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Today marks the 29th anniversary release of the 'Smashes, Thrashes & Hits' compilation that was released on (EDIT- or close to) 11/15/1988. I remember getting the cassette first, then later on CD along with the gatefold vinyl picture disc. I think it's a decent compilation for what it is, although 'X In Sex' and 'Rock Hard' haven't aged too well. I think most of us would agree that the tinkering they did on 'R&R All Nite' and 'I Love It Loud' sound neutered and are beyond horrendous to say the least. The minor changes to 'Shout It Out Loud' and 'Love Gun' weren't so bad....I actually really liked the changes to 'Love Gun' towards the end. Some fans have mixed feelings on Eric Carr's version of 'Beth' and why it was done behind the scenes to begin with. I pretty much always liked his take on the song and it's nice to have as another way to remember Eric with. I still think the U.S. versions should've had at least one track from 'Crazy Nights'.
I also liked the album cover art and band photos....the red background gives it a nice vibe and touch I think. It still blows my mind that this was the last KISS release that went double platinum.....we're talking 29 years ago! I knew a lot of 'casual' fans that had this compilation on cassette or CD as their one and only KISS album in their music collection. Yes, I know....it may sicken some of us to know that. For all of the flack it gets, back then it was a pretty decent mix of 70's and 80's 'best of' tracks to represent the band for a single disc set. I still see it in Walmart sometimes...so apparently it still sells somewhere.
However we may look at 'Smashes...' as a whole, it was indeed a highly successful release for the band during the 'lean years'.
Last edited by KISSworld1972 on Sun Nov 19, 2017 11:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
My problem with Smashes is the production. It's just remixed horribly. The "Beth" thing is a shame and a very cheap shot at Peter. I believe Peter even said that Gene told him "Beth" was going to be used, but of course said nothing about the new vocal. It was just totally unnecessary. I don't mind the two new songs, "Rock Hard" is a guilty pleasure actually. The album did go what, double platinum I think, giving Kiss some much-needed cash. "Smashes" also marks the end of Kiss's platinum era, they never went platinum again.
I like to think everyone was engaged in a massive orgy, the biggest of its kind in a studio setting, considering how poorly engineered this compilation sounded.
The above aside, I think Eric sounded awesome singing Beth, and for better or worse, I can't resist a compilation that includes Tears Are Falling.
I thought it was a strange album back then I quite like the new songs but strange title, piss awful cover. They certainly got the timing right on this though with the success it achieved, it had been 10 years in the states since Double Platinum so a new comp was due.
It's their best selling non-makeup album, went double platinum the same day as Alive II during the reunion era & I still see the CD sometimes in places like Target. Since it's up there with Destroyer & Alive II as the only Kiss albums to reach double platinum that makes it some kind of milestone in the canon even if the new songs are questionable. This was the last Kiss release of my high school years & it got tons of spins that year making it another big nostalgia record for me
The new songs & the Beth remake aside, I enjoy the classic remixes. Double Platinum had remixes too & I liked those as well. But I think they should have included all the unmasked singles, making it a double vinyl
My gateway KISS album. This is what got me in the band, so of course I love it. Played the living hell out of that cassette for nearly a year before I got any other abums though. IDK why I waited. But in October '89 I got Destroyer and Alive on the same day and the floodgates opened...
Back to Smashes...I think it's an excellent collection of their music up to that point. One or two key songs from their major albums. Yes, the two new songs suck. Yes, ILIL and RARAN remixes blow. But I love the rest, including Eric's Beth. And I think it made perfect sense to not include any songs sung by Peter or Ace at that point, even though Black Diamond is my fave KISS song.
And aside from ILIL and RARAN, the remixes are enjoyable, especially LG.
Here, Admin has done an excellent breakdown of what was altered. Click on each song title for a nice synopsis
wise wrote:Worth listening to at least once a year just to hear the dynamic differences.
The vinyl picture disc is pretty cool, the back cover is different too & there's also a gate fold cover. I wish they would have done the same with the black vinyl, which is the version I have
Other than the remix of Love Gun which I like better than the original, this album is a steaming pile of shit. Two worthless new tracks, bad production and one of the worst covers in KISStory outside of The Millennium Concert & Monster. I can understand the point in the Eric Carr version of Beth, but that was Peter's signature song and an obvious "Fuck You" to him. They should have given Eric Black Diamond. ST&H is one of KISS' most forgettable albums IMHO.
