Why don't British people "get" Kiss?

Hell, yeah, and they put on cute little "American" accents when they do.

(NB: I fully expect someone to be get skeptical about the premise of the question, but it definitely rings true to me -- could someone from the UK offer a more detailed sense of attitudes toward Kiss there?)

for the same reason Americans drive bigger cars than Brits do.

That, and they suck, of course.

nabisco, I only speak for myself, but Kiss are certainly not in the "canon" here, not even in the "nostalgia" canon. Perhaps a worthwhile comparison would be Alice Cooper, who had a few solid singles that people here remember him for. I'm gripping at straws here, but could it be that British people see Kiss and the whole make-up/theatre rock thing as shallow? Compare also to david Bowie, who did this but somehow managed/succeeded in making it seem conceptual?

Plus it was an Argent cover.

I think that's a really great point, actually. Tell me you weren't just being sarcastic.

OK, controversy time - British bands are generally different from American bands in attitude. Yank bands are in it for blow jobs, groupies and boasting about shagging celebrities. British bands tend not to be. Say what you want about Oasis but Liam and Noel have RELATIONSHIPS, Gene Simmons just sits about saying "I've fucked over 3000 women aren't I great?" Well, erm, no - you're a twat who's found out that being a rock star attracts lots of dumbass female groupies. Hardly rocket science.

Bands like The Smiths, The Stone Roses and Pulp were never really going to blow away America the way Guns n Roses or Limp Bizkit are. Why should they? The Smiths etc were in it to make a point, to change lives, to make people feel a bit less awkward about themselves. Fred Durst and Axl Rose like sniffing cocaine and having sex threesomes. I cheered Ian Brown when he said Guns n Roses were the worst band in the world because, really, they were...

Maybe I'm being too general. The whole madchester scene was probably the way Britain reacted to American stadium metal, and the way America reacted to it was through grunge. Then grunge attracted the Jock vote anyway and Britpop happened.

For me to like a band they I have to relate to them in some sort of way. I can't relate to Kiss and doubt any British people can. Besides which, they really were shit.

For crissakes, who doesn't??

What, are they that obscure in the US? Cause I can tell you, it's not only Brits that 'got' FLC.

i am so bemused by this thread! american glam is GOOD. so is british glam. ITS ALL ABOUT BOYS WEARING MAKEUP.

um, someone here's never heard of Led Zeppelin apparently.

...or Black Sabbath, or Iron Maiden, or Motorhead, or Def Leppard, or....

I would guess it has something to do with the fact that Kiss looks controversial, act like they're controversial, and sell like they're controversial, when they're really not. Sure there were other musicians doing the makeup and theatrics thing, but Kiss did it because it was, like, OMG, CRAZY AND CONTROVERSIAL! And like Gene Simmons, with that tongue, that just yells "SEX!" so uh, controversy! That's cool, they really push the limits! But in a completely, middle-of-the-road way.

Kiss is mainstream American culture. If they weren't originally, then people eventually figured it out.

But doesn't this description fit couple hundred British bands, too?

Errrr.....no.

Plus there's the fact that Kiss only made one really good album (their debut), and just a few great songs after that, but whatever...

I don't think "fact" is really applicable in the above statement, Chuck.

I never said that Slade and Sweet had little merit. I just differed with your point that they "did it 300 times better" than Kiss. I don't really see them doing anything that simillar, honestly. Alice and the MC5 are closer to the mark. You might want to throw the New York Dolls in there too, while you're at it.

I never said that you said that Slade and Sweet had little merit, Alex; I said that you said that my ARGUMENT had little merit, which it may or may not have. The Sweet and Slade's stomp-and-shout bubblemetal was way closer to Kiss's best songs than the Dolls were; hell, "Saturday Night" by the Bay City Rollers sounds more like "Rock and Roll All Night" than anything the Dolls ever did! But what the fuck, okay, if you insist, the Dolls did it 300 times better, too.

(Then again, most Americans maybe didn't get the Dolls or the MC5 EITHER, at their times. At least not as many as eventually got Kiss. And more got Aerosmith, who WERE kinda Dollsish, than got the Dolls.)

