Universal Music did not care about over saturation of an artist as they released a ton of Kiss Compilations and Canada received the brunt of them. This one was released in April 2008, I believe. It was part of the Green Series that Universal was releasing which had a number of bands. The Green Series means the packaging was all done with recycled paper and even used a plant based ink. Good on them for trying to save the earth, but with the shipping of the product and I am sure was wrapped in some sort of plastic, it was really all for naught. Plus, the cardboard digipak would tend to show wear and tear after awhile. However, the copy I received was in pretty darn good shape.
The album contains 15 tracks and really only covers the 70’s with the minor exception of “Lick It Up” from 1983. The rest is only from the original band members of Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Peter Criss and Ace Frehley. With “Lick It Up”, you add Eric Carr and Vinnie Vincent. Wait, this isn’t all entirely true as the song “Cold Gin” is live and is copyrighted from 2001. More on that later. There is a write-up in the booklet by Don Winkley giving a brief history of the band only going up to the reunion (and this was 2008 when released so I would say they missed some years). If you like the 70’s material, then at 15 tracks, not a bad comp…but not a great one either. A pure cash grab from the label. Let’s get to the music…
“Shout It Out Loud” was the first single off ‘Destroyer’ trying to capitalize off the success of the live version of “Rock and Roll All Nite” that was released previously. The title of the song comes from the Hollies song “We Want to Shout It Out Loud” which Wicked Lester demoed years earlier. The song is sung by both Paul and Gene and that chorus of “Shout it, Shout it, Shout It Out Loud” is pure rock gold.
Ace is finally on lead vocals with “Shock Me” and might be my favorite Ace song. The song is based off an incident that is well documented where Ace touched an ungrounded metal railing and had the life shocked out of him. No, he didn’t die, but he was thrown back a little. He continued the show with no feeling in his hand and I believe the show was December 12, 1976, at the Lakeland Civic Center in Lakeland, Florida. Ace having little confidence wanted Gene to sing and Gene, thankfully, talked Ace in to singing. Ace finally agreed and actually recorded the song lying down on the floor. I hope that method has changed. The song is utterly brilliant and the guitar work is some of Ace’s best. In fact, he does all the guitar work on this one, both lead and rhythm. This defines Ace Frehley in my book!!
“Hotter Than Hell”, from the album of the same name, was written by Paul and another song he stole from somewhere else. This one is basically a re-write of the Free song “All Right Now” and you can hear that Free influence in it. The song is about picking up a woman in a bar and having your way and it turns out she’s married which burns you like the midday sun. Oh, good times. To keep with the Japanese theme, the song has Peter hitting a giant gong for added affect.
“Lick It Up” was the band’s first single and first video without make-up and the song only went to #66. It opens with a nice little riff and a little scream from Paul. Paul’s second song on the album and it was meant for the radio. This is a pure 80’s, melodic rock song and no wonder it still gets played a lot. The video was so 80’s as well. Real cheesy and had the band in a post-apocalyptic world. It is a little comical watching it now. The song, however, is about a guy trying to talk his girlfriend in to doing the nasty so doesn’t really fit with the video.
The debut album kicks off with the song “Strutter”. The song was written by both Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons and over the years, this would be a rare experience as they would wind up writing songs by themselves. The music of the song was based off an old Gene song called “Stanley the Parrot” which was recorded even before there was a Wicked Lester.
Then the band goes full on rock with the incredible guitar riff by Ace on “Cold Gin”. The song was written by Ace, but his confidence in singing wouldn’t come for years so Gene would take the vocals. It is one of my favorite songs on the album and the riff played throughout is so freaking awesome. It is very ironic that Gene sings this song as now we know Gene doesn’t drink or do drugs, but it sounds like a Demon song so it fits perfectly with his personae. This version is a live version recorded in 2001, however, I don’t know what show as it doesn’t say. The live albums I have are not from 2001.
“Deuce” is up next and also from the debut album. The song was written and sung by Gene and he doesn’t even know what the song actually means. He just thought it sounded good…and he was right. The opening line, “Get Up and get your Grandma out of here” is the best opening line. This is one of those songs that live sounds so much cooler and has more grit, but this is still awesome. The guitar playing is fantastic and Ace plays a killer solo to end the song. Peter lays down some nice fills and gives the song a great fast tempo beat that drives the song along.