I enjoy the track selection but the remixes were unnecessary and the new tracks deserved better production and the whole band playing on them. Real drums and some chunky four string work from Gene would have left the programmed percussion and synth bass in the shade (pun intended) and given some much needed punch.
Beth '88 is an embarrassment, to Eric Carr! That his long awaited vocal debut on record should be a forced reworking of such an awful song by his equally awful predecessor is a kick in the teeth. Have the whole band re-record Black Diamond from the ground up, with the Alive intro and the outro used in concert from 83-85 and let The Fox go to town on a song he knew and loved to sing.
Hell, while everyone was in the studio, they could have finished off Sword And Stone and Are You Always This Hot to throw on there as well.
I would have swapped the studio takes of Rock And Roll All Nite and I Was Made For Loving You for the live single and 12" remix versions respectively, made sure Crazy Crazy Nights and Reason To Live were included on all releases and added the following:
I Want You
I Stole Your Love
Nowhere To Run
Creatures Of The Night
War Machine
Fits Like A Glove
Thrills In The Night
Who Wants To Be Lonely
Uh All Night
That brings us up to 28 songs, a good amount for a double CD or 2 record set and a fair mix of old and new.
It was late coming in at my local record store back in ‘88. It arrived a few days later. I got it on vinyl and cassette, as I did with all my Kiss records.
I was shocked with the remixes, especially “I love it loud” with the soft drumming. “Beth” was at that point unnecessary and shouldn’t of been attempted. I was dissapointed with the release over all, and the cover artwork was the worst in Kisstory aswell.
The most controversial KISS album in Pat history! November 1988, I was 14 years old and was 3 months into my freshman year of high school. From pestering my mom to take me to Kmart tonight to buy the cassette (which they didn't have in the bins if even at all in their stock room) to blissfully using lines from "Rock Hard" in a note to a girl in my class I was mad crushing on only to have it backfire in my face badly...
(awkward pause)
Fuck it, I'm krankin' it!
My worthless 2 cents on the new tracks:
LET'S PUT THE X IN SEX
I finally get the tape, forget where we ended up getting it at, but we (my mom and I) get home and my mom started reading the song titles and what's the title of side one, track one? She was probably thinking KISS was pornographic or something! "What am I letting this boy listen to?" Later, she bought me a Traveling Wilbury's tape as that's what SHE wanted me to listen to! Sorry mom, my stubborn mind is made up and there's no going back! She's cool with the band now. She realizes what the band means to me and even admitted she watched Family Jewels when it was on and got a kick out of the Cosmo video of Gene making up Sophie in his make up. The song is meh. The video is extra cheesy.
(YOU MAKE ME) ROCK HARD
Between the 2 new tracks, this is only slightly better than X in Sex. As for the story mentioned above, and I'll try to keep it brief as I've already mentioned this story here a few years back but....I had a yuuuuuge crush on a girl in my class named Amy. She was a hot and popular brunette cheerleader and i was a dorky and unpopular redheaded loser! I didn't have a snowball's chance in hell with this girl! Every time I played this tape (which was quite often as 1988 was coming to a close) I was hearing "Amy" when Paul sang "baby". Over Christmas break, I composed a note and wrote: "You make me rock hard, Amy all night. Love's like a glove and it fits just right. You make me rock hard, so Amy hold tight. Come on, Amy let's rock hard, Amy, all night". Of course, I figured she'd read that, cream her panties, we'd fall in love and live happily ever after! What. A. Fucking. Dumbass!! Not so. Her dad read the note and went to the principal in a effort to really nail me to the wall. The principal passed but suggested he take it to the guidance office. Our freshman counselor called me to her office, gave me a talking to for over an hour and suggested my mom come in to discuss her son's raging hormones. This still fucks with me to this day. And Amy is still smoking hot!
Pat wrote:The most controversial KISS album in Pat history! November 1988, I was 14 years old and was 3 months into my freshman year of high school. From pestering my mom to take me to Kmart tonight to buy the cassette (which they didn't have in the bins if even at all in their stock room) to blissfully using lines from "Rock Hard" in a note to a girl in my class I was mad crushing on only to have it backfire in my face badly...
(awkward pause)
Fuck it, I'm krankin' it!
My worthless 2 cents on the new tracks:
LET'S PUT THE X IN SEX
I finally get the tape, forget where we ended up getting it at, but we (my mom and I) get home and my mom started reading the song titles and what's the title of side one, track one? She was probably thinking KISS was pornographic or something! "What am I letting this boy listen to?" Later, she bought me a Traveling Wilbury's tape as that's what SHE wanted me to listen to! Sorry mom, my stubborn mind is made up and there's no going back! She's cool with the band now. She realizes what the band means to me and even admitted she watched Family Jewels when it was on and got a kick out of the Cosmo video of Gene making up Sophie in his make up. The song is meh. The video is extra cheesy.
