KISS Album: “25th Anniversary Star Profile”

This interview CD and booklet includes a few interesting and less-known tidbits on the band (i.e. Gene Simmons received an A- on a college term paper entitled "The Social Significance of the Panographic Art Form")and a nice interview clip with Eric Carr. A lot of little annoyances, however, hurt my grade for this package. The British narrator and interviewers do not seem to have a lot of knowledge of the band (the narrator continually pronounces Ace's name "Freely" and one interviewer asked "Was Ace your first guitarist?"). Many of the interviews do not fit with the chronology of the narration. At one point, for example, the narrator discusses Destroyer and the interviews which follow were on the Crazy Nights LP (a jump of over ten years!).

One amusing part of the interview clips is Gene Simmons contradicting himself on KISS makeup issue. In one interview he states KISS will never take the makeup off because that was what makes KISS unique. In a later interview, Simmons states that "nothing is unique. Certainly there were people before us who wore makeup" and that it was easier to take the makeup off and become "main stream."

The booklet also has some interesting tidbits and nice photos which makes this CD more attractive but what bothers me to no end is that so many of the photos are printed backwards! Even the cover photo is backwards (you'll notice that Paul Stanley's star is on his left eye). All the photos are from KISS's heyday. There are no photos of later KISS members and no rare early shots. Also, Peter Criss is not as well respresented in terms of photos as the other members. He is also not on the interview CD at all!

The one good point about this package is its reasonable price. If you are just getting into KISS and want to learn about the band, I recommend this CD. If you're a longtime fan or if you already have a lot of KISS stuff, you may want to pass on this one.