Unmasked! - Lick It Up by Kiss

Last week I talked about a couple of videos that were either partially or entirely about having fun. I think it is a noble goal for a band to make sure your audience has as good a time as possible. According to the British Academy of Fun (official motto: "Get chuffed about stuff") Kiss is the band most dedicated to entertaining us.

Since their inception they dressed up in outlandish costumes and embodied cartoon-y characters. People frequently say that they dressed as comic book characters but I don't see a lot of similarity between them and the characters in Ghost World or Snookums, That Lovable Transvestite. Comics is a medium not a genre, people.

Anyways, after about 10 years of the same (or at least very similar) costumes the band decided that it was time for a change.

Check it out. Lick It Up by Kiss:



This video is absolutely ridiculous, which I love. It opens with some people's legs.

A sexy woman pops up from the sewer, flipping her hair back.

Another woman is washing her clothes with water from a fire hydrant on a manhole cover.

What is going on here? It appears that we are living in a post-apocalyptic world where everyone who is not a young, sexy woman was killed. It also destroyed a significant portion of these women's clothes.

Based on this information as well as the pattern on those cheetah print boots, we can assume that these legs belong to some sexy women.

They stand in front of some skulls of people presumably too ugly to survive the apocalypse.

The food supply in the world has been effected as well. The only remaining food is in squeeze bottles or plastic boxes.

Finally, after a long wait, we get to see who those legs belong to:

It's not sexy women, it's Kiss! And they aren't wearing their make-up! WHOA! Lick It Up is their first album where they took off their make-up (this did not happen on Unmasked for some reason) so it was kind of a big deal to see their faces.

The band kept their cartoon-y personas, though, which is fantastic. Just look at Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley below.

Gene Simmons is looking sinister, just like his Demon persona. Paul Stanley looks hip, similar to his Star Child persona. This is great! Also, Gene Simmons looking sinister is hilarious. He isn't actually very good at it, he just tilts his head down and looks up at you.

Since the members of Kiss seem to be the only men in the entire world, the sexy women living in squalor are very interested in them. They pop up from behind some tires.

They all crawl out from behind burning wreckage. Why are they crouching like this? It's sultry and ridiculous.

Kiss joins these women. The women seem to live in burning wreckage with no way of getting food or shelter. How does Kiss respond to these conditions?

They gorge themselves on the women's food. Classy.

The band starts to play.

Obligatory Gene Simmons tongue shot:

Paul Stanley prances around.

Gene Simmons again fails to seem menacing.

The video ends with a woman with a skull.

This video is amazing! The song is absolutely terrible. I'm not even sure if it qualifies as a song since it doesn't really have a melody or a riff. It is pure attitude, but that is what Kiss is all about. We take it at face value that Gene Simmons is terrifying just because that is his character. We take it at face value that Paul Stanley (who is 75 years old in this video) is attractive and that sexy post-apocalyptic women would be interested in him. Kiss takes off their make-up and remain cartoons. That is quite a feat.

-PTD