The Hard Times Are Dead And Gone...

By the close of 1978 kids everywhere had begun to expect fun freebies inside of their cherished KISS albums. With the release of the KISS solo albums in September of that year KISS’s biggest undertaking resulted in some of the coolest goodie offerings to date…the KISS solo album posters and the Solo Album merchandising forms. Of all of the KISS Army Warehouse merchandising forms beginning in 1976 with ROCK AND ROLL OVER through 1980’s, UNMASKED no merchandising form rivaled the excitement created by the Solo forms. This (in my book) remains one piece of KISS history that almost make me sick with lust and longing as this was a period in time that we will never see again. A period in which KISS was on top of it all and the world of merchandising was exploding.
The solo albums lent themselves to merchandising so easily as they were as unique in design as anything could possibly be. For the first time ever a kid could plunk down his money and get ‘personalized’ merchandise from the world’s most ‘merchandisable’ band. Now, not only could a fan pick up the classic items such as the KISS belt buckle or Album Design T-shirt but you could also walk away with your very own Paul Stanley belt buckle, Ace Frehley autographed necklace or Peter Criss key ring. Now that is a Christmas wish list if I have ever seen one…
Parent’s the world over cringed at the thought of purchasing 4 albums compared to 1 brand new release as their pre-teen son or daughter pleaded that they just ‘had to have’ the KISS mural poster tacked to their bedroom wall. Someone in the KISS camp knew exactly what they were doing. What kid in their right mind is going to be satisfied with a jigsaw poster of Ace Frehley…when they could have the entire band. The posters were cut in a unique design as if they were MEANT to be put together plus it is simply stated in tiny print at the top of the poster,
"Part 4 of the 4 Part KISS Mural"
…sorry parents of the KISS Army…dig into those wallets…this is not only big business, it’s KISS business and even as merchandising slightly began to consume the band the business remained on the up and up.
Probably for the last time the KISS namesake had yet to become hokey and remained fresh and new. Clearly things would not always be so easy. But as kids headed back to school the fall of 1978 they carried with them some of the sweetest KISS memories that the entity would ever produce.
After a long grueling day of school and studies kids could rush home to the KISS Solo Albums, endless amounts of KISS merchandise and in less than a month the thought of a KISS ‘Made for TV’ movie. Life was good. Funny…this world would take a sharp U-turn in a few short months.