Peter Criss had never had a problem with singing. In fact, Paul and Gene had reportedly come down to see Peter play in his band when he was trying to get the original gig as drummer for Kiss, and it was when he started singing a song while playing that the two of them decided that he was the man for the job. He had then sung vocals on some of the band’s better known songs, such as “Black Diamond”, “Hard Luck Woman” and of course “Beth”, so performing the vocals on his own solo record was not going to prove to be a problem. The direction that his album was going to take though was to be more of a talking point than it was with the other three projects. Peter’s previous band Chelsea, which had then morphed into Lips, had been a late-60's early 70’s pop rock outfit, while “Beth” had been the song he was best known for, a song that had been co-written by his former Chelsea band mate Stan Penridge, and then given the production magic by Bob Ezrin. With that kind of success, surely it made sense to continue to write songs in that direction in order to make the most of his solo opportunity? As it turned out, Peter’s musical direction was a lot more varied than anyone may have guessed at the time.
It was probably only natural that Peter looked to continue his writing and performing partnership with his old bandmate Stan Penridge for this solo album. These two co-write 6 of the 10 tracks here on the album, and Stan plays guitar on the majority of them as well.
“I’m Gonna Love You” kicks the album off and immediately shows that this was going to be of a much different style than any Kiss album. The horns and sax gave that away immediately, and it almost has a big band sound to it as a result of this and the chorused backing vocals. Then you take a left turn down the next alley and come across “You Matter to Me”, which is a solid R&B tune. You can almost see this being played on stage, with all the members of the band swaying back and forth as Peter sings the vocals. There more of this genre of music with “Tossin’ and Turnin’”, a cover of the Bobby Lewis song that topped the American charts some 15 years earlier. Peter Criss has a real Billy Joel vibe gong on vocally in this song, it could so easily have come from that artist’s later album “An Innocent Man”. Up to this point, the album had taken a step back in time, and was as far away from the hard rock scene his main band was involved in as you could imagine. That continues into “Don’t You Let Me Down”, which now flows into a soul number, with Peter crooning away in his best rendition of that style of music. By the time you get this far into the album, you can begin to imagine just how the Kiss fans reacted to it all those years ago, having bought the album hoping for four automatic repeats of the kind of music they loved from their heroes. On this album, it certainly wasn’t the case. "That's the Kind of Sugar Papa Likes" then closes out the first side of the album in a feast of repeated lyrics with backing vocals that continues to adhere to the same style as the songs that have preceded it on the album.
If you thought that perhaps side two would bring you something a bit less unexpected, then you would be wrong. “Easy Thing” comes as close to “Beth” as you are going to find on this opus, with acoustic guitar starting off slow and reminiscent, and holding that feeling through the course of the song. “Rock Me Baby”, with the use of piano, sounds like a 60’s pop-rock song without the instrument completely dominating the song as it would have if it was actually from that era. “Kiss the Girl Goodbye” again descends to the acoustic “is this the next Beth?” kind of anthem, which again misses the mark a tad. “Hooked on Rock ‘N’ Roll” again returns to the same era as “Rock Me Baby” with extended use of the sax again echoing that big band sound. “I Can’t Stop the Rain” is the piano and string ballad that brings us back to another “Beth” type clone, the kind of thing that if you don’t enjoy, will definitely bring you close to the point of complete disinterest. That it is the final song on the album may well come as cold comfort in this situation.
Despite my enjoyment of Kiss, I did not hear any of these four solo albums until about 20 years ago. I just felt no compunction to go and find them and listen to them. I didn’t know anyone who owned them, so it wasn’t until the years of downloading that I decided to get around to checking them out.
This is by far the most diverse and perhaps experimental of the four solo albums. Rather than shoot straight down the line and produce an album that more or less copied the successful format of the band he was in, Peter Criss instead goes down a far winding path and reaches back into a selection of genres to create something that is unique and, without pulling any punches, would have been abrasively abhorrent to the band’s fan base at the time it was released. But he would have known that going in, and yet he stuck to his convictions and did it anyway. And you can only admire him for that, for making an album so different and far apart from a Kiss album that it stands out like a proverbial sore thumb. He took the chance to record the kind of album HE wanted to make, not one that fans may have expected him to make. It was panned by media experts at the time, and probably harshly so, given this was exactly the case, that it wasn’t what they had expected either.
On the other hand, though, does that make it an enjoyable album? If you enjoy that genre of music, I’m sure it would be. If you do not, then like me you are going to be left unimpressed. Because, like all of those fans from 1978, I’m looking for Kiss or at least Kiss-like material. I’m not after old school rock n roll, I’m not after soul, and I’m not after R&B. It just isn’t fun for me, and thus listening to this album does become a punish. I admire Peter for his convictions, but I just do not enjoy this album on any level. And having lived through it more over the past two weeks than the remainder of my life combined, it has been a very difficult thing to get through. And I don’t say this about many albums that I listen to, but I am almost certain that this week I have listened to this album for the final time in my life.
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