Deconstructing Double Platinum pt. 3

Originally I saw this as a two-part ”series”. After all, once we discard the songs from the band’s eponymous first album and Rock And Roll Over, most of the songs on Double Platinum sound fairly close to the versions on the original studio albums. There are some minor edits but they aren’t as life-altering as those on Calling Dr. Love and, even though I haven’t done any serious A/B listening, I would claim that there are no alternate vocal takes that have snuck in anywhere. (But I reserve the right to change that opinion!) There should be a lot less to write about for the rest of the songs. That said, the lack of obvious differences doesn’t mean that Delaney and Stone just sat back and did nothing. They did pull up whatever multi-track tapes they had and tried to ”massage” the songs into a new ”platinum” sound to make the compilation more cohesive. That’s why I’ve decided to look at the rest of the songs at least cursorily when the mood strikes. So let’s start off by having a ”brief” look at the one song that wasn’t remixed: Strutter ’78.

I usually see spikes in page views when I post something new but every now and then something else drives people to this blog. For the past few months (Summer/Fall 2022) I’ve seen some massive spikes in traffic driven by forum posts and, being a curious person, I tend to check out the threads. Now, just about everything in the KISS Universe is a bone of contention for some part of the fan base but Strutter ’78 seems to bring out more rancor, and, quite frankly, hairbrained ”facts” and opinions, than most. Since Strutter ’78 isn’t a remix or edit but an entirely new recording I hadn’t planned on writing about it at all. Ever. Other people have already done that so why should I? But having read some posts it seems as if there might be some value in bringing my particular vantage point to the matter.

In this post I will use the words measure and bar interchangeably because they mean the same thing and because using just one would make the text a worse read. (Since KISS is overwhelmingly about 4/4 time just think of a bar/measure as one ”round” of kick-snare-kick-snare.) Even though Strutter doesn’t really have a traditional chorus I will use the pre-chorus/chorus terminology to distinguish the sections. So, verses are self-explanatory. The pre-chorus is the ”everybody says she’s looking good” part, and the chorus is the gang vocal ”strutter!” part. I will also refer to the original, first album version as Strutter ’74 because of the release date, but the vocal on that version as Paul Stanley 1973 because it was recorded in November 1973. Hopefully this won’t cause too much confusion.

As always I warn against listening on Spotify beause Double Platinum on there isn’t really Double Platinum. The most obvious indication of this is that it’s not available as an album on Spotify, only a playlist. The version of Strutter ’78 that is in the Spotify Double Platinum playlist is actually taken from 40 Decades of Decibels and even though I doubt that it differs much from the original vinyl or the 1997 CD Remaster, I’m not going to bother to check. I will have some audio examples below from the 1997 CD Remasters and the single version on The Casablanca Singles 1974-1982 box set (some of which have been EQd slightly to make comparisons easier). As usual I suggest listening to all audio examples using headphones.

Remix?

First things first: this is not a remix. I’ve seen some who claim that the version of Strutter on Double Platinum is just a remix of the first album version. (There have even been those who claim that it’s a remix of the 1973 demo version.) It is not and this should be fairly obvious once we actually listen to it. But let’s stay away from the grooves of the album for just a minute and go back in time to 1978. The fact that Strutter ’78 was a new recording, hence the name, was mentioned in all the advertising. In the retail print ads it was mentioned as ”Plus, an electrifying update: STRUTTER ’78 as a special bonus”. The other songs were just noted as having been remixed. The full-page ads in the music magazines boasted that the album contained ”Brand new Strutter ’78!” (See for instance Creem June 1978, back cover.) And who could forget the wonderful TV commercial which mentioned ”brand new Strutter ’78”? Billboard wrote that it was a ”two-record set of Kiss classics and a new song called ‘Strutter ’78’,” (Billboard 1978-05-06, p. 90) and Cashbox noted that ”Kiss fans already have most of these songs, with the exception of ‘Strutter 78,’ but this set is an opportunity for others to own all the hits.” (Cashbox 1978-05-06, p. 20) In 1978 everyone knew that Double Platinum contained ”one new cut, ‘Strutter ’78,’ a decent but routine mid-tempo rocker” while the rest were remixed versions. (The Daily Oklahoman of Oklahoma City, OK 1978-06-25, The Oklahomans p. 32)