‘Hotter Than Hell’ opens with the song “Got To Choose” which was written and sung by Paul Stanley. The song opens with darker tone with a lot of bass and a drum sound that felt heavier in a mood sense not in pounding on the drum heavier. It slowly chugged along. The guitar riff was something Paul took from the Wilson Pickett song ‘Ninety-Nine And A Half (Won’t Do)’ and Ace hit on nice solo to open the album. A great opening track for me.
Of course they are going to have “Beth” , also from ‘Destroyer’, which became one of the band’s biggest hits to date. It went all the way to #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was sung by Peter Criss. The song was one Peter had written prior to Kiss and written with guitarist Stan Penridge. The song is a ballad and played on piano by Bob Ezrin, with full backing orchestration by the New York Philharmonic. The song originally had the line “Beck what can I do” after the girlfriend of one of Peter’s bandmates in the band Chelsea. Of course, they changed to Beth which seem to work. The song was softly played and softly sung and was simply a beautiful song that was totally out of left field for the band up to this point.
“Detroit Rock City” is up next from ‘Destroyer’ and it the album version with all the opening bits of the boy getting in the car and all the car parts as well as the crash. The song does mention Detroit, but is really about a young fan that is killed why he was on his way to a Kiss concert. The story is based off an actual event that occurred outside a Kiss concert in Charlotte where a fan was hit by a car and killed outside the arena. Knowing it is based a real life event adds a little extra to the impact of the song.
“Detroit Rock City” ends with the car crashing and immediately goes into the next song on the album “King of the Night Time World”. It had the sound of “Detroit Rock City” as the two melded together perfectly. A pure rock explosion and when I was younger, I couldn’t play one without the other. Did you know this song was a cover? I didn’t. It was actually written by Kim Fowley and performed by his band the Hollywood Stars in 1974, just under 2 years earlier. The Kiss version had some major changes done to it so Paul Stanley and Bob Ezrin have been added as songwriters.
The first single from ‘Dynasty’ was “I Was Made For Lovin’ You”. The song was written by Paul Stanley, Vini Poncia and the great Desmond Child makes his first of many appears with the band (only one on this album). The story goes that Disco was really big at the time and the record company wanted the band to be a little more commercial. Paul thought any idiot could write a disco song and a bet was made and a few hours later, the song was written and the Paul proved his point. The song went to #11 on the Billboard Hot 100. And as I mentioned earlier, the result was people thought this was a disco album. Wrong!! This song did have every trapping of a disco song, the tempo, the beat, the pop sound, the disco sound effects…I mean it was disco…but it was good and it was catchy and they still play it, but I still don’t know if I can give it full marks. Now on a side note, this is Gene’s least favorite song (and Peter and Ace hate it too).
The next song was the first single off Love Gun’, “Christine Sixteen”. Now this song wouldn’t fly today as it is an older man going after a much younger woman at only 16. But at the time, no one thought anything about it. Heck, they did this before with “Goin’ Blind’ off the ‘Hotter Than Hell’ album. There is a cool piano riff in the song which was done by Eddie Kramer. It is a fun, upbeat track and a favorite of mine for Gene. A cool, fun fact about the song, the demo was done with Gene and two unknown artist at the time by the name of Eddie and Alex Van Halen. They also did the demo for “Got Love For Sale” and you can hear those demos on Gene Simmons ‘The Vault”.
Now we get an old Wicked Lester song with “She” which was written by Gene Simmons and his friend Stephen Coronel. The groove was still there from that original version, but the song was much heavier and Ace takes it up a notch with the guitar. The solo was even taken from The Doors song “Five to One”. The song for me has this great flow and I love Peter’s playing as the style is more jazz than rock. It fits the song well. This is another one of my favorite tracks and though it is not a full on rocker in the “anthem” sense, it has something really cool and different.
