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Paul Stanley<\/a>\u00a0has never been shy about sharing his distaste for Kiss’<\/a>\u00a01980 album Unmasked<\/em><\/a>, the second and final record of the band’s heavily criticized pop-disco era.<\/p>\n Now it turns out he hates the album’s cover art as well.<\/p>\n In a video<\/a> promoting Kiss’ newly updated website – which allows fans to earn exclusive patches by completing various online challenges – Stanley and his longtime bandmate Gene Simmons<\/a>\u00a0discussed the Unmasked<\/em> cover art.<\/p>\n Designed by artist Victor Stabin<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n Read More: How the Wheels Came off the Kiss Empire<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n “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.\u00a0Simmons, 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.'”<\/p>\n 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.”<\/p>\n In the band’s 2005 book Kiss: Behind the Mask<\/em>, Stanley made his feelings on the band’s eighth studio album quite clear<\/a>: “I think Unmasked<\/em> is a pretty crappy album. It’s wimpy.”<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The sunny ballad even reached the Top 5 in Australia – setting off a sudden wave of Kissmania<\/a>, with the band being followed by screaming mobs of fans as they sold out shows all over the country.<\/p>\n “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.”<\/p>\n There’s a good reason the band uses something different in that country. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Gallery Credit: Matthew Wilkening<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nWhy Paul Stanley Doesn’t Like Kiss’ ‘Unmasked’<\/h3>\n
How Nazi Comparisons Forced Kiss to Change Their Logo in Germany<\/h2>\n