But enough of the Casablanca propaganda, a quick listen to Strutter ’78 will tell us all we need to know. First of all, the lead vocal does not sound like 1973 Paul Stanley. His timbre changed quite a bit during the early 70s simply because he was on stage singing his ass off for about 200 nights every year and when he wasn’t on stage he was in the studio recording vocals. In 1978 he couldn’t sound like he did in 1973 even if he wanted to. (However, I will later make the case that Double Platinum Strutter ’78 doesn’t really sound like 1978 Paul Stanley either.) We don’t have to spend too much time to hear that the vocals on Strutter ’78 are different from the version on the eponymous first album (henceforth Strutter ’74). The first two lines should suffice.

First of all the doubling is much more apparent on Strutter ’78. Second, listen to the difference in phrasing. How 1973 Paul has a longer ”know” that tends to fall in pitch. And how 1973 Paul manages to make the word ”her” sound more like ”huh” while 1978 Paul actually pronounces the ending ”r”. (That’s the New York coming thorugh on the 1973 recording.)

Comparison of first verse vocals: Strutter ’78 – Strutter ’74 – Strutter ’78 – Strutter ’74

And with that said, let’s look at the drums. Strutter ’78 has a rock solid kick and snare with nary a fill. There is a grand total of two (2) different fills in the entire song. There’s the kick-and-cymbals which leads into the first verse and the snare-and-quick-toms which leads into the second verse (and appears again when the guitar solo leads into the third verse). That’s it. Just three fills in the entire song. Compare that with the first verse of Strutter ’74 and you will hear Peter throwing fills in every four bars without fail. The only similarity between the drums on Strutter ’78 and the playing on Strutter ’74 is the pattern of the kick drum.

I’ll save the guitar parts for the actual run-through later and close this with a look at the bass part in the intro. If we disregard the feel, which is a little more ”stiff” on Strutter ’78, the bass part in the intro is the same on both versions right up until the last two measures before the first verse. On Strutter ’74 the bass arpeggiates a D major triad for those two measures while the bass on Strutter ’78 repeats a descending diatonic figure.

Comparison of intro bass parts: first Strutter ’74, then Strutter ’78

Simply put, everything about Strutter ’78 is different from the original version. Nobody, not even the tape-splicing genius of Sean Delaney, could have created Strutter ’78 out of Strutter ’74. (And nobody would be able to with modern DAW capabilities either, the source material just isn’t there.) Strutter ’78 is a completely new recording. Moving on.

Why Strutter?

One has to wonder why they chose to re-record Strutter. Why that particular song? It was never a single hit, nor was it a song that was widely known by the general public. (In 1978 the ”man on the street” probably knew about Beth and Rock And Roll All Nite.) True, it had been a live staple for the first three years—1974-1976—but by 1978 it hadn’t been in the set for a while except as a one-off. So why Strutter and not, say, Deuce or even Rock And Roll All Nite?

I have no documents to back this up and I can’t remember seeing it mentioned anywhere, but I want to believe they chose Strutter—and by them I mean Aucoin and Casablanca rather than the band—so that Double Platinum would serve as a kind of bookend. By 1978 Bill Aucoin was ready to take the band in a new direction, to expand them well beyond a regular rock band. Instead of the standard release-record-then-tour-to-promote-record cycle there would be feature films and solo albums; the unit that was KISS would be split into four commercially viable solo artists while still remaining the larger than life supergroup they had become. 1978 was the start of phase two for KISS.

And what better way to celebrate than with a ”proper” compilation and re-recording the first song on the band’s first album? The fact that Strutter was the very first song—both on the first album and on Double Platinum—would hark back to humble beginnings while simultaneously marking the end of the first triumphant phase of KISS and the beginning of the new, expansive phase which began with the solo albums. Sounds like a pretty good idea, right? Or maybe I’m overthinking this. Perhaps it was just a way to sell more albums while trying to distance the product from the low-grade K-Tel-style compilations peddled on late night infomercials.