“Rock And Roll All Nite” as a studio version peaked at #69 and was the first single off ‘Dressed to Kill’. However, it was this version that broke them, it was the live version off ‘Alive!’. It is the rock anthem of rock anthem’s and you can hear those elements and that this song was bursting to be heard. The song came together because Neil wanted them to write an anthem or something for the fans to rally behind and this was the result…not bad! I will add that if I never hear this song played live by the band again, I would be okay with that.
And there you have it, yet another in a long line of Greatest Hits Compilations from Kiss and their former label, Universal Music. If we are keeping count, I believe I have 29 Compilation CDs in the collection…and I am sure there will be more down the line. The Green Series – The Best of Kiss is a simple cash grab from the label, but at least they tried to save the environment and use the recycled paper and plant based ink, that is one positive thing (or is it). My Overall Score is a 2.0 out of 5.0 Stars only because it does 15 tracks which makes for a decent listen, but this is for those people that are real casual fans and really only love the 70’s songs…and maybe “Lick It Up”. This was probably cheap when it came out, not so much now if you can find one. Some guy on Discogs was selling one for $100…yeah…I don’t think so.
The Kiss Review Series:
- Wicked Lester and the Progeny Demo Sessions (Bootleg)
- Kiss – Kiss (1974)
- Kiss – Hotter Than Hell (1974)
- Kiss – Dressed to Kill (1975)
- Kiss – Alive! (1975)
- Kiss – Destroyer (1976)
- Kiss – “Flaming Youth” 45 Promo Single – Bonus Edition (1976)
- Kiss – “Beth” – 7″ Single – Bonus Edition (1976)
- Kiss – Special Kiss Album For Their Summer Tour (1976)
- Kiss – The Originals (1976)
- Kiss – Rock & Roll Over (1976)
- Kiss – “Calling Dr. Love” – 7″ Single – Bonus Edition (1977)
- Kiss – Love Gun (1977)
- Kiss – “Christine Sixteen” – 7″ Single – Bonus Edition (1977)
- Kiss – Alive II (1977)
- Kiss – Double Platinum (1978)
- Kiss – Paul Stanley (1978)
- Kiss – Gene Simmons (1978)
- Kiss – Peter Criss (1978)
- Kiss – Ace Frehley (1978)
- Kiss – Best of Solo Albums (1978)
- Kiss – Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park Movie (1978)
- Kiss – Dynasty (1979)
- Kiss – “I Was Made For Lovin’ You” (1979) – 12″ & 7″ Singles (Bonus Edition)
- Kiss – Unmasked (1980)
- Peter Criss – Out of Control (1980)
- Kiss – Music From The Elder (1981)
- Kiss – Killers (1982)
- Kiss – Creatures of the Night (1982)
- Kiss – Lick It Up (1983)
- Kiss – Animalize (1984)
- Wendy O. Williams – WOW (1984) (Bonus Edition)
- Kiss – Animalize Live Uncensored (1985)
- Kiss – Asylum (1985)
- Kiss – “Tears Are Falling” 7″ Single (Bonus Edition) (1985)
- Kiss – Creatures of the Night (1985 Re-Issue)
- Vinnie Vincent Invasion – Vinnie Vincent Invasion (1986)
- Black N’ Blue – Nasty Nasty (1986)
- Ace Frehley – Frehley’s Comet (1987)
- Kiss – Exposed VHS (1987)
- Kiss – Crazy Nights (1987)
- Kiss – “Crazy Crazy Nights” – 12″ Single (Bonus Edition)
- Kiss – “Reason To Live” – 12″ Picture Disc (Bonus Edition)
- Kiss – Chikara (1988)
- Kiss – Smashes, Thrashes & Hits (1988)
- Kiss – Hot In The Shade (1989)
- Kiss – “God Gave Rock And Roll To You II” (1991) – 12″ Picture Disc
