KISS fans: what's the best "greatest hits" collection for a beginner?

[bbernardini]

I'm thinking I should check out some Kiss. What's the best overall compilation of their history?

[flvegan]

1. Depends. The stuff from the original makeup years is very different

than the no-makeup and makeup rerun years.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

7. I've always broken it down into "Frehley / No Frehley"...

...and you've gotta be careful, because even when he was there, he wasn't there.

Ace Frehley does not play a single note on the KISS "reunion" CD, Psycho Circus.



Ace Frehley appears on the cover of, but does not play a single note on his "final" KISS album (original era), "Creatures of the Night."



Following Frehley's ACTUAL KISS career is a bit of a "Where's Waldo" Easter egg hunt, but this book:



...spells it all out, album by album, track by track. The same was true for Peter Criss, who didn't perform at all on "Unmasked" (it was David Letterman / Late Show drummer Anton Fig, uncredited).



As we all know, the first major sellout of KISS was their disco "hit," "I Was Made For Lovin' You," from 1979's "Dynasty"...



...and the entire album pretty much sucked ("Creatures of the Night," from 1982, was a desperate attempt to win back some rock & roll cred from the fans)...

...in short, any collection that cherry picks the Frehley years between the first album and "Creatures" is worth owning.

:toast:

[Aristus]

2. With KISS, there's no "greatest". Just "most lucrative."

:hide:

[rucky]

3. Alive 35

I think about covers it:

CD 1

1. Deuce
2. Strutter
3. Got To Choose
4. Hotter Than Hell
5. Nothin' To Lose
6. C'Mon And Love Me
7. Parasite
8. She
9. 100,000 Years

CD 2

1. Cold Gin
2. Let Me Go Rock 'N' Roll
3. Black Diamond
4. Rock & Roll All Night
5. Shout It Out Loud
6. Lick It Up
7. I Love It Loud
8. I Was Made For Lovin' You
9. Love Gun
10. Detroit Rock City

No Firehose, but we'll live.

[leeroysphitz]

4. Double Platinum. It's really all the Kiss you'll ever need. n/t

[CBGLuthier]

5. Why?

With all the good real music in the world why waste any time with the coca cola of rock n roll?

Bad music is bad music. Period. They sucked.

[last_texas_dem]

6. "Double Platinum" covers their seventies career pretty well

Unlike more recent compilations, it includes my favorite Kiss song "Black Diamond," although it does lack "Sure Know Something," which I like pretty well, and their half-decent attempt at doing a disco song, "I Was Made for Lovin' You," as they were both released in 1979.

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:d9fyxql5ld6e

More comprehensive collections have been released since then, but I only know a half-dozen or so songs by post-1970s Kiss, so the original one is about all the Kiss I need. haha

This more recent compilation covers a greater time period, and gets a pretty good rating from All Music. (Where's "Psycho Circus," though?!? heh)

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:aifixqealdke

[RiffRandell]

8. Watch this movie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_Meets_the_Phantom_of_the_Park

[no name no slogan]

9. New York Dolls, "Greatest Hits, Vol. 1"

:hide:

[MrSlayer]

10. Get KISS "Alive" and "Alive II".

It's all their best material delivered in a live setting. Their live stuff is far superior to the studio material and you really don't need anything past "Love Gun".