256. KISS / Dynasty. 1979. 3/5.

Riding on the crest of the wave of enormous popularity, Kiss had spent the 12 months prior to this album’s production moving in different directions, looking to find a way to continue the cash train that had been barrelling them along over recent years. After the release of the “Alive II” album, all four members of the band had gone off on their own and recorded their own solo projects, all of which were released on the same day in September 1978. The episodes for all four of those albums can be found in Season 5 of this podcast for your listening pleasure. Kiss's commercial popularity was at its peak by 1978, and the band’s manager Bill Aucoin felt that the cycle of album releases and touring had taken Kiss as far as they could go, and that it was time to elevate the group's image to the next level. He came up with a plan to make a movie starring the band as themselves but superheroes, a process that began with the 1977 release of a Kiss comic book. The band agreed, no doubt seeing further fame and dollars as a result. It culminated in “Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park”, a film that ultimately the band hated as they felt that it made them look like ‘buffoons’ in their own words. What had begun as the band’s next step toward total domination had turned into a setback, despite the cult following the film has found in the years since.
The release of the band’s first best-of compilation album “Double Platinum” became a smash hit, and so all that was left for the band to do from this point, was to come together, and write and record a new album. Was there pressure on the band at this point of their career? The six studio albums they had released up to this point in time were continuing to sell around the world, and the popularity of the group was unquestioned. And although the music world was beginning to swing on its axis, with equal parts of disco and punk revolving into a surge in heavy metal, was the Kiss sound one that could be retained, or was it time for it to be tweaked?

For anyone of my generation, everyone knows the opening bassline to the album, the song that, in Australia at least, caught the imagination of everyone aged 6-26. “I Was Made for Lovin’ You”, whether you are a Kiss fan or not, is a song that is burned into everyone’s psyche of that generation. That running bass riff, the middle of the track drum solo into Paul’s guitar riff, the joining of Gene on bass again and then Ace’s short sharp fired solo. The lyrics that you can’t help singing along with. All of it is iconic. Sure, the segueing with the disco era had become more of a problematic talking point with the hard core fans at the time, but as a kid, I just loved it.
The cover of the Rolling Stones song “2000 Man” – not something I realised until long after I had enjoyed this album over and over – is a great exhibition of Ace Frehley’s vocal range. No doubt invigorated after his solo album, Ace sounds great ere, and the song for me is a favourite. I love his guitaring on this song as well. Like I said, I just assumed this was a Kiss song for some years.
The second single on the album is “Sure Know Something”, another long time crowd favourite that still sounds great on this album but is definitely in its element when played live, and just ramped up slightly in tempo and energy. “Dirty Livin’” is the Peter Criss contribution to the album, and when I say that I mean ‘contribution’. Peter wrote the song, and sang the lead vocals, but it is also the only song on the album that Peter actually played drums on. Criss was hindered by injuries to his hands that he had suffered in a 1978 car accident, although there were also rumoured to be other problems with drugs and alcohol that may have contributed to a decline in his skills. Anton Fig, who had played on the Ace Frehley solo album, was brought in, and played drums on all other tracks on the album apart from this one.
The second side of the album doesn’t have quite the same magic as the first, but still has its moments. Gene’s “Charisma” is what you expect from a Simmons penned track, with a solid rhythm and sordid vocal line throughout. “Magic Touch” is written by Paul alone, and comparing it to the two singles on the first side of the album which he had co-writers in Desmond Child and disco producer Vini Poncia, it lacks something that makes both of those songs memorable. “Hard Times” is the second Ace song, and again I really enjoy this. It has the hard rock edge that make his contributions so enjoyable. Once again, his vocals are great, and his riff and solo are both great. Gene returns with “X-Ray Eyes”, another atypical Simmons song with his charismatic vocals and lurid lyrics, but with a nice mix of the guitars and some keyboards. The album concludes with Ace’s “Save Your Love”, which does not touch the heights of his previous contributions. His almost-talking vocal lines during the verses don’t do it for me, it feels weak, and there is a too dominant vocal backing from Paul and Gene that just doesn’t mix as well. It’s a slightly disappointing end.
It is interesting how this became Kiss’s ‘disco’ album. Peter’s song had been updated to a modern sound, which then tended to affect some of the direction this album took. Apparently Paul and Gene had spoken to producer Giorgio Moroder leading up to this album, before deciding to call in Vini Poncia to produce “Dynasty”. Poncia had produced Peter’s solo album, and also helped compose “I Was Made for Lovin’ You”, all of which created the disco album hype that “Dynasty” has since resided in.

Remember how I first heard Kiss? C’mon. Surely you have all heard the previous episodes on this podcast of all of the Kiss albums that I have done? If you haven't, well go back now and listen to them immediately! So, as you all know I first discovered Kiss through my eldest cousin, who had taken up residency at my grandmother’s house and had plastered his walls with Kiss memorabilia as well as playing Kiss albums at the highest volumes possible. It was the early 1980’s, and he was obsessed.
My greatest memory of this album is of course the lead single “I Was Made For Loving You”, and back in the day in 5th and 6th class in primary school we used to have a school dance at the end of the year in the last week of school for all the Year 5 and Year 6 students. At the end of that particular dance the teachers would… enforce… a dance contest where you and your partner, who you had been corralled into asking to BE your partner, usually against her will, would dance to particular songs and you would be marked as to how good you were. At this dance, my partner, who will never ever listen to this podcast so I can safely say that she was MOST disappointed that I always chose her, whose name is Stephanie Hill and I eventually came to be the Champions of that dance contest. And the song that we danced to was “I Was Made For Loving You”, and for that win I won a cheese stick and a packet of Toobs chips. And since that day I have used the Jerry Seinfeld-ism… “I choose not to dance!”
I didn't actually get this album until after I left high school, when I was going back to chase all of those old Kiss releases, and it was one of those albums that was difficult to get into at the time, mainly because I was listening to thrash metal rather than just Hard Rock, and because in the long run how many great songs are there on this album? Some would say just two and some would say none. But apart from the opening track and of course the big single “Sure Know Something”, sometimes it's difficult to imagine that this album was a great one. It is often held up as Kiss’s disco album, which in the long run is only accurate for a couple of the songs.
Flash forward to the current day and I have been listening to this album for a number of weeks leading up to this podcast episode, mainly to get my own facts straight in my head because as to how I feel about it in 2024. Because over the years when I’ve pulled this off the shelves to have another listen, I’ve always enjoyed it. It's easy to just go with the flow and say that “Dynasty” is only an average album, but for the most part I've always found this album to be very listenable and enjoyable. Whether that is because there is more of Ace Frehley being utilised on this album which makes it a change up for the band in that respect, or whether it's because at the time it was released I was coming to the end of my primary school years and this kind of album was one that was starting to attract my attention, I don't know what the answer is. If I was going to rate or rank Kiss albums then I know this probably wouldn't rank in my top 10, but I still believe this is a very listenable album for me and one that I can and have easily put on and enjoy without any qualms.
Did this album signal the end of the great first era of Kiss? In the long run that probably came on the album before, and this along with the next couple are perhaps the state of limbo as the band tried to work out exactly what it was going to do going forward. This was the end of Peter Criss's time as drummer with this album, and with Ace Frehley going by the wayside not long after there are certainly arguments made that this album along with the next couple of Kiss albums are being in that state of flux. However, while “Dynasty” may well be different from the remainder of the 1970’s Kiss albums and for some might not be considered as enjoyable, it certainly showed that Kiss was able to adapt to the situation that music was in at the time, and release an album that could still be popular and still draw in the masses at concerts. Sometimes it is hard to remember when Kiss WASN’T able to do this.