Customer Reviews

Live to Win

5 star:		(106)
4 star:		(48)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

Outstanding solo effort by Paul Stanley. Live to Win is a batch of melodic hard pop-rock that delivers the goods. The songs are all catchy, maybe a bit cheesy at moments, but great none the less. You can tell this is a batch of fresh songs and not a bunch of old KISS demos that weren't good enough to make the cut on a KISS album. Paul enlists the help of some of the best songwriters in the business to help create a balance of great pop hooks with a hard rock edge. Highly recommend this one!

Maybe I was hoping for something different from Paul. The only thing that I found different from KISS on this album was the sampling and the way the guitar sounded. It's a good rock album nevertheless but basically, the themes are always the same. I've always found that Paul writes great love songs but to mix 10 songs (read: ONLY!!!!) around the same pattern, it's a little bittoo much for my taste.

I love Paul so much but this cd starts out good and then dies. Too many ballads. My favorite song is "Lift." Buy only if you are a die-hard Paul fan. It sounds recycled, not fresh.

I bought the CD, listened to it from the beginning to end, 3-4 times and each time it got better. I think its great. A good balance of material from probably the #1 frontman in rock and roll.

Here is the most amazing and talented man as he is ~ Charismatic, Sincere, Good-Heart&Soul Intact, Pure and on-the-level. This CD will leave you crying for MORE!! Once you listen to it, you'll want to listen to it all over again and again. It's better than Great! & There is nothing comparable. Paul Stanley is Sheer Talent through and through on his own. Great writing ~ Great Music .

Paul Stanley is an icon from my past, too. I respect him a lot today, as well. He's accomplished a lot in his life. But getting better as a songwriter is not one of those accomplishments. This album proves that completely.

The songs are almost all instantly forgettable. I can remember only one chorus, and that is the title track, and mainly because of its inclusion on a hilarious edition of South Park. The lyrics? Something a middle-schooler would write. Cheesier than cheetos topped with cheese. I mean, geez, man, you're in your 50s now. Can't you offer some better insights into life on your long-awaited solo album beyond crappy teenage breakups and fortune cookie sayings about "living life to the fullest"? Just awful. Motivational speaker awful.

The music? It was recorded by tons of session players, and that's exactly how it sounds - music made by people paid to play it, not by people with passion for the music.

Paul wrote some amazing songs during his early KISS days. Some absolute classics. By his own admission in recent interviews, he can't write like that anymore. That well has run dry. Now he's trying to re-write a poor man's Bon Jovi album with complete wastes of space like Desmond Child and the beyond horrific Diane Warren. Absolute garbage, throwaway, soulless wallpaper music.

Paul's solo album with KISS was great. Some really strong writing on there and great performances. But like KISS, he's gone the way of the wussy as he's aged, and he shows on this album once and for all that he has nothing original to bring to the table anymore, nothing at all interesting outside of KISS. I mean, 28 years to come up with ... THIS? And only 10 songs, at just over 30 minutes? Actually, that's probably a good thing judging from the way those 30 minutes sound.

Great voice, great part of rock history, but, like every member of KISS (except maybe Ace at times) not cut out to go it alone.

Paul Stanley is a hero of mine. He and Mr.Simmons wrote the sountrack to my childhood. I always loved his voice and appreciated the fact that he showed some class, unlike Gene who stamps his name on anything that can make a buck. But i must admit to being a bit disappointed at this cd. Aside from the fact that he used co-writers on every track, i am very unimpressed with the quality of some songs here. Almost as if it were a connect the dots pop record. The guitars are a bit in the background and some of the cheesy 80's style keyboards are too much for my taste. A few tracks have potential, but overall an average cd that took a very long time to come out.
The fact that he had years to put this together and he had no contractual obligation to put out anything got me excited. I may have expected too much, but i dont believe so. All i wanted was a nice rock record with balls. Maybe in the vein of some of the 80s (Animalize) style Kiss records that were very good. And i do understand that Paul is in his 50's now and his musical taste is a bit different at the moment. I will grant him that. But this album is very cliched lyrically and the music is quite light. The most surprising thing is that with all the additional writers it is very generic. Thats what bothers me the most. Paul is a great songwriter in his own right, and this album does not let him shine. But this is what he wanted. Trying to cater to the 40+ age group with a light AOR style cd.
Kiss fans will buy this so im sure it will sell ok. And it is still better than Genes crap as*hole cd. Just wish it was a bit heavier.

Pros: Catchy, creative, satisfying melodies. Up-tempo. Excellent vocals. (Paul hasn't sounded this good in 25 years!) Guitar-oriented with minimal keyboards. Solid production.

Cons: Timid and polished (lacks attitude). Clichéd, cheesy, "Forever"- and "Reason To Live"-like ballads. Uninspired, utterly forgettable musicianship (vanilla studio guys who clearly weren't really trying).

Neutrals: Mix of contemporary and classic rock sound (like KISS meets Bon Jovi meets Evanescence).

Should diehards buy this? Absolutely! It's better than "Crazy Nights" and "Hot in the Shade". It blows "A**hole" out of the water. And it gives "Animalize", "Asylum", and "Psycho Circus" runs for their money. Just do NOT expect a second coming of Paul's brilliant 1978 solo album.

Should non-KISS fans buy this? Sure. It's better than 80% of the new rock from the past few years.

While it's a decent album, I can't help but to be a bit disappointed. First, THIS is Paul's self-proclaimed "labor of love", which he toiled over for SEVERAL years?!

Second, we're twenty years into the CD age, and he gives us a 33-minute running length?!

Third, there isn't a single track here that would be considered the best song on any other KISS album ("Crazy Nights" being the only arguable exception). In other words, there's no standout track.

Recommendation: Definitely buy "Live To Win". Come on, people, it's Paul Stanley! But buy it on sale (for $9.99, shipping included), like I did. Or download everything except tracks 4, 7, and 9 (the ballads).

Paul Stanley does it well here. It's current rock meets Crazy Nights album.
My personal favs
1.Where Angels Dare - great song written with John 5
2.Wake up Screaming
3.Second to None
4.Live to Win - Great title track
I wish the album would have had 2 or 3 more songs. But only a minor gripe. Its just a great CD period!!

This just wasn't as good as I'd wanted it to be.

I was hoping Paul would crank out something with a little harder edge to it. Instead, Live to Win is a lot of mid-tempo stuff with the requisite couple of ballads thrown in. The title track isn't bad and Wake up Screaming is pretty good, too. But all in all, there's nothing all that memorable about this disc.

First of all, most of these songs were co-written with Desmond Child, who helped co-write a ton of huge hits with several 80's pop-metal bands (like Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, & Kiss to name a few). So it should come as no surprise that Live to Win has a lot of 80's pop-metal sounding songs on it. The recording quality is top-notch, but Paul seems stuck in 1988 on here in terms of songwriting.

Another big minus (for me) is the fact that most of the musicians on each track are no-name studio guys. They're all fine players who have recorded with folks like Carrie Underwood & Lindsay Lohan--but do you ever listen to a Lindsay Lohan song and think, "Wow, that guitarist is AWESOME!!!" No, and you won't think that here, either. Bruce Kulick plays bass on 2 songs, and ex-Marilyn Manson guitarist John5 plays a solo, but the rest are studio guys who are indeed capable but not very memorable.

This album is like vanilla ice cream. It's good enough, but nothing to get too worked up about.