Well, this is true, and not true. Pubs in England almost all shut at 11:20, but this depends on which part of the country you are in and how they interpret the licensing laws, but you can then go clubbing which if you are unlucky will only be open 'till two, but again, depending on where in the county you are this can extend to up to six in the morning or even later. Pubs open from 10 in the morning onwards if you are desperate but there are exceptions, unlicensed drinking dens, or in some cities you can find pubs which have pubs that are open from say 6 in the morning where there is a wholesale market or somesuch. of course in Scotland they have a different system which theoretically means 24 hour drinking, but I've never spent enough time up there to fully suss it out.

From March next year the English Licensing laws are getting a long overdue overhaul after they were originally brought in during the First World War to stop munition workers staying out drinking all night From March until December 2004 every licensed premise will be relicensed under a new system that allows local councils to set theoretical 24 hours drinking hours. How this will turn out in the real world remains to be seen.

Hope this is of some help.

Never got Kiss neither.

Erk, this should just be '...you can find pubs which...'

Caca -"Just in a bar talking to an old dude who was still psyched about seeing Iron Maiden, Dio and Motorhead in NYC a couple of months ago"- Man

i suspect there are a lot of people in the UK that think this is how Americans view everything

Er....ummm....have you looked at Paul Stanley recently?

Start thinking about lunch?

Dave Matthews Band, Hootie & The Blowfish, Counting Crows, Live and Korn to thread!

There used to be a heavy metal reviewer at the defunct "Sounds" music rag who was a big KISS fan and gave all their albums 5-star reviews. That's the only place I ever heard of them back in those days.

I think the answer has already been given really. We'd already had glam and now we had punk to keep us happy. Plus they really were shite.

Please, no.

I've lost count of the number of UK rocker friends who went through the same rigmarole as I did when they first heard of Kiss:

1. Sees piccy of Kiss in magazine- "Wow!!! They must really rock!!!"
2. Reads article about how they are top-class showmen- "Wow squared!!!! I really want to hear their stuff!!!"
3. Finally gets to hear their stuff- "Hmmmmm... It's a bit weak, isn't it?!?!?"
4. Hears more of their stuff- files Kiss under Nice Moves, Shame About The Music.

Furthermore, the mega-mainstream pop market was sewn up by Abba- ace tunes, and even patently ridiculous clothes, made all the more hilarious by a "we are deadly serious" stance, (Which is always funnier than an "OH LOOK, I'M WEARING KABUKI MAKEUP AND A FUNNY COSTUME, AREN'T I OUTRAGEOUS?!?! LET'S RRRAAAWWWKK!!!!" type stance). And Kiss wouldn't even be able to make inroads in the Nice Moves, Shame About The Music end of pop, as that was ruled by the Bay City Rollers!!!

Meanwhile, the Brits were also frugging about in different ways as well. For example, this was this new fangled thing called reggae!!! (Big hits for Bob Marley, and even homegrown quirky stuff like "Uptown Ranking" and proto-Lovers Rock "Silly Games", plus the likes of Black Uhuru in the background.) Oh, and there was this small thing called "Disco", which we didn't think sucked at all. ("Disco Sucks"!!!! Now, if that's not a textbook definition of not being able to hack the pace, I don't know what is!!!!) Oh yes, we were partying like it was 1977 in the UK!!!!

So, basically, the main reason the Brits didn't "get" Kiss was similar to the reason they didn't "get" the Young MC- it was a really slick but highly mediated version of what we already were listening to in spades!!!!

The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac were "adult rock" back then. Still are.

this is a ridiculous line of argument. YOU gave us the Darkness, the Spice Girls and fuckin' Robbie Williams, so fuck right off, whydon'tcha?

sorry don't have time to read all this - someone's probably already said it above - but are you out of your mind? when I wuz a teen in the UK back in the mid-70's fecking everyone was going on about Kiss! if you were a teen rock fan, that was the band to go see - it was like "you got to go see them, they do all this mad stuff on stage, spit blood, etc etc."

they were considered the next thing in line from Alice Cooper - loud tunes + rock theatrics, maan! fact is, most U.S. band are MORE appreciated in the UK, Japan & the rest of the world than they ever are in the states. sure, you get music obsessives here, but it's a smaller portion of the population...

News to me, and I was a teen in the mid-70s in the UK.

Only people that can't dance say that."

It's true, damn my two left feet!