Taking Sides: "I Was Made for Loving You" by Kiss vs. "Shakedown Street" by the Grateful Dead

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...or Disco Songs by Artists who had Theretofore Not Been Known for Writing Disco Songs.

There are myriad other examples of this, of course (like "Heart of Glass" by Blondie), but these two seem to stand out the most to me. Though polar bands stylistically, both Kiss and the `Dead represented a particularly lumpen, decidedly non-funky side of rock'n'roll. I'm not sure how "Shakedown Street" (the song) went over with `Dead fans (probably a more forgiving lot), but "I Was Made for Loving You" was met with abject shame, derision and outrage within the then-troubled ranks of the Kiss Army.

Time hasn't been especially kind to either. I just heard "Shakedown Street" on the radio, and it sounds strenuously rife with what I'd consider "disco cliches". "I Was Made for Loving You" seems to retain a bit more of the band's teeth (notably the chugga-chugga-chugga dual gutar mid-section...complete with SCHWRAACCK! sound effects), but it's still a disco song. Granted, I was never a `Dead fan and am an unapologetic Kiss fan, so my opinion may not be a shockah.

What say you? And what other examples can you cite?

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 18:07 (twenty years ago)

"Dirty Livin'" is the closer comparison, lyrically

― dave q (listerine), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 18:10 (twenty years ago)

I'll take KISS over the Dead in pretty much any circumstance.

Does "Emotional Rescue" count for the Stones?

― darin (darin), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 18:12 (twenty years ago)

Every time one of our favorite rockers turned disco it was like they died. "Miss You", we sobbed, "oh well, another one bites the dust"

― dave q (listerine), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 18:12 (twenty years ago)

I'm thinking more "Miss You" on that front.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 18:12 (twenty years ago)

It'd be more fun to list 70s acts that NEVER went disco.

― Snappy (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 18:15 (twenty years ago)

Every time one of our favorite rockers turned disco it was like they died. "Miss You", we sobbed, "oh well, another one bites the dust".

Oh, you so sly.

I'll take the Dead's attempt at the one over Kiss' attempt at anything that's not Kiss.

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 18:16 (twenty years ago)

(x-post)
and the stones did "hot stuff" before they did either of those songs. i wouldn't count them in here because there was nothing strange or alarming or anomalous about the stones' disco moves. those songs fit in perfectly with where the stones were coming from and where they were going. and those are all not just great songs, but great stones songs.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 18:18 (twenty years ago)

The Deadest Kiss song is "100,000 Years', it's like "Truckin'" x "Dark Star' with some "Crown of Creation" thrown in, the 'Alive!' version even has a 'drums/space' section

― dave q (listerine), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 18:18 (twenty years ago)

But what's the Kissest Dead song?

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 18:19 (twenty years ago)

"Aqualung"?

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 18:19 (twenty years ago)

Kissest dead song = "Money Money"?

― dave q (listerine), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 18:20 (twenty years ago)

the kissest dead song would have to be their version of "good lovin."

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 18:23 (twenty years ago)

As goofy and obvious as it is, I think the Dead handle "Shakedown Street" with a modicum of dexterity, "groovy"is completely foreign to them.

But Kiss win on sheer what-the-fuck-ed-ness.

― Will(iam), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 18:26 (twenty years ago)

"groovy" IS NOT

― Will(iam), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 18:27 (twenty years ago)

For some reason, when I read '"Truckin'" X "Dark Star"', I think of Deep Purple.

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 18:27 (twenty years ago)

I'll give this one to KISS, since they fully admit the song is utter shite!

― Bryan Moore (Bryan Moore), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 18:48 (twenty years ago)

my answer need not be stated. the 'Kiss-est' (ick) Dead song is, I think, "One More Saturday Night."

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 19:18 (twenty years ago)

the deadest kiss song is their cover of "2000 man."

― Nimrod Kovacs (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 19:21 (twenty years ago)

I dislike Kiss but I love "I Was Made For Loving You"
I like the Dead but hate "Shakedown Street"

― joygoat (joygoat), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 20:19 (twenty years ago)

the 'Kiss-est' (ick) Dead song is, I think, "One More Saturday Night."
-- gabbneb (gabbne...), February 2nd, 2005

Yep, this is what I was thinking...

― Stormy Davis (diamond), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 20:27 (twenty years ago)

Kiss win this one, and I like the Dead waaaay better as a rule.

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 20:32 (twenty years ago)

Make that pre-'74 Dead, actually; by '78, their studio albums and songwriting had hit the dirt. If you're gonna do shameless, you're gonna have to work pretty hard to beat Kiss at it.

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 20:33 (twenty years ago)

the song has aged well with deadheads and jam band fans in general, "shakedown street" is where you go outside of a venue when seeing phish or anyone else of that sort to get drugs and bongs and the like, and obviously it is named for the song.

― JD from CDepot, Wednesday, 2 February 2005 20:36 (twenty years ago)

Didn't Kiss make a lot of disco-ey songs? I thought Ace Frehley had a Hot 100 hit with "Back in a New York Groove" from that year where they put out solo albums.

