOUNDTRACK: KISS-Dynasty (1979).
I was pretty excited to buy this album when it came out–a new Kiss album that wasn’t solo albums! Woo hoo! And the fact that it was disco? Well, even though I said I “hated disco,” I didn’t really know what disco sounded like then (and really, aside from the middle “I Was Made for Lovin’ You” it’s not really a disco record) and plus my other favorite band was the Village People (and really, that makes a lot of sense–tw0 bands in over-the-top costumes talking about sexuality that I totally didn’t understand).
So, this album is hard for me to be critical about because it was such an essential part of my childhood, especially “I Was Made for Lovin’ You.” I love it, and yet I can listen critically and appreciate that it’s really not that good.
But I’ll move on to the other songs. “Sure Know Something” and “Magic Touch” really don’t seem that out of place chronologically with, say, the Kiss solo albums–they sound an awful lot like something off of Paul’s album. So, despite the sort of slinky 70’s bass on “Sure Know Something”, they can’t have been that much of a surprise. The guitar solos are short but have some interesting Ace sounds (I like the harmonics on “Magic Touch”). It seems that while the other guys were embracing disco, Paul was keeping the Kiss sound alive.
Then there’s the Ace songs. “2,000 Man” made total sense as an Ace song. I had no idea it was a Rolling Stones cover until fairly recently (and I like Ace’s version much better). “Hard Times” feels like the sequel to “New York Groove.” Not the music so much although maybe a little, but the lyrics–now that he’s in the city here’s what happened–the gritty reality. It’s one of Ace’s great, lost songs. And check it out, Ace sings on three songs here! (Guess having a #1 hit wasn’t lost on the Kiss powers). “Save Your Love” has a cool descending chorus and a nice bass feel to it. Ace certainly wins on this record.
Peter got only one song, “Dirty Livin'”. In fact, this is the only song that Peter had anything to do with (his drums were re-recorded by Anton Fig). It reminds me (in retrospect) of the Rolling Stones disco era even more than “2,000 Man,” the backing vocals remind me of something like “Shattered.” I always liked this guitar solos on this (cool feedback). Although I liked the song (along with the rest of the album), I don’t think it holds up very well.
Gene only gets two songs. It amuses me how little he has to do with these late 70s albums even though he is always the leader of the band. I always liked “Charisma” (I had to look the word up back then) even though it is, admittedly, rather discoey and really not very good. It is fun to ask “What is my…charisma?” But “X-Ray Eyes is the better Gene song on this record. It harkens back to earlier Kiss songs and even has a bit of menace in it.
So, Dynasty was a huge hit for the band. And they even got to mock it in Detroit Rock City the movie. Cynical marketing ploy or genuine fondness for disco? Who would ever know.
[READ: November 1, 2011] “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”
Readers of this blog know that after finding an author I like, I will try to read everything that he or she has written. Close readers will know that if a writer is reasonably young and reasonably unpublished, I will try to read his or her uncollected work as well. Well, I really enjoyed Oscar Wao the novel, so I decided to see what else Díaz had written. There’s really not a lot, to be perfectly frank. There’s his short story collection Drown and a few fiction pieces published here and there (mostly in the New Yorker) and a few non-fiction pieces as well.
So this “short story” from the New Yorker (with the same title as the novel) is in fact an early, mostly the same, version of the Oscar story in the novel. The thing here is to note the date: 2000(!). The novel came out in 2007. So, Junot had been working with this character for easily five years (giving time for the publishing industry to get a book out and all). The remarkable thing the is just how accomplished and polished this piece is and how much of it was used in the novel.
I’m curious to know whether this was written as a short story (it’s quite a long short story) or if it was always intended as a part of a novel. Interestingly, when you read this story by itself and you realize that it is pretty much all of Oscar’s story in the novel, you realize just how little of Oscar is actually in the novel. The novel is about Oscar, obviously, but it is really about his family and the fukú that was placed on them by the Trujillo clan. Oscar is sort of the touchstone for the fukú, and the person whom the narrator knows most intimately but his story is also brief. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 