Revenge (Kiss album)

Revenge
Kiss studio album
Publication (s)	May 12, 1992
admission	February 1991 to March 1992
Label (s)	Mercury Records
Format (s)	LP , CD , MC , DCC
Genre (s)	Heavy metal , hard rock
Title (number)	12
running time	48:51
occupation	Vocals , rhythm guitar : Paul Stanley Vocals, bass : Gene Simmons Lead guitar , background vocals : Bruce Kulick Drums , backing vocals: Eric Singer , Eric Carr (12)
production	Bob Ezrin
Studio (s)	Rumbo Recorders, Track Records, Cornerstone Recorders, Ocean Way Recording
chronology Hot in the Shade (1989) Revenge Carnival of Souls (1997)

Chart positions Explanation of the data

Albums

Revenge   DE 16 05/25/1992 (16 weeks)   AT 14th 05/31/1992 (15 weeks)   CH 6th 05/24/1992 (11 weeks)   US 6th 06/06/1992 (23 weeks)   UK 10 05/23/1992 (3 weeks)

Singles

God Gave Rock 'n' Roll to You II   DE 9 03/09/1992 (21 weeks)   AT 16 04/19/1992 (11 weeks)   UK 4th 01/11/1992 (8 weeks) Unholy   DE 26th 05/18/1992 (7 weeks)   UK 26th 05/09/1992 (2 weeks)

Revenge ( English for revenge ) is the 16th studio album by the American hard rock band Kiss . It was released in May 1992 and was dedicated to longtime drummer Eric Carr , who died while it was being recorded. Five songs on the album were released as singles; of them, God Gave Rock 'n' Roll to You II reached the top ten in Great Britain . Revenge was favorably reviewed by German-speaking critics. The album reached top ten placements in the US, Switzerland and the UK, and went gold in the US and Canada . The Revenge tour , on which the video film for the tour was made, took the band through North America and Europe with 77 shows.

Emergence

Commissioned work and songwriting

In April 1991 Kiss recorded the song God Gave Rock 'n' Roll to You II for the soundtrack to the film Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey with music producer Bob Ezrin . Ezrin had already played on Kiss's two albums, Destroyer and Music from the Elder . The success of the song God Gave Rock 'n' Roll to You II prompted founding members Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons to hire Ezrin as producer for the group's upcoming studio album .

Stanley and Simmons have written their own pieces since the band was founded in 1973, but also allowed co-authors . These co-songwriters were carefully selected for Revenge . Vinnie Vincent , former band member, worked on three tracks on the album. Jesse Damon, lead singer for the band Silent Rage , worked with Simmons for Revenge . Stanley worked with Kane Roberts . Simmons and Stanley also worked with Scott Van Zen. Bob Ezrin made further contributions to individual titles. In order to be able to choose from the largest possible number of songs , the band members wrote 40 to 50 new pieces, of which they selected eleven for the album. While recording Revenge, drummer Eric Carr fell ill with pericarditis and a malignant tumor in the right atrium . He lacked the necessary strength and endurance to play the drums. The role of drummer was therefore initially temporarily taken over by Eric Singer . Studio recordings ended in March 1992.

Revenge should clearly differentiate itself from the previous albums and become a musical turning point in Kiss's career. With the eventful 1980s for Kiss, they also left colorful, trendy fabric clothing and sneakers behind and began the new decade with a new image. Black leather clothing, metal jewelry, wilder hairstyles and three-day henriquatra beards dominated .

Naming and cover

When asked about the background to the name of the album, singer and rhythm guitarist Stanley answered this way at the time:

“I think that while working on this album we rediscovered each other for the first time since our mask days. As we were writing we suddenly realized what an incredibly long history Kiss has as a band and how high our standard is, that we had more or less squandered this capital in the recent past and that we are actually better than our achievements . Making a good album is easy, but making a great album is hard as hell. We wanted to make an album that was on a par with our best album and thus set the course for the future. Revenge is a kind of revenge on ourselves because we had doubted ourselves. "

- Paul Stanley in Rock Power , August 1992

Cover of the album
, 1992
Link to the picture (please note copyrights )

The record cover was also tailored to the new image. It shows in a dark, cold tone the motif of riveted metal photographed by William Hames, which has bullet holes and shows the lettering Revenge in red paint, handwritten and slightly dripping in the center of the picture. The Revenge cover is the third after Music from the Elder and Animalize that does not show any pictures of the band members on the front. On the back is a picture of the group that was also photographed by Hames: The band members, all dressed in black leather, stand in front of a brick wall and lean against it.