(YOU MAKE ME) ROCK HARD
Between the 2 new tracks, this is only slightly better than X in Sex. As for the story mentioned above, and I'll try to keep it brief as I've already mentioned this story here a few years back but....I had a yuuuuuge crush on a girl in my class named Amy. She was a hot and popular brunette cheerleader and i was a dorky and unpopular redheaded loser! I didn't have a snowball's chance in hell with this girl! Every time I played this tape (which was quite often as 1988 was coming to a close) I was hearing "Amy" when Paul sang "baby". Over Christmas break, I composed a note and wrote: "You make me rock hard, Amy all night. Love's like a glove and it fits just right. You make me rock hard, so Amy hold tight. Come on, Amy let's rock hard, Amy, all night". Of course, I figured she'd read that, cream her panties, we'd fall in love and live happily ever after! What. A. Fucking. Dumbass!! Not so. Her dad read the note and went to the principal in a effort to really nail me to the wall. The principal passed but suggested he take it to the guidance office. Our freshman counselor called me to her office, gave me a talking to for over an hour and suggested my mom come in to discuss her son's raging hormones. This still fucks with me to this day. And Amy is still smoking hot!
Great story....made me think of some chicks I crushed on back in school. Now I'll be hearing "Amy" instead of "baby" whenever playing that song again.
Personally I love it. I love the track listening and the remixes. It’s the perfect Kiss comp and a nice overview for the main eras I enjoy the most. Crank it!
Crimson Harpoon wrote:Other than the remix of Love Gun which I like better than the original, this album is a steaming pile of shit. Two worthless new tracks, bad production and one of the worst covers in KISStory outside of The Millennium Concert & Monster. I can understand the point in the Eric Carr version of Beth, but that was Peter's signature song and an obvious "Fuck You" to him. They should have given Eric Black Diamond. ST&H is one of KISS' most forgettable albums IMHO.
Yup, other then the remix of Love Gun, I do not have too much good to say about this cd.
I didn't get the CD until about 2000-2001 when I heard it but it was pretty cool played in a lot kind of embarrassed by the new songs but I like the album artwork I kind of wish that they would have focused more on the 80s in the 70s and it made no sense Vale didn't have any crazy nights tracks on there
i think the remixes ruin what is otherwise a good collection of songs. i absolutely cannot stand what they did to I Love It Loud, ruined the whole vibe of the song, made it a contradiction......
Klankh79 wrote:i think the remixes ruin what is otherwise a good collection of songs. i absolutely cannot stand what they did to I Love It Loud, ruined the whole vibe of the song, made it a contradiction......
I like the idea of remixes. Why would I want the exact same song I've already got? The problem with this collection is that most of the remixes suck, made worse by extremely poor sound quality. Smashes is in desperate need of remastering. Even with that it would still suck, but it would at least be playable. Still, I do like the Love Gun remix.
Klankh79 wrote:i think the remixes ruin what is otherwise a good collection of songs. i absolutely cannot stand what they did to I Love It Loud, ruined the whole vibe of the song, made it a contradiction......
I like the idea of remixes. Why would I want the exact same song I've already got? The problem with this collection is that most of the remixes suck, made worse by extremely poor sound quality. Smashes is in desperate need of remastering. Even with that it would still suck, but it would at least be playable. Still, I do like the Love Gun remix.
yeah, Love Gun is an exception. the echo effect on Paul's voice after the solo is terrific.
The mix of Love Gun is my favorite version of the song, removing the vocals in the solo is how the song should have always been. Overall it sounds more...epic...then the original. The rest of the mixes however...some are truly awful. I Love It Loud is the worst offender. The two original songs are no good, and though the idea makes sense they never should've had Eric sing Beth. I don't listen to Smashes ever, it was one of the original CD's I listened to when I got into KISS along with Psycho Circus, Destroyer and You Wanted The Best, but I don't ever go for it now.
I knew a lot of 'casual' fans that had this compilation on cassette or CD as their one and only KISS album in their music collection. Yes, I know....it may sicken some of us to know that. For all of the flack it gets, back then it was a pretty decent mix of 70's and 80's 'best of' tracks to represent the band for a single disc set. I still see it in Walmart sometimes...so apparently it still sells somewhere. 
