KISS Gene Simmons

By 1978 Kiss were a lucrative venture. Their first greatest-hits collection, Double Platinum, capped an era. The band decided each member should record a solo album to be released simultaneously. However, the four members weren't created equally, and their fanbase was decidedly split over which record to purchase first. Gene Simmons was the band’s most visual member and also represented their darkest, heaviest tendencies. So it was with great surprise that his solo album presented the most stylistic diversity, with special guests from Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen and The Doobie Brothers’ Jeff “Skunk” Baxter to his then-girlfriend Cher offering cameo appearances on what’s essentially The Gene Simmons Variety Hour. From the opening notes of “Radioactive” through the high camp of “Living in Sin” (“at the Holiday Inn”), the pop remake of the previously released Kiss tune “See You in Your Dreams” to the funereal delivery of “When You Wish Upon a Star,” Simmons plays the chameleon trying out every style for size—not always successfully, but with bravado and guts.