Mel's Kiper's Big Board: Ranking the KISS Unmasked Songs

The Unmasked draft is set. On Sunday February 18 in Cobo Hall in Detroit, six teams will be drafting songs from the KISS non-makeup era. Lick It Up to Revenge. Ping pong balls were pulled last week and the draft order is:  1) Matt Walters 2) Scott Carr 3) Mike Lovins 4) Jeremy Porter 5) Colin Gawel 6) David Martin.  Click here to learn more about the teams and the draft process .

To get you primed for the event we asked ESPN draft guru Mel Kiper Jr. to give us his expert opinion on how he sees the draft working out. Remember, his Big Board is NOT a mock draft and does not reflect what team needs must be addressed specifically. It's an overall assessment of how he values each song. Once again, this is NOT the actual draft, just an expert's best guess. The real draft results will be posted Thursday February 22nd at Pencilstorm. 

Take it away Mel Kiper Jr!!

1 - Unholy / Revenge:  The clear number one, the best Gene song by a country mile

2 - I've Had Enough / Animalize:  Probably the best written, hardest-rocking Paul song of the non-makeup era   This song can make all the throws.

3 - Heart of Chrome / Revenge:  My favorite Vinnie co-write and my favorite song on Revenge .

4 - Fits Like A Glove / Lick It Up:   Such a great Gene song, even if it was overplayed live

5 - Tears Are Falling / Asylum:   Maybe the best pure Paul song of the 80's

6 - Domino / Revenge:  Even if it was ripped off of a Black & Blue song, it still rips

7 - Lick It Up /  Lick It Up:   Great, even after a million times   This song ran a 4.3 at the Kiss combine.

8- Heaven's On Fire /  Animalize:   Same as LIU  

9 - Not For The Innocent /  Lick It Up:  An excellent LIU chestnut

10 - Thrills In the Night / Animalize:  Such an astute piece of writing for a great album of Paul material

11 - Get All You Can Take / Animalize:   Love this song, even with the over the top "fucking"

12 - Thou Shalt Not / Revenge:  A return to form for the demon, a heavyweight in topic and music

13 - A Million To One /  Lick It Up:  One of the greatest Paul power-ballads ever.

14 - Every Time I Look At You / Revenge:  Such a delicate song - no doubt heavily influenced by Ezrin

15 - King of the Mountain / Asylum:  Such a great opener - is there a better Carr drum track?

16 - Hell or High Water / Crazy Nights:  Underrated CN nugget from the Demon. Might be Kulick's best co-write.

17 - Turn On The Night / Crazy Nights:  Who doesn't love a little Diane Warren cheese?

18 - I'll Fight Hell To Hold You / Crazy Nights:  A great song in the vein of the other hardest Paul tracks from the 80's

19 - God Gave Rock and Roll To You / Revenge:  Just a great song and a great cover choice.

20 - Who Wants To Be Lonely / Asylum:  Might be the best melodic song on Asylum

21 - Reason to Live / Crazy Nights:   The song that saved Crazy Nights. Great chorus.

22 - Forever / Hot In the Shade:  Not my favorite, but hard not to rate it up there.

23 - Crazy Crazy Nights / Crazy Nights:  Just a great anthem.  Makes big plays in big games.

24 - Gimme More / Lick It Up   Another LIU classic.

25 - Young And Wasted /  Lick It Up:   Fond memories of Carr singing this one live.

26 - Under The Gun / Animalize:  Rounding out Paul's big 5 from Animalize

27 - Exciter / Lick It Up:   Not the greatest opener, but still a great song.

28 - And On The 8th Day / Lick It Up:  Might be the best closing track of all the 80's albums.

29 - Take It Off  / Revenge:  It's cheesy, but it slams.

30 - Good Girl Gone Bad / Crazy Nights:  I've always thought this Gene song was underrated (and his CN material holds up better than Paul's)

31 - Hide Your Heart / Hot In the Shade:  A well-written song with a great chorus. Of the times, but it still works. 

32 - Betrayed / Hot In the Shade: I've always thought this was an OVERRATED song by KISS fans simply because HITS was a bad album

33 - Paralyzed / Revenge:  I like this tune, but it doesn't rate that high because I like so many others better.

