Have you ever been let down so badly by someone or something that it left you almost speechless? Maybe like when your kids are totally brilliant at drawing and make you a card for your birthday and it's done on a bit of paper folded in half and the picture is rubbish because they were more interested in what was on the TV.
Maybe like getting a hot date with Catherine Zeta Jones after ten years of waiting and at the end of the evening finding out she used to be a man. (Sorry Catherine, that was obviously for illustrative reasons alone).
LIke when you're really looking forward to going on holiday and you save up for months - maybe years - on end, only to find when you get there that the holiday brochure lied.
Maybe like that toy you wanted and pleaded for at Christmas, and the package is there right under the tree. You open it and it looks the same for a second, but on closer inspection, you find that it's a cheap imitation made in Korea that your folks bought in a make-shift market because they forgot.
Perhaps it's the same feeling a Christian might have after leading a devout life filled with worship and commitment only to find that all you really get at the end, is a box in the ground.
That's how I feel about the release of the new Kiss album 'Monster' that came out yesterday. After a good 32 years fighting the corner, at least £5,000 contributed towards enjoying the spectacle (not a penny of it begrudged) and all they had to share, the incredibly awesome times my friends and I had with them - like the days we all used to take off work together declaring it 'National Kiss Day' in which we would do nothing but watch back to back bootleg videos and cassette tapes to sleeping on stations, airports, ferries… Jesus, you name it, we were there living it with them and it was genuinely great whether I was 14, 24 or 34. At 44, I don't think I've outgrown the magic. I'm still here ready to join in.
Now I think about it, I don't even really mind the time I got punched in the face by a skinhead for turning up as Gene at a fancy dress disco.
But man, you guys can write better songs than this! I know you got a bit old and your voices aren't the same as they used to be but that's OK. I/we can live with that. What I can't live with is the seeming lack of effort or care. One good song does not a good album make. Hell, I would have taken the good song by itself and been happy with that if I'd known this stuff was all you had backing it up. Even the album cover is a cheap shot. It looks like somebody at the record company pulled it out of the slush pile for the cover of a greatest hits collection. Maybe that's exactly what happened.
This is not what what you promised. This is not what the fans asked for. We wanted the best and you failed to deliver. It won't change how I feel in the long term - love is love - but if this is all that's left in the arsenal, I think I would prefer it if you just hung up the guns and sold Mr Potato Head kits with your logo on them.
I am so unbelievably disappointed with this and I'm not the only one. Seriously, you've got the money and the time to go back into the studio and write ten songs in a few weeks like you used to and put another album out before Christmas. Hell, if I had a few grand kicking about at my disposal, I think I could write and record a great rock n roll record and have it online before Christmas - and I don't even have a band right now.
Is this really what it comes down to?
Le Roi Est Mort. Vive Le Roi!