Kiss - Psycho Circus

Reunion albums-like reunion tours or any other event where the boys get back together-shouldn’t be rocket science. It should be a gathering of old friends where egos are left at the door and the band celebrates the chemistry that enabled all of them to achieve success.
This should have been abundantly clear to the members of Kiss when they began sniffing around the reunion door-it was clear that fans were ready to experience the band in full regalia and pay handsomely for it. Leave it to the band-specifically Gene and Paul-to create unnecessary drama and outright greed that prevented the reunion from achieving a lasting impact and, more important, retained the legitimacy of the moniker.
But I’m writing today about the obligatory “reunion” album-the studio offering that Kiss provided us during the late 90’s of all new material. It seemed like the album that would prepare us for a Kiss in the new millennium; it was a new beginning, strangely packaged in either what seemed to be a concept album motif or what would be a reflection of their world tour-a Psycho Circus of rock debauchery that snaked its way across America, allow a new generation to experience old school Kiss.
Leave it to the band to fuck that entire notion royally up.
Should we start with the album itself? It’s nowhere near the caliber of their albums from the 70’s and, here’s the most embarrassing thing, it’s nowhere near the caliber of their albums from the 90’s. Have you heard their albums from the 90’s? They’re not very good. Psycho Circus is worse. How the fuck does one make their long awaited “reunion” album worse than their dismal regular output?
Psycho Circus is pathetic. It reeks of opportunistic greed and half-considered ideas-many of which were started prior to the “reunion” itself-all pasted together under the guise of larger-than-life event.
The effort is overproduced, signifying a major artistic statement while the actual performances are mere farts, expelled by middle-age men who are in a hurry to get back on the road where the real money was. The lyrics are an embarrassing afterthought-even worse than normal shitty Kiss standards-placed together with a few self-congratulatory anthems that got their origin from a fucking roadie (“You Wanted The Best”). The music sounds nothing like their glory days; in an unbelievably dumb move, Gene and Paul don’t even consider how fans may have been looking for some semblance of the band’s past and probably don’t care how any real fan would walk away from this album with any sense of satisfaction.
As horrific as the music and lyrics are, that’s not the worst thing plaguing Psycho Circus. No, the worst thing is that it’s even referred to as a “reunion” album. You see, Peter Criss and Ace Frehley barely contribute at all to this album. It seems to have been created by Gene, Paul, and the Carnival Of Souls players (Bruce Kulick and Eric Singer), perhaps recorded while they were still working on that project. After a few overdubs were thrown in featuring the originals, the album took on the reunion title even when it’s clearly the same Carnival Of Souls shit in a bigger room. Even Ace’s “Into The Void” (did anyone lend him a copy of Masters Of Reality?) sounds nothing like Ace.
Psycho Circus is a morally corrupt record-one that baits you into believing that the two original members actually had a significant role in the product without fully disclosing their limited contributions until after you’ve shelled out the cash. One could probably draw there own assumptions as to why Gene and Paul went this route, and it too speaks volumes about their own character. To truly allow Peter and Ace to be a part of the creative process would mean sharing, Sharing means that the two would see less revenue from the album, and that’s something that Gene and Paul were obviously unwilling to allow. Ace and Peter aren’t exactly exempt from this; after all, they would have had to agree to the terms of before signing up for this nonsense. Regardless of how hard Gene and Paul must have made it for those two, they did have the option to walk away. I have to believe that even with equal shares and equal contributions, everyone involved would have surely made more money from an album that actually rocked. The only thing Gene and Paul had to fall back on was another Kulick penned project that pointed to the idea that the main creative force behind Kiss had more marketing ideas than creative ones.
As it turned out, Psycho Circus barely went gold while the tour raked in huge sums of revenue. Why? Because people didn’t give a shit about the new material, but they sure liked those old favorites.
On the other hand, maybe longstanding Kiss fans figured out that Psycho Circus was a half-hearted attempt that shafted them once again. It could have been a great opportunity to shore up and build their fan base, but they squandered it just to make the most amount of money in the easiest way possible. Had they invested a little more time and allowed a little more creative input Psycho Circus may have actually worked and it could have put some much needed credibility into a brand that was losing vast amounts of market share prior to the reunion announcement. As it stood, the ridiculous drama that occurred after this record-itself a by-product of Psycho Circus’ laziness-indicates that nothing crazy at all about Kiss any more, but it’s obvious that there’s a pair of clowns running the show.