- Kiss – Revenge (1992)
- Kiss – Alive III (1993)
- Kiss – “I Was Made For Lovin’ You (Live)” (1993) – CD Maxi Single (Bonus Edition)
- Kiss – Konfidential VHS (1993)
- Kiss – Kiss My Ass: Classic Kiss Regrooved (1994)
- Kiss – MTV Unplugged (1996)
- Kiss – You Wanted the Best, You Got the Best!! (1996)
- Kiss – Greatest Kiss (1997)
- Kiss – Greatest Hits (1997) – UK
- Kiss – Carnival of Souls: The Final Sessions (1997)
- Kiss – Psycho Circus (1998)
- Kiss – The Second Coming Documentary (1998)
- Eric Carr – Rockology (1999)
- Mark St. John – Mark St. John Project (1999)
- Eric Singer Project – ESP (1999)
- Bruce Kulick – Audiodog (2001)
- Kiss – The Very Best of Kiss (2002)
- Kiss – Kiss Symphony: Alive IV (2003)
- Kiss – The Best of Kiss: The Millennium Collection (1974-1982) (2003)
- Gene Simmons – Asshole (2004)
- Kiss – Rock the Nation 2004 World Tour: Instant Live (Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre Charlotte, NC 7/28/04) (2004)
- Kiss – The Best of Kiss: Volume 2 – The Millennium Collection (1982-1989) (2004)
- Kiss – Rock the Nation Live! DVD (2005)
- Kiss – Gold (2005)
- Kiss – The Best of Kiss: Volume 3 – The Millennium Collection (The 90’s) (2006)
- Kiss – Alive! The Millennium Concert (2006)
- Kiss – Kiss Alive! 1975-2000 Box Set (2006)
- Paul Stanley – Live to Win (2006)
- Kiss – Kissology: Volumes 1 to 3 (2006-2007)
- Kiss – HoriPro Music Publishing Collection: Disc 1 (2007)
- Kiss – The Best of Kiss: Green Series (2008)
- Kiss – Jigoku-Retsuden (2008)
- Kiss – Ikons (2008)
- Kiss – Playlist Your Way (2008)
- Kiss – 3 CD » Playlist + Plus (2008)
- Kiss – Sonic Boom (2009)
- Kiss – Superstar Series: The Best of Kiss (2009)
- Kiss – Legends of Rock (2009)
- Kiss – Icon 2 (2010)
- Kiss – Monster (2012)
- Kiss – The Casablanca Singles 1973-1982 (2012)
- Kiss – Star Boulevard (2012)
- Kiss – Kiss 40 (2014) – 2 CD Set
- Kiss – Kiss 40 (2014) – Japanese Edition
- Momoiro Clover Z vs Kiss – Samurai Sun – CD Single (2015)
- Kiss – Lo Mejor De…Kiss (2015)
- Kiss – Kiss Rocks Vegas (2016)
- Kiss – Kissworld: The Best of Kiss (2017)
- Kiss – Off the Soundboard: Tokyo 2001 (2021)
- Kiss – Off the Soundboard: Live in Virginia Beach July 24, 2004 (2022)
- Kiss – The Albums Ranked From Worst to First (2021)
- Kiss – Destroyer: 45th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition (2021)
- Kiss – Destroyer: 45th Anniversary 2-LP Deluxe Edition (Colored Vinyl) (2021)
- Kiss – Creatures of the Night: 40th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition (2022)
- Kiss – Creatures of the Night: 40th Anniversary 3-LP Deluxe Edition (Colored Vinyl) (2022)
- Kiss – Off the Soundboard: Poughkeepsie, NY Mid Hudson Civic Arena, November 28, 1984 (2023)
- Kiss – Icon (2010 / 2023)
- Kiss – Lick it Up (40th Anniversary Picture Disc) (2023)
The Bootleg Series:
- Kiss – ‘Accept No Imitations’ (Bootleg Series) – Album Review (ASYLUM TOUR)
- Kiss – Look Wot You Dun to Me (Bootleg Series) – Album Review (CRAZY NIGHTS TOUR)
- Kiss – The Summer of Satan: The Devils Ride Out! (Bootleg Series) – Album Review (DESTROYER TOUR)
- Kiss – Return to Capital Center (Bootleg Series) – Album Review (DYNASTY TOUR)
- Kiss – With Fire & Thunder (Bootleg Series) – Album Review (HOTTER THAN HELL TