Gene Simmons is one of the shrewdest marketing minds ever to wear face paint and lick a bass guitar. The KISS co-founder and his bandmates pioneered the original fandom (KISS Army), invented the speculative NFT (photos of the band without make-up that self-destructed in five minutes), and recently agreed a lucrative sale of the band’s back catalog and brand in a deal worth a reported $300 million.

It's the kind of price tag that raises eyebrows, particularly after the poor performance of music-catalog buyer Hipgnosis Songs Fund Ltd., which failed to deliver on its promise of turning musical rights into the new gold. But acquirers Pophouse Entertainment Group AB have also bought KISS’s name, image and likenesses — not just the songs — paving the way for everything from face-paint filters to digital avatars similar to those fronting Pophouse’s immersive ABBA Voyager show, which rakes in $2 million a week. KISS isn’t ABBA, but it does have devoted fans. “The music will continue to live on,” Pophouse’s Johan Lagerlof told me. “They’re multi-generational.”

QOSHE - KISS Follows ABBA Into the Musical AI Afterlife - Lionel Laurent
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KISS Follows ABBA Into the Musical AI Afterlife

5 11
12.04.2024

Gene Simmons is one of the shrewdest marketing minds ever to wear face paint and lick a bass guitar. The KISS co-founder and his bandmates pioneered the original fandom (KISS Army), invented the speculative NFT (photos of the band without make-up that........

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