Paul Stanley has never been shy about sharing his distaste for Kiss’ 1980 album Unmasked, the second and final record of the band’s heavily criticized pop-disco era.
Now it turns out he hates the album’s cover art as well.
In a video promoting Kiss’ newly updated website – which allows fans to earn exclusive patches by completing various online challenges – Stanley and his longtime bandmate Gene Simmons discussed the Unmasked cover art.
Designed by artist Victor Stabin, the comic book-styled cover tells the story of a nosy reporter trying to get photos of Kiss without their famous onstage makeup, something the band actually took great pains to avoid during the ’70s.
Read More: How the Wheels Came off the Kiss Empire
“When I saw the cover I said, ‘Hey I have to go on record and say this cover sucks,'” Stanley – who was apparently outvoted – explained in the new video. Simmons, a noted comic book enthusiast, responds by expressing regret and taking at least part of the blame: “Yeah, unfortunately, I thought, ‘ahh, that’s so cool.'”
With the benefit of 46 years of hindsight, Simmons suggests an easy improvement. “One of the panels in it [bottom center} had our faces in makeup, and we’re sort of pretending to take our faces off… but under [those} faces were the [the same] makeup faces. That became its own kind of iconic thing, I still like that one, maybe that could have been the cover.”
Why Paul Stanley Doesn’t Like Kiss’ ‘Unmasked’
In the band’s 2005 book Kiss: Behind the Mask, Stanley made his feelings on the band’s eighth studio album quite clear: “I think Unmasked is a pretty crappy album. It’s wimpy.”
Although the album barely cracked the Top 50 in the United States, its lead single “Shandi” was a big hit in other parts of the world.
The sunny ballad even reached the Top 5 in Australia – setting off a sudden wave of Kissmania, with the band being followed by screaming mobs of fans as they sold out shows all over the country.
“It reached the point where I was asking that we not have any more parties,” Stanley explained in the photo book for Kiss’ 2019-2023 farewell End of the Road tour, “because literally every night the promoter threw a party for us.”
How Nazi Comparisons Forced Kiss to Change Their Logo in Germany
There’s a good reason the band uses something different in that country.
Gallery Credit: Matthew Wilkening