― subgenius (subgenius), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 20:47 (twenty years ago)

i always considered that more of a glam-rock song (cuz, well, it is)

― Nimrod Kovacs (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 20:48 (twenty years ago)

transitive nightfall of black diamonds

― dave q (listerine), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 20:49 (twenty years ago)

(ace frehley x-post)
glam-rock, yes. bubblegum, yes. disco, no.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 20:50 (twenty years ago)

dave q wins

― Nimrod Kovacs (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 20:51 (twenty years ago)

Didn't Kiss make a lot of disco-ey songs?

Yeah, but those songs were pretty much confined to the god awful Dynasty/Unmasked period.

― darin (darin), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 20:52 (twenty years ago)

Didn't Kiss make a lot of disco-ey songs? I thought Ace Frehley had a Hot 100 hit with "Back in a New York Groove" from that year where they put out solo albums.

Technically, that's not a Kiss song, as the rest of'em didn't play on it. But, if you want to get entirely pedantic about it, all four of'em didn't play on A LOT of Kiss song, so go know.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 20:54 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, but those songs were pretty much confined to the god awful Dynasty/Unmasked period.

True. Dynasty was their first foray into unconventional waters. And a doomed mission it was.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 20:55 (twenty years ago)

'Unmasked' was fuckin' great!! "Naked City" = dub, "What Makes The World Go Round" motown pop, "Tomorrow" = Cars doing "When You Were Mine", "She's So European" = best Jagger putdown after Dylan's "Property of Jesus", "Talk to Me" = garage pop ("I can't stand the frustration, let's get some kinda relation"), "Easy As It Seems" = (okay, not very good) Eurodisco, and "Is That You?", defiant elegy to the Mercer Arts Scene where it all began.

― dave q (listerine), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 21:21 (twenty years ago)

and "Is That You?", defiant elegy to the Mercer Arts Scene where it all began.

Say what? I don't think Kiss ever played the Mercer (home of the New York Dolls and Suicide.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 21:25 (twenty years ago)

I could be wrong, though.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 21:26 (twenty years ago)

Well, to be fair, I haven't listened to Unmasked since I was about 12 years old. If memory serves, Ace's songs were the best on that one.

― darin (darin), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 21:30 (twenty years ago)

what year did the mercer burn down?

― Nimrod Kovacs (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 21:33 (twenty years ago)

xpost - "Talk to Me" was great, "Torpedo Girl" silly in a Paul Kantner way, "Two Sides of the Coin" just some Mellencamp-style heartland rockin'. Ace sounded like he was still having fun writing songs. Paul was just pastiching everything with various degrees of success, Gene's were the most complex and ambiguous, like the cover of them removing masks to reveal makeup underneath.

― dave q (listerine), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 21:36 (twenty years ago)

xpost - 1869 (I might be thinking of a different fire tho)

― dave q (listerine), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 21:37 (twenty years ago)

the Kiss song may well be better from a critical standpoint. my response is provincial - remembering the sweet 19-minute shakedown opener at my last show evar.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 21:39 (twenty years ago)

what year did the mercer burn down?

It didn't burn down, it simply collapsed circa 1975.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 23:49 (twenty years ago)

There's a passage about its demise in the recent Suicide bio, "No Compromise," which I highly recommend.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 23:50 (twenty years ago)

so hey, has anybody mentioned yet that "shakedown street" sounds exactly like "nighttime at the switching yard" by warren zevon and some huge inxs hit, probably one of several they did with the word "need" in its title? or that the nasty boys' gay hi-nrg disco version of "i was made for loving you" blows the kiss version out of the water, as does paulina rubio's version?? or that kiss's (and even hello's) "new york groove" was much better when bohannon called it "disco stomp"??? didn't think so.

― chuck, Wednesday, 2 February 2005 23:59 (twenty years ago)

Paulino Ribio did a version of "I Was Made..."? That's most unfortunate.

"Shakedown Street" sounds like "What You Need"? You're reaching, Chuck.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 3 February 2005 00:06 (twenty years ago)

How do you know I didn't mean "Need You Tonight"??

― chuck, Thursday, 3 February 2005 00:10 (twenty years ago)

I think "Shakedown Street" is just plain funny. A friend of mine used to put on that album quite a bit, and you really couldn't say it wasn't entertaining. Not sure I've heard the Kiss tune, (unless it's something that gets a lot of radio airplay), but I'm curious.

I don't really think of "Another One Bites The Dust" as a disco song - too much rock mixed in. Just because the bass riff is a bit of a steal from Chic's Bernard Edwards, doesn't mean it has the graceful, danceable flow that Chic does. To even call it disco rather insults the genre, I think, but that's just my opinion, and I don't mean it isn't a good song.

― Bimble... (Bimble...), Thursday, 3 February 2005 00:31 (twenty years ago)

Well, it's bassline *is* stolen from Chic via the Sugarhill Gang. And lots of disco had rock in it by then anyway (and lots of it always had, I guess), so one doesn't preclude the other. Most underrated Queen disco song is probably "Dragon Attack," though (totally Billy Squier-worthy, if you catch my drift), but then I stopped paying attention after *The Game* (don't think I've ever even heard *Hot Space*), and people like Anthony Miccio swear they did great disco later, which is entirely possible.

