Welcome to episode 10 of the podcast Dropping The Needle, July 9, 2012. This episode we discuss how KISS’ Own Hype and Marketing Hurt the Release of their New Single Hell or Hallelujah.
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Dropping The Needle is the podcast where all music from all genres is discussed. New releases, classic albums, rediscovered music, signed and unsigned. No ass kissing, just two guys talking about music. Dropping The Needle is hosted Michael Brandvold from Michael Brandvold Marketing and Mitch Lafon from Bravewords.com.
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Michael Brandvold is a freelance music industry consultant based in Northern California. Having launched Michael Brandvold Marketing to leverage his years of experience to provide direction to large and small clients in the areas of online & social marketing as well as e-commerce and customer acquisition and retention. Gene Simmons of KISS first tapped Michael’s skills as a pioneering online marketing strategist to launch and manage all aspects of Kissonline.com’s multi-million dollar enterprise, including their ground-breaking VIP ticket program. Michael has also managed the online efforts for Andy Gibson, Alexa Carter, Greg Kihn, Motley Crüe, Rod Stewart, Madonna, Ozzy Osbourne, Madonna and Britney Spears to name only a few.
Mitch Lafon is a professional music writer located in Montreal, Quebec (Canada). His career started in 1980 when at the age of eleven he interviewed The Demon of KISS, Gene Simmons. In the ‘90s he did studio work with various artists including LA GUNS and worked on an Ace Frehley Tribute album. Over the years, his work has appeared in Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles Magazine as well as Metal Hammer (US) and Classic Rock (UK). Currently, BraveWords.com and Roadie Crew magazine from Brazil are where his interviews can be found. He is well-respected by artists who often request him by name (when they are ready to grant an interview). He is also responsible for all content on BraveWords.com Official Facebook page: www.facebook.com/
Listening now…
…totally agree w/your partner about what I think was a sloppy opening salvo for Monster Merch~ our first impression is a $4000+ book?!? This isn’t the time to alienate the 99%-ers (they almost seem proud of how expensive the book is and NO ONE is even suggesting the content justifies the price)… And I’m with you, in that, the new song doesn’t age well. I didn’t love it at first (the chorus in particular is really goofy and lame. What does it even mean?!?) The verses grew on me for a minute, but days later, I’ve no interest in hearing the track at all. Bleh… someone once said “Asylum bonus track” and I think that says it all. ~ I feel like they let some indie radio “metal” guy pick this “fast” song as a “lead-set up track” as if Kiss gets more than one swing at radio. Let it not be the best song on the album. Modern Day Delilah was a much cooler launch track. It wasn’t blatantly trying to be I Stole Your Love… in an 80’s straight jacket. And I must say, I don’t mind the concept of comparing their current records to their distant or recent past… but they’ve jumped the shark so often with inaccurate Destroyer comparisons, they’ve no cred to do that anymore… updating it with Revenge nods are just as misleading, when Ezrin’s not involved, and marginal songs like HoH slip thru. I predict the song will stall at radio, and they’ll drop a second track before October. I give the song one week in their set list, too.
I heard another review yesterday that made me laugh… then the song got to the chorus and I realized there is no chorus.
Thanks for listening Ken Gullic
…no chorus, exactly. Barely. Though we all sorta knew what they meant with “Lick It Up”…. I can’t say I had the same visceral reaction to Hell of Halle Barry… actually THAT would’ve been cooler!
Great podcast. Great points….
I don’t think the hype or marketing hurt the release at all. Does anybody really think that any single Kiss releases in 2012 is gonna sell 500K copies digitally or otherwise? It’s gonna sell to the diehards and maybe a few others, but that’s it. All of the diehards know how Gene and Paul are. For the most part, everybody else just doesn’t care. So that doesn’t really leave anybody to make a decision on the purchase of the single subject to the hype.
Same goes for the album. If you’re not AC/DC, it doesn’t matter how you hype your record, it’s not going gold (I’m applying this to classic rock acts of course). Look at Van Halen, I don’t think they have reached gold status for A Different Kind Of Truth, and it’s a fantastic album.
While I do agree that it seems a little strange to release a single 3 and a half months before an album that is finished, it’s probably just their reaction to the state of rock music. They are going on tour and they want to play the new song, so release it now and make some money off of it before it’s commonplace on youtube.
Now, for the matter of whether or not it’s the best song on the album, you must remember that Destroyer went absolutely nowhere until radio started playing Beth, which originally wasn’t even released as a single. Now, you’d think Shout It Out Loud, Flaming Youth and Detroit Rock City were can’t miss singles. But they all missed. I certainly don’t think Beth is the best song on the album, but it did turn out to be the most popular to the general public. What I’m saying is that you never know for sure until all the dust settles, and the Monster dust has certainly not settled yet
(By the way, I was gonna use the Def Leppard album Hysteria as my example. I think the fourth single was Pour Some Sugar On Me, which is what ignited that album. They picked 3 other songs that they thought would do better, but they didn’t). But I figured the Destroyer example was more appropriate to a Kiss discussion.
Anyway, to make a long reply even longer, I’ll just say that nothing they can do will have an affect on anything. Michael Brandvold, Mitch Lafon and Jeff Hogland will still purchase the full album on CD (maybe a digital download for Michael, I’m not really sure) the day it is released. It will not matter what Gene has compared it too, nor how many Monster books have sold, or how many caskets or dolls these grown men have sold.