The lyrics of all songs are printed on the inner sleeve of the LP, as well as the production notes and a short history of the song Carr Jam 1981 . On the back there is a black and white photo of the group.

Dedication and publication

The album is the drummer Eric Carr devoted to the one in September 1991 brain hemorrhage suffered. A few weeks later he fell into a coma due to a second brain hemorrhage . Carr died on November 24, 1991 at the age of 41. The last track on the second page of the album Revenge is the song Carr Jam 1981 , which Eric Carr recorded with the then lead guitarist Ace Frehley under the working title Heaven for the album Music from the Elder in 1981. Frehley had reworked the song in 1987 and released it as a Breakout on his band 's debut album Frehley's Comet . For Revenge , Frehley's original lead soundtrack was removed and replaced by a recorded new track; The original drums, bass and rhythm tracks have been preserved. In December 1991, Eric Singer was introduced as the band's new drummer, who had previously worked on the album on a temporary basis.

Japanese pressing of the album

Revenge was released on May 12, 1992 by PolyGram in Europe as LP , CD and MC ; in the US , the LP version was initially not released, making Revenge the first Kiss album to be released in the US only on CD and cassette tapes. In addition, however, it was published there as DCC and in autumn 1994 as a limited and numbered print on colored vinyl in a blue marble look, limited to 5000 copies . Further limited pressings were published in March 1995 and autumn 1995.

In order to promote the album, the band first went on a short tour of Great Britain from May 12 to 21, 1992, and then to Amsterdam to record two songs for the Dutch live show Countdown . The band then flew to Paris , where a "Kiss Day" was held in her honor. The interview trip also took the group to Germany, where they stopped in Munich, Cologne, Berlin and Hamburg between June 1 and 6, 1992. A total of 35 interviews, a press conference and various autograph sessions were on the agenda. After further visits to Pisa, Stockholm and Oslo, the group returned to the USA on June 12, 1992.

In 1993, Kiss released Alive III . This live album included old pieces from the 1970s, some of which were already present on previous live albums, as well as other songs from the 1980s and newer songs from Revenge . The American release included four songs by Revenge , the European and Japanese versions had a fifth bonus track, Take It Off .

Classification in the musical background

→ Main article : “Background of the albums” in the Kiss article

According to the expert publications Rock Power and Metal Hammer , the Kiss albums were "solid", "rocky" and "commercial" from the mid-1980s onwards. According to Rock Hard, however, the band's musical style developed in 1987 with Crazy Nights and 1989 with Hot in the Shade towards more "poppy" and "profileless" albums. Revenge ended this phase. The album is another correction of the musical course in Kiss history. The album doesn't sound like its immediate predecessor, but much heavier. Almost all pieces are classic hard rock with a “well-dosed amount of jagged heaviness” and a “full sound ”, in which hard guitar riffs dominate. Revenge is an expression of a new direction and is considered a kind of renaissance for the band. At Kiss, the “spirit of the founding years” prevailed again, with which they found their way back to “old aggressiveness and belligerence”. For the first time with Revenge an album came about three years after the previous one, after the band had been more productive the years before.

Track list

All pieces were composed in 4/4 time.

1. Unholy - 4:30 (Text and music: Gene Simmons, Vinnie Vincent)
2. Take It Off - 4:50 (Bob Ezrin, Kane Roberts, Paul Stanley)
3. Tough Love - 3:44 (Bob Ezrin, Paul Stanley, Bruce Kulick)
4. Spit - 3:32 (Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Scott Van Zen)
5. God Gave Rock 'n' Roll to You II - 5:18 (Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Russ Ballard)
6. Dominoes - 4:01 (Gene Simmons)
7. Heart of Chrome - 4:02 (Bob Ezrin, Paul Stanley, Vinnie Vincent)
8. Thou Shalt Not - 3:59 (Gene Simmons, Jesse Damon)
9. Every Time I Look at You - 4:38 (Bob Ezrin, Paul Stanley)
10. Paralyzed - 4:14 (Bob Ezrin, Gene Simmons)
11. I Just Wanna - 4:07 (Paul Stanley, Vinnie Vincent)
12. Carr Jam 1981 - 2:46 (Eric Carr)

Music genre

Intro guitar riff from Unholy

Overall, the album tied in with the moments of the classic phase of the Destroyer album and presented itself more powerfully. The simple, direct riffing is significant . The album starts with the metal- like Unholy . The following piece, Take It Off , on the other hand, is much more rock-oriented and played in a normal E-mood. It also features a calm bridge section with elaborate, polyphonic guitar arrangements . Such arrangements can also be found in other parts of the album, such as God Gave Rock 'n' Roll to You II , Heart of Chrome and I Just Wanna . In Tough Love the stringed instruments are subdued a whole tone.

In Spit , a break -dominated piece of which is distorted lead guitar using the whammy bar distorted guitar US national anthem incorporated. Musically outstanding is the piece God Gave Rock 'n' Roll to You II , which begins with a clean guitar and also contains only slightly distorted pickings in the verse .

The song Domino is much faster and starts with a guitar lick . In contrast, Heart of Chrome has a mid-tempo groove that predominates. Embedded in the heavy rock pieces Thou Shalt Not and Paralyzed , the ballad Every Time I Look at You follows , played with acoustic guitar and piano. At the end of the last song mixes synth -Streicherarrangement with Blue Rock - guitar leads . After the out-coupled as the second single in the US, blues-rock-influenced piece I Just Wanna is the album with the drums - Session Recording Carr Jam 1981 complete.

Singles

God Gave Rock 'n' Roll to You II

→ Main article : God Gave Rock 'n' Roll to You II

God Gave Rock 'n' Roll to You II was released by Interscope Records in July 1991, along with the soundtrack for the film. The single contained only a shortened version of the song, which was only released in full with the release of Revenge . The lead vocals were from Stanley and Simmons.

Text example:

You don't have money or a fancy car
And you're tired of wishing on a falling star
You gotta put your faith in a loud guitar

You have no money and no fancy car
And you are tired of wishing for something when shooting stars
You have to believe in a loud guitar

Unholy

→ Main article : Unholy (song)

The album's opening song, Unholy , was released on May 2, 1992 as the first single released and reached number 2 in Norway, number 19 in Sweden and number 26 in the UK charts. The single also contained the uncut version of God Gave Rock 'n' Roll to You II as well as the demo versions of the titles Deuce and Strutter . A video was also shot for the song.

Text example:

I'm suicide and salvation
The omen to nations
That you worship on all fours
I'm the infection and famine
That's knocking at your door

I am suicide and redemption
The omen of the nations
That you worship on all fours
I am the infection and famine That knocks
on your door

Every time I look at you

Every Time I Look at You is the ballad included on Revenge , sung by Paul Stanley and created with a clear focus on airplay . Lead guitarist Bruce Kulick played the bass on this track, while the guitar solo was recorded by Dick Wagner. The single was released after Unholy and also contained the title I Just Wanna (which was released in the US as a standalone single) and Partners in Crime from the best of album Killers . A video was produced for it, directed, as with God Gave Rock 'n' Roll to You II , by Mark Rezyka. Both the single and the video were almost completely ignored by radio and music television networks and never hit the charts. For this ballad, singer Stanley stated that he "loves to write ballads and songs that will be remembered for a long time."

Text example:

I never really wanted to let you get inside my heart
I wanted to believe this would soon be ending
I thought it wouldn't matter if it all just came apart
But, now I realized I was just pretending

I never really
wanted to let you into my heart I wanted to believe it was going to end soon
I thought it wouldn't matter if it all fell apart
But now I realize I was just pretending

domino

Domino , the fourth, but not released in Germany single, was released on August 8, 1992 and reached number 26 in the US. The title is almost a re-recording of the song Nasty Nasty , which Simmons wrote in 1986 with Tommy Thayer and Jamie St. James for the album of the same name by the band Black 'n Blue . The original riff was taken over by singer Simmons, but the melody of his (spoken) song was changed and a new text was written. It didn't take Simmons long for this song: " Domino came up quickly, I just sat down and wrote it almost in one piece."

Text example:

Loves lots of money
Back's against the wall
Calls me "Sugar Daddy"
She knows she's got me by the balls

She loves a lot of money
Has her back on the wall
She calls me " Sugar-Daddy "
She knows she's got me by the balls

I just wanna

Another release, but not in Germany, was the song I Just Wanna sung by Stanley , which reached number 34 in the USA. The title is based on Summertime Blues by Eddie Cochran . Stanley's idea was that vocals and guitar parts should alternate on this song as if they were answering each other.

Text example:

I don't want a romance
I don't wanna dance
I just wanna forget you
Time to take my chances
Find somebody new

I don't want romance
I don't want to dance
I just want to forget you
It's time to take my chance
to find someone new

Video clips were also created for all five pieces that were released as singles.

reception

Awards and chart placements

Awards
country	Award
United States	gold
Canada	gold

The album sold more than 500,000 times in the US alone, so it achieved gold status after two months .

Revenge was in the top ten in some countries . In Norway it came in at number four, in Australia at number five, in the USA the album went to number six on the Billboard 200 , which was also the highest price there. It also reached sixth place in Switzerland and tenth place in Great Britain and Sweden. In Germany, with the highest placement in 16th place, it was not enough to make it into the top ten, nor in Austria with 14th place. With the LP, Kiss were among the top ten for the first time since the 1979 Dynasty . The work is the fifth highest placed of the 20 studio albums. Only Love Gun (1977), Psycho Circus (1998), Sonic Boom (2009), and Monster (2012) achieved better ranks.

Reviews

The album met with a positive response in the German-speaking trade press. The music magazine Rock Power wrote: “Even within the band one would not have expected that their new album would have such a hit: 'Revenge', this is the title of the latest Kiss record, is hailed by the trade press as the best Kiss Album since 'Alive II'. ”The music magazine Metal Hammer said Revenge was an“ excellent studio album ”. PopRocky praised "the anger, energy and force" that speak from the songs, is "as unrestrained as it has been for a long time". For Horror Infernal the album is "full of anger, full of energy and full of surprises" and is "a masterpiece". According to Creativ , the album is characterized by "an almost frightening mass of good melodies, gripping riffs and a good shot of charts of explosive commercialism".

Some critics took the view that the album was the best in many years, but did not come close to the first Kiss records. Rock Hard said they hadn't seen the band in such good shape "for exactly ten years and the '82 record 'Creatures Of The Night'." Music Scene stated that Kiss seemed "to be back in the fast lane, but." 'Revenge' doesn't come close to Kiss' classic either. " Rock Power disagreed :" Gene Simmons is right when he claims that Kiss was never better than on 'Revenge'. "

Musically, the album was no surprise to some of the critics, but moved in the usual ways. Metal Hammer stated: “Not that the basic recipe for success 'Love / Women / Fun / let the guitar fade out' has been greatly changed, but the new songs sound more compact, fluffy, harder and more like Kiss than they did a dozen years ago . ”For Audio it was nothing new,“ but the serenity that Kiss has developed over the past few years makes this heavy rock album something special. ”For Rock Power , the album was“ musically nothing Revelation, but pure dynamite. "

tour

tour

→ Main article : Revenge tour

The Revenge tour was the first tour with the then new drummer Eric Singer. It began on April 23, 1992 in San Francisco , initially as a club tour with 13 appearances. After three shows in California , the band toured the Midwest and Canada to the east coast of New York City , where the last club show took place on May 10, 1992. From May 16, 1992 the band was in Europe for eight concerts, but they only appeared in Scotland , Wales and England .

After the summer break, they continued the tour in the USA and Canada with 55 shows from October 1, 1992. The last show for the time being took place on December 20, 1992 in Phoenix (Arizona) . An originally planned second part of the tour, which was supposed to begin in January 1993, was not booked because the number of visitors to the first part of the tour was too low. On average, only 5029 visitors came to each concert, not including the number of visitors on the club tour. Three quarters of a year later, on September 11, 1993, there was another separate solo concert in Burbank (Los Angeles County) . Kiss played Revenge in a total of 77 shows. The set list included 26 songs from both Revenge and older albums.

Tour video

A video film about the Revenge tour was released on July 20, 1993 under the name Konfidential as a VHS cassette with a running time of 88 minutes. The video film was already a companion video for the live album Alive III . In addition to the new Revenge pieces, it also contained video material of older songs from the 1970s as well as recordings of various public appearances and backstage interviews. An essential part of the interview were the memories of the musicians about the band's history. The live recordings of the Revenge tour came from a show on November 27, 1992 in Auburn Hills, Michigan .

Due to the sometimes revealing scenes, the video was only released in Germany from the age of 16. Rather late, in 2004, appeared Konfidential together with the 1992er video X-treme close-up on a DVD. The track list consisted of 16 tracks: Creatures of the Night , Deuce , I Just Wanna , Unholy , Heaven's on Fire , 100,000 Years (1976), Nothin 'to Lose (1975), Hotter than Hell (1976), Let Me Go Rock' n 'Roll (1977), Domino , Lick It Up , Forever , Take It Off , I Love It Loud and God Gave Rock' n 'Roll To You II .

Overall, the critics were positive about the tour video. In Rock Power stated that this video "is dominated by brilliant shots of the last US tour. In between, funny and informative interview recordings are played ”. Rock Hard found the song selection “absolutely successful. Lots of Revenge tracks, some classics and a couple of mid-seventies recordings from the archives. "

literature

• David Leaf and Ken Sharp: Kiss unmasked: The official biography , Iron Pages Verlag Berlin, 1st edition 2005, ISBN 3-931624-28-5
• Julian Gill: The Kiss Album Focus - Hell Or High Water (1983–1996) , kissfaq.com, 4th edition 2010, ISBN 978-0-9822537-0-0
• Dale Sherman: Black Diamond 2 - The Illustrated Collector's Guide to Kiss , Collector's Guide Publishing, 1997, ISBN 1-896522-36-X
• Curt Gooch, Jeff Suhs: Kiss Alive Forever - A Complete Touring History , Billboard Books, 1st Edition 2002, ISBN 0-8230-8322-5

Web links

• Revenge on MusicBrainz
• Discography Revenge 1992
• Revenge Tour 1992
• Confidential video 1993

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Charts DE Charts AT Charts CH Charts UK Charts US
2. ↑ ^{a b} Our way or none . In: Break Out , November 1992, p. 30
3. ↑ The Unholy Alliance . In: Metal Hammer , June 1992
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Old iron does not rust . In: Rock Hard , July 1992, p. 40
5. ↑ Kiss . In: Rock Power , March 1992, p. 80
6. ↑ ^{a b} Curt Gooch, Jeff Suh: Kiss Alive Forever - The Complete Touring History , pp 196-198.
7. ↑ Old iron does not rust . In: Rock Hard , July 1992, p. 41.
8. ↑ David Leaf and Ken Sharp: Kiss Unmasked: The Official Biography , p. 321
9. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Vengeance Gold . In: Rock Power , August 1992, pp. 28-29
10. ^ ^{A b c d} Dale Sherman: Black Diamond 2 - The Illustrated Collector's Guide to Kiss , pp. 73-75
11. ^ Gerhard Wimmer / Kiss Army International: 20 Years of Kiss (1973–1993) , No. 1, 1993, pp. 38, 58
12. ↑ ^{a b} Kiss - The Story . In: Rock Power , June 1992, p. 21
13. ↑ Madness with a method . In: Metal Hammer , October 1998, p. 26
14. ↑ ^{a b} possessed by the devil . In: Rock Power , February 1992, p. 62
15. ↑ Vengeance Gold . In: Rock Power , August 1992, p. 30
16. ↑ Old iron does not rust . In: Rock Hard , No. 63, July 1992, pp. 40-41
17. ↑ hardharderheavy.de: Kiss - Band biography ( Memento of the original from October 2, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. dated April 4, 2010 
18. ↑ rockhard.de: Review Revenge by Marc Lynn
19. ↑ David Leaf and Ken Sharp: Kiss Unmasked: The Official Biography , p. 323
20. ↑ ^{a b c} David Leaf and Ken Sharp: Kiss Unmasked: The Official Biography , p. 325
21. ↑ australian-charts.com
22. ↑ everyhit.co.uk
23. ↑ Kissfaq.com: Who Probably Played What On What ( Memento September 9, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
24. ↑ David Leaf and Ken Sharp: Kiss Unmasked: The Official Biography , p. 324
25. ↑ riaa.com
26. ↑ Revenge in the Norwegian charts on NorwegianCharts.com
27. ↑ australian-charts.com
28. ↑ Revenge in the Swedish charts on swedishcharts.com
29. ↑ Hunters and gatherers . In: Metal Hammer , July 1993, p. 124
30. ^ PopRocky , 1992
31. ↑ Horror Infernal , 1992
32. ↑ Creativ , 1992
33. ^ Music Scene , August 1992
34. ↑ ^{a b} Rock Power , 1992
35. ^ Metal Hammer , 1992
36. ^ Audio , 1992
37. ↑ Tour dates Revenge
38. ↑ Tour dates Revenge
39. ↑ riaa.com, Video Confidential
40. ^ Confidential criticism Creativ
41. ^ Title list Confidential ( Memento from October 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
42. ^ Confidential criticism of Rock Power
43. ^ Confidential criticism of Rock Hard

This article was added to the list of excellent articles in this version on October 2, 2011 .