― chuck, Thursday, 3 February 2005 00:35 (twenty years ago)

Hmm. I'll have to investigate this disco side of Queen more one of these days.

― Bimble... (Bimble...), Thursday, 3 February 2005 00:38 (twenty years ago)

actually, forget the first sentence in my last post. I never even noticed the Chic part of Bimble's post, probably because I'm totally brain-fried and sleepy. (Pazz and Jop closing week, y'all.) But yeah, you could say a lot of rock-disco (and later new wave disco, and techno disco, and metal disco, and etc) wasn't as graceful as Chic were; I never understood it when people like Rob Sheffield started comparing bands like Duran Duran (who sounded totally stiff to me) to Chic in the '80s (and yeah, there was the later Power Station connection and all, etc etc). But then again, not all disco was as graceful as Chic were in the first place. So who knows.

― chuck, Thursday, 3 February 2005 00:39 (twenty years ago)

Surprised nobody has yet mentioned "Superman" by the Kinks (and "Flamethrower" by J Geils) (and "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick"/"Reasons to be Cheerful Pt. 3" by Ian Dury) (and "Urgent" by Foreigner) (and "Owner of a Lonely Heart" by Yes)(and you name it by Robert Palmer, Rod Stewart, Genesis, etc etc), but haven't there been other long threads recently on this same topic? I'm too tired to look.

― chuck, Thursday, 3 February 2005 00:45 (twenty years ago)

I think yr stretchin w/"Owner of a Lonely Heart" there chuck.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 3 February 2005 00:51 (twenty years ago)

Tell that to the discos and r&b charts in 1983/1984, Shakey. (I only report the news; I don't make it.)

― chuck, Thursday, 3 February 2005 00:57 (twenty years ago)

hm. well I sure am curious to see how people danced to such an unfunky tune.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 3 February 2005 01:00 (twenty years ago)

Well, it was the extendedly art-of-noised 12-inch version, if that helps. (And remember, this was the era of "Rockit" and "Planet Rock," and people danced very funky to Kraftwerk and Gary Numan and stuff like that, too! Who became more funky by mere virtue of their extreme unfunkiness. Or something like that. I didn't invent the idea.)

― chuck, Thursday, 3 February 2005 01:04 (twenty years ago)

What about the fantastic Music from the Elder? Its not disco, but man, does it suck/rule!

― Bryan Moore (Bryan Moore), Thursday, 3 February 2005 01:22 (twenty years ago)

Haha, I'm gonna get started soon with my revised version of CDR G0! '79. That KISS song is hilariously rad, and fuck VH1 for saying it was "less metal" than the time they did that Michael Bolton song.

While we're making lists, how about Van Halen's OMFG version of "Dancing in the Streets"?

― What's this place, Biblevania? (natepatrin), Thursday, 3 February 2005 02:25 (twenty years ago)

It didn't burn down, it simply collapsed circa 1975.

oh, that's right.

― Nimrod Kovacs (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 3 February 2005 02:29 (twenty years ago)

I vote for the Magnificent Seven. But not having heard either of these two tracks I vote for the Dead simply on the strength of that album cover. I'm downloading both now to see if my opinion will change after actually listening.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Thursday, 3 February 2005 02:50 (twenty years ago)

If I imagine myself at a disco, I can hear IWMFLY and see folks out struttin'. I don't get the same mental picture at all for SS.

― jim wentworth (wench), Thursday, 3 February 2005 03:08 (twenty years ago)

Man, Queen's "Dragon Attack" might be disco'y... in a funk sorta way...

― Bryan Moore (Bryan Moore), Thursday, 3 February 2005 03:20 (twenty years ago)

"Dragon Attack" is in NO WAY disco. Try dancing to it, for chrissakes.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 3 February 2005 03:39 (twenty years ago)

the kinks' "(wish i could fly like) superman" kicks the asses of BOTH of these songs wr2 disco songs by non-disco acts.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 3 February 2005 04:00 (twenty years ago)

matter of fact, "(wish i could fly like) superman" wouldn't be entirely out of place on numan's replicas. imho.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 3 February 2005 04:08 (twenty years ago)

oh yeah, Shakedown Street totally wins because (I think) it made possible Hola Hovito

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 4 February 2005 16:10 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...

holy cow, the studio version of "Shakedown Street" is terrible!!

I'd never heard it before. It just came on classic rock radio (yes I am drunk and reviving threads for everything I'm hearing -- sosumi.) I actually sort of don't mind when they did it live -- I think the version on So Many Roads is fairly enjoyable. But christ is the original a piece of garbage. Still neat to actually hear it on the radio though -- I won't deny that!

― Stormy Davis (diamond), Sunday, 13 March 2005 11:10 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...

"i was made for lovin' you" ROOOOLZ

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 04:09 (twenty years ago)

six years pass...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnch_NDGXNo

― velko, Tuesday, 26 July 2011 09:03 (fourteen years ago)

four years pass...

SS is my favorite GD tune; so infectious and grooveful

― calstars, Tuesday, 22 March 2016 22:15 (nine years ago)

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