34 - Dance All Over Your Face / Lick It Up:  I've liked this song better than I probably should. It's just a typical Gene sleazefest.

35 -  Just Wanna / Revenge:  I don't really dig this song, but it really worked live and is well- written despite the Summertime Blues-isms

36 -  All Hell's Breaking Loose / Lick It Up:  I've never liked this song. The Paul rap thing doesn't work for me. 

37 - Thief In The Night / Crazy Nights:  This song isn't bad, but it just doesn't really have enough for me.

38 - Tough Love / Revenge:  An interesting song that needed a better chorus. Sounds too much like a worse version of Heart of Chrome

39 - Little Caesar / Hot In the Shade:  I think this isn't bad, but I've never thought it was that great. I think because it's Eric's vocal debut it's overrated

40 - Rise To It / Hot In the Shade:  Maybe the most overrated song ever. It's so funny how retro rock briefly became this terribly white blues in 88-89. It's good, but…..

41 - Cadillac Dreams / Hot In the Shade:  I LOVE this song, but many hate it. It's not great but I love Gene's solo because he took these kind of chances, so…...

42 - Any Way You Slice It / Asylum:  It's not as awful as it could be. The end is atrocious, though. Any time a song ends like that it's gets deducted major points

43 - Trial By Fire / Asylum:  Pretty good song for its placement, but not a winner

44 - I'm Alive / Asylum:  Not a bad song, but a milquetoast Paul thrasher. Essentially Under the Gun II      Talent pool is deep at this position, no need to reach. 

45 - Love's a Deadly Weapon / Asylum:  Not a terrible song either, but kind of forgettable

46 - Uh! All Night! / Asylum    I hate this song because the chorus sucks to me. I get it, but I'm not onboard.

47 - Secretly Cruel / Asylum:  The Double Virgo cover makes me like it more than I would without that reference point…...

48 - King of Hearts / Hot In the Shade:  Average HITS song but that's not saying much

49 - Prisoner of Love / Hot In the Shade:  Another average HITS song - some days I love it, some days…...

50 - Silver Spoon / Hot In the Shade:  Apparently this is the part of the list where average HITS songs go to die. I like the message better than the execution.

51 -  When Your Walls Come Down / Crazy Nights:  There's nothing that says we're getting close to the bottom like Crazy Nights filler

52 - The Street Giveth / Hot In the Shade:  This is a great idea for a song, if not the best song. I tend to like it more than not because I like Bowie

53 - Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell / Hot In the Shade:  Firmly in the not bad category, but not good either.

54 -  Spit / Revenge:  The Spinal Tapisms just don’t' work for me at all

55 - You Love Me To Hate You / Hot In the Shade:  Too whiny

56 - Lonely Is the Hunter / Animalize:  You know what else is lonely? The bottom of the rankings   Really hurt itself with a terrible performance at the East/West Shrine game.

57 - You Make Me Rock Hard / Smashes Thrashes & Hits:  I can't do the Smashes Thrashes and Hits tunes

58 - Let's Put the X in Sex / Smashes Thrashes & Hits:  see above

59 - While the City Sleeps / Animalize:  I try to make this song good because I want it to work. It really doesn't

60 - Love's A Slap in the Face / Hot In the Shade:  Just kind of there

61 - Carr Jam '81 / Revenge:  Not really a song

62 - Radar For Love / Asylum:  Paul gets embarrassing

63 - Murder in High Heels / Animalize:  Gene really took a shit on Animalize, didn't he?

64 - Burn Bitch Burn / Animalize:  A song I truly struggle not to skip - Off field problems raise a red flag. 

65 - Boomerang / Hot In the Shade:  Laughing out loud at this song moved it up a few spots from the bottom

66 - My Way / Crazy Nights:  Paul the Eunuch

67 - Read My Body / Hot In the Shade:  So I dub thee Unforgivable

68 - No, No, No / Crazy Nights:  No, No, No is right.

69 - Bang Bang You / Crazy Nights:  The Unforgivable II

Mel Kiper Jr. may or may not actually be Matt Walters. If you read this to the very end, you deserve and have earned the truth.