Kiss and Sell: The Making of a Supergroup FROM THE PUBLISHER
Kiss and Sell is a riveting account of the intersecting worlds of music and commerce, as viewed from the perspective of a top executive with Kiss's business management from 1976 to 1988. It's an in-depth look at the convergence of hard rock, big business, and bigger egos, and a revealing story of how images are built and money is made and spent. This is an inside view of the lifestyles and excesses of rock stars, the pressures of staying on top, the influence of the entertainment industry's power brokers, and the glitz, glamour, and celebrity of stars such as Diana Ross, Lisa Hartman, and Cher. Now reunited and setting concert attendance records throughout the world, Kiss are once again on top. This is the story of their spectacular rise in the '70s, their plummeting popularity in the '80s, and their survival from a series of debacles and downturns to reclaim their title of the "hottest band in the land" in the '90s.
FROM THE CRITICS
VOYA - Marlyn Roberts
The subtitle of this book should have been "How not to manage a supergroup." The author fell into a position as an "account executive" with Glickman/Marks Management (GMM) in 1976. He was really Kiss's "minder" from their days of success in the late '70s through the ups and downs of the '80s. In 1988, GMM and Lendt were fired by Kiss, and that apparently is the reason this biography is unauthorized. Lendt tells a tale of four men who were making immense amounts of money and spending it even faster. Despite his gleeful recounts of traveling the world with the band, staying in five-star hotels, and carousing, he manages to absolve himself and his employers of much of the blame for Kiss's financial problems. He writes GMM "went wrong by not emphasizing their financial problems more than we had." One presumes that this book is Lendt's attempt to cash in on the recent Kiss revival. But it is not a well-written attempt. The cast of characters is huge and incredibly hard to keep track of (perhaps understandably, considering the temporal and geographic scope of the book). This flaw is not aided by Lendt's meticulous attention to detail-it seems as if every breath taken by the band members during the course of twelve years is documented. It is difficult to determine the audience for this book: perhaps nostalgic fans of the "original" Kiss, perhaps students researching the history of the rock music business. Unless your library's patrons fit into one of the above categories, it is probably safe to give this title a miss. Index. Photos. VOYA Codes: 2Q 2P S (Better editing or work by the author might have warranted a 3Q, For the YA with a special interest in the subject, Senior High-defined as grades 10 to 12).
Home