However, it is much more plausible that the re-recording was a bargaining chip as Julian Gill has suggested. The 1977 record contract specified that the band was expected to deliver an album every six months. They were allowed to extend this to nine months but then the length of the contract period would also be extended. The contract also had a clause which specified that ”best of” albums was not ”deemed to reduce Artist’s album recording and delivery commitment” and if the band didn’t deliver an album’s worth of new material in nine months, Casablanca could release compilation albums at will. Love Gun had been released June 17, 1977, and the new songs on side 4 of Alive II had failed to live up to the threshold for what counted as an album, so in order to fulfil the terms of the contract the band had to release new material by March 17, 1978. With a tour that extended into early Feburary (and re-started again in late March for some Japanese dates) that wasn’t going to happen. And after the tour there was a movie to film. Suddenly the band couldn’t deliver enough new music to fulfil their contractual obligation even within a year of their latest release. Re-recording an oldie with a more contemporary beat might just have been a way to placate the record company, to play ball as it were.

Who, when and where

As far as KISS recordings in the 1970s go this one of the ones we know the least about. I’m not aware of any documents such as invoices or work orders in collector circles, and the band members haven’t really talked about it. The general concensus seems to be that it was recorded in Feburary 1978 (see for instance the work of Julian Gill) and I think this comes from a comment made by Paul but I haven’t been able to find any contemporary sources. As far as dates go it would make sense since both Double Platinum and the Strutter ’78 single were released on April 2, 1978, right? Well, no. That release date isn’t correct. First of all we have an Aucoin Management International meeting protocol from April 6, 1978, which states that the release of Double Platinum was being been pushed back one week. All three major industry magazines—Billboard, Cashbox, and Record World—had the full-page Double Platinum ad in their April 29 issues and a review of the single in their June 3 issues, none of which makes sense if either of them were released on April 2. There is also just a single mention in the industry magazines of the Strutter ’78 single being added to any radio station playlists and that is from Radio & Records on June 10 (p. 41).

But let’s assume that February is a correct time for the recording for the sake of argument. The question then becomes when in February because that has a direct bearing on who even could have been involved. The tour ended on February 3. We have meeting minutes from February 20 where all four members were present but Double Platinum wasn’t discussed on that date at all. From Behind The Mask (p. 301) we learn that Paul was in the studio to record demos for his solo album on February 22 and 25. But by then Gene was in California where he attended a party/fundraiser for politician Jerry Brown and met Cher for the first time. (And Party Every Day, p. 202) And we know from Lydia’s book that she and Peter were on vacation in Acapulco in late February 1978.

The first mention of Double Platinum that I’m aware of actually comes from a March 6 meeting—again with all four members present—where the band members approve the cost of remixing 15 songs at a price of $15,000. No mention of any recording and the number of songs is… well, interesting. (The number of songs could reflect an initial idea to re-record more songs. Apparently the first Kiss Army Newsletter of 1978 (Vol. 3 no. 1) mentioned ”some re-recorded, all-time favorites”. Plural.) So we really have nothing in the way of a possible recording date for Strutter ’78. It might seem plausible to think that it was recorded when Paul was in Electric Lady in February but there’s no mention that I’m aware of that Sean Delaney was present for any those sessions. (That said, Bob Kulick has said that they were in the studio for about 10 days during those New York sessions for Paul’s solo album. The February 22 and 25 dates is the recollection of Steve Buslow regarding the work he did.) Let’s just look at the song itself.

The recording

Let’s start with the drums. I don’t know who was behind the kit for this session but regardless of whether or not he was in Acapulco when this was recorded I would bet money that it wasn’t Peter Criss. In 1978 Peter was sloppy as all hell and he had proved time and again that keeping a straight beat was not his strong suit. And that’s all this song is. A straight beat. No syncopations, hardly any fills, just an unrelenting snare with a moderately varied kick drum pattern. Remember, Peter’s inability to play just this kind of part was the reason he was ousted from the Dynasty session a year later and even though Strutter ’78 overall is a lot more sloppy than Vini Poncia would have allowed, I still feel that Peter wouldn’t have been able to pull this off. It’s just not his style and, for better or worse, Peter was always true to his style.

