10 Rock Songs That Were Written For Somebody Else
6. Hard Luck Woman - KISS
Every now and again you'll see bands going into different territory that they have no business going in. You can't be confined into the same musical box forever, so you're going to need something of a challenge to keep the creative juices flowing. And when KISS rose to the top with one of the first power ballads Beth, Paul Stanley wanted to try his hand at the more sensitive side of rock on Hard Luck Woman.
Compared to the orchestral sounds of Beth, this track is a lot more rootsy, almost having a folksy feel with the prominent acoustic guitars in the mix. Before Stanley had pitched it to the rest of the band to be their next ballad, he had originally thought that it would have made a great Rod Stewart song, having already come off the folk rock sounds of Maggie May. When Stewart's people passed on it though, they brought it back to the next best person: Peter Criss.
Even without Rod's signature rasp, The Catman's pipes work just fine on a song like this, talking about this girl who is having daily struggles and might be looking for love in all the wrong places. As much as Peter might have been considered the Ringo Starr of the group, he's probably the only member who could sell a song like this, with a vocal that's much more down to Earth than the Starchild or the Demon.