The only part here that requires a modicum of proficiency is the 16th-note hihat but that part has been tucked away on the left and barely registers in the mix. Anybody could have played these drums and we know that Paul did a good job behind the kit when he recorded his Love Gun demo in 1977. Could very well be him. Or it could have been Sean Delaney who was a decent musician in his own right. (Could it have been a drum machine? No. There were no drum machines in 1978 that sounded even remotely like real drums. It was all blip, blop, psst sounds generated by low memory chips, and the programming, such as it was, was rudimentary at best.)

The drums aren’t the focus of this rhythm track though. They are just the bedrock upon which is built a symphony of percussion. After the first four measures of the intro a shaker enters and it is the driver of the song. While the hihat is buried low in the mix over on the left the shaker is dead center and is prominent throughout the song. (It doesn’t even let up during the fills.) For lack of a better word the shaker has a laidback feel to it. When the first verse starts the shaker is joined by a cabasa which doubles the snare on the fourth beat of every measure. It just reinforces those snare hits for most of the song but it gets more pronounced during the guitar solo. During those 12 bars (01:55-02:16) the cabasa anticipates that snare hit a little so it’s easier to hear.

There is also a muted cowbell that comes in for the second pre-chorus (01:48). It doesn’t really have any tone so it was probably played held in one hand. That way the palm of the holding hand dampens the resonance of the metal and produces more of a ”clunk” than a ”clang”. That cowbell returns for the last pre-chorus (”more cowbell!”) and then stays in the mix during the fade-out. My personal favorite of all this percussion comes late in the song. At 02:28, for that last pre-chorus, there is an added stick castanet with a fairly large reverb added to every other snare hit. I’m not quite sure how to characterize it. I like it but it’s hard to call it rock ‘n roll, it’s more of a classic Motown ”trick”.

The bass is simple enough. As noted above it’s not exactly the same as the bass line on the first album but it uses the same basic elements. It’s an unremarkable part that almost anyone who has ever held a guitar could play so let’s move on to the guitars. Apart from Ace’s lead parts there are three guitars here. On the left we have the 1978 version of Paul’s part from 1973. Just bog standard boogie-style chord riffing during the verses. Panned in the middle is the 1978 version of Ace’s rhythm part. The sound has a slightly detuned chorus applied to it that I’m really not fond of. There is a slightly dissonant feel to the chorus riff and I think the sound of that middle guitar is the culprit. Either that or one of the guitars is actually a little out of tune.

At 00:11 the third rhythm guitar enters on the right. This is an entirely new part that wasn’t on any of the previous versions. During the verses it plays straight power chords for the first two bars and then some heavily palm-muted figures for the following two bars. And it is so sloppy. It sounds as if the person playing—and I have to assume it’s Paul—is making the part up as he goes along. He can’t decide whether to play the part straight or whether to hit the upbeat and the result is that a lot of the chord changes come a bit late. I find it hard to believe that this was anyone’s idea of a best take so it feels as if the part was just a single take. Somebody just said ”it’s good enough” and they moved on. I’ve split the stereo so the clip below is of only the right channel and it is not a very pleasant experience.

Double Platinum Strutter ’78 first verse, right channel only

One funny thing about the guitar parts is in the pre-chorus. A string noise, created by sliding the fingers along the wound lower strings, is used as a kind of rhythm instrument. Listen to any of the pre-chorus sections and it’s audible, and very much so, on the far left of the mix. Since it’s so consistent and on time it had to have been a conscious decision. It’s also interesting that Ace’s lead is so high in the mix. Generally speaking one tends to mix lead parts at roughly the same level so that a lead guitar will sit in the mix in pretty much the same way the lead vocal does. But here the guitar solo is much higher in the mix than, well, everything. (This holds true across versions, it’s the same on NBLP 7100 (1978), 9128 014 (1982), and the 1997 Remaster 532 383-2.)

This might be an unpopular opinion but I think that is Ace just ”phoning it in” for the guitar solo. He plays all his standard licks and doesn’t go out on a limb at all. It sounds a bit like a a primer on how to play like Ace Frehley so if you want to cop his style this is a good place to start. (I’ve transcribed all the classic KISS albums for KISS Asylum so I feel that I can make that claim.) And while we’re on the guitar solo, the ”it’s good enough” vibe that seems to have permeated this recording really shows up at the end of the guitar solo. At 02:15 there is a low-level hum in the right channel. The frequency is too low to be 50 cycle hum so it might be low feedback, I don’t know. What I do know is that it’s remarkable, unfathomable even, that it wasn’t fixed. Even if this was a rushed recording and mix they still had to have played it back at least twenty or thirty times. Somebody had to have heard this. And it wasn’t fixed. (Chances are that it was someone’s job to mute that noise during the mixdown and they missed it. If the rest of the mix was good they might just have decided to leave it.)

Double Platinum Strutter ’78 guitar solo end, right channel only

It bothers me no end that I can’t figure out which part might have produced that hum. As heard in this next example it’s not present on the left so it should be some part that’s mixed mostly on the right. But which one…

Double Platinum Strutter ’78 guitar solo end, left channel only

Now, about those vocals. To my ears it sounds like there is more than one voice during the pre-chorus (i.e. it’s not just twelve tracks of Paul doing the backing vocals) and I think I hear Gene’s falsetto in there. But that’s probably just my ears deceiving me. Could be anyone. The lead vocal is doubled and much like the rhythm guitars it sounds like a one-and-done job. Paul has some phrases where he’s a little off key, especially the ad libs at the end, and there are some phrases where the doubling is pretty rough. The best example is at 01:22 on the word ”lady” in ”she wears her satins like a lady”. But that’s not what bothers me about this lead vocal. It bothers me that it doesn’t really sound like 1978 Paul. The timbre is similar but not quite right and, for lack of a better word, he sounds guttural, almost back-of-the-throat. It sounds like he does when singing at the lower part of his range (which he isn’t). And he sounds like that because the Double Platinum version of Strutter ’78 has been slowed down…

The single mix

When we look at the single release of Strutter ’78, it’s faster than the album version. On Double Platinum Strutter ’78 runs at 129 bpm but the single release is a more energetic 132 bpm (which actually matches the bpm of the first album version). If we listen to Paul’s vocals on the single version they sound more like 1978 Paul, that back-of-the-throat feel is gone. I can’t even begin to understand why the album version has been slowed down—it really doesn’t make sense—but there it is, the single release is the tempo/speed at which the song was recorded. But the single release is so much more.

First, there’s some editing going on. The opening drum fill is only one measure long instead of two and the following instrumental intro is only four measures compared to eight on Double Platinum. (That means that we’re on to the vocal after 9 seconds which is more suited to radio than the 18 seconds it takes for the album version to get there.) The first chorus is cut down from 12 bars to eight. The guitar solo is also shortened but here the middle four measures are cut out (and a fine edit it is). All that means that the single version is a paltry 3:20 compared to the 3:41 of the Double Platinum version. But the edits—which are all beautifully done and really do make the song more radio-friendly—are the least remarkable things about the single release.

Let’s start at the beginning. That shorter drum intro? MASSIVE reverb with HEAVY compression. Just listen to the difference in this clip.

Drum intro comparison: first Double Platinum, then the single mix

Holy bombast, Batman! Imagine that coming on over the radio in 1978. People were probably driving their cars off the road left and right. (It wasn’t really that over-the-top in 1978, the mastering of this version adds a lot more energy and overall perceived loudness than could be had on a vinyl single or tape.) Overall the kick and snare have more compression on this version and it’s the drums that are the centerpiece rather than the percussion. The sixteenth note hi-hat part is centered in the stereo field and really drives the song. It’s so dominant that it’s hard to hear that the shaker is still in the mix. (It is though. You can hear it clear as day during the fill at 00:58 when somebody is a little trigger happy on the mute button and allows one shaker ”shake” through just before the second verse starts.)

Sadly that stick castanet in the last pre-chorus has been muted, it probably didn’t fit once the hi-hat became the driving part and made it more of a rock ‘n roll song. In its stead there’s an added reverb on the snare at the end of every other measure in the pre-chorus. This is present in all three pre-choruses but the wet signal of the reverb is increased every time the part appears and towards the end it’s pretty massive. You can hear this effect at 6 seconds in the clip below.

Casablanca Singles Box Set Strutter ’78 pre-chorus

The lead vocals on the single version are not doubled. It’s just one of the takes that’s been panned slightly to the left and actually brought down a little in volume. The part has also gotten a larger reverb and a short delay. The lead vocal is joined in the stereo field by the bass which is also slightly off center to the left. The reason that those two part has been moved to the left is probably to achieve a better balance in the mix. Because the guitar parts have been completely revamped.

The third, sloppy guitar on the album version has been removed here. The main rhythm part has moved from the left to the right and the other guitar part has been panned to the left. And both of these guitars have been beefed up. That slightly detuned chorus is gone so now the part on the left just sounds like a regular, overdriven guitar. And Paul’s main rhythm part, now on the right, is ”chunkier”. I don’t think it’s been re-amped, it was probably just tamed and not as prominent on the album mix, but this guitar part has some serious balls to it. Just listen to the palm muted parts here, how they ”chug”:

Casablanca Singles Box Set Strutter ’78 first verse, right channel only

These changes make the entire track a little noisier and turns it into more of a rock song. I was never much of a fan of Strutter ’78 but that was because I had only listened to the album version. This single version I like! (And so did the industry press. Cashbox wrote that the single release of Strutter ’78 was ”a blazing, crunching rocker” and Billboard said that it had a ”raw, youth-oriented sound”. (Cashbox 1978-06-03, p. 24;Billboard 1978-06-03, p. 110) Record World even claimed that it ”rocks with authority”. (Record World 1978-06-03, p. 20) Score a couple of points for the single mix.) The single mix even pulls the guitar solo back a little so it sits more comfortably in the mix even if it is shorter. But that noise at the end of the guitar solo? It’s still there! (01:49) And now it’s in both channels! How could they not have fixed that? And what in tarnation is causing it?

Casablanca Singles Box Set Strutter ’78 guitar solo end, right channel only

Casablanca Singles Box Set Strutter ’78 guitar solo end, left channel only

It’s weird. On the plus side we get a little extra Ace at the end. On the Double Platinum version, when Ace slides up to the 19th fret at 03:34 there is only 7 seconds left of the song. On the single version that slide occurs at 03:05 which means that there is 15 seconds left of the song. The extra guitar we get isn’t spectacular, it’s just one of Ace’s standard lick repeated over and over, but it’s always nice to have ”more” KISS music. Right before that slide to the 19th fret, at 03:03, the mix starts slowly increasing the wet signal of the reverb on the lead guitar so that by the end it sounds as if Ace is playing in a massive cathedral. It’s a nice touch.

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There. As always that was a lot of words but that’s what you get when my mind starts going. Hopefully this has cleared up a few things and at least given most readers some things to think about. And a renewed appreciation for the single edit/mix of Strutter ’78.

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FULL AUDIO

Double Platinum version (532 383-2) [1997]

The Casablanca Singles 1974-1982 version (B0017193-02) [2012]

Double Platinum version (NBLP 7100) [1978]

Single version (NB 928) [1978]

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Deconstructing Double Platinum pt. 1

Check out the first installment of this series which looked at the five remixed songs from the 1st album. Apart from a detailed look at those new mixes it also contains a fairly thorough run-through of a lot of studio terminology.

Deconstructing Double Platinum pt. 2

The second installment took a deep dive into the four songs from Rock And Roll Over that were remixed for Double Platinum. It also looks closely at what we know about the recording at the Star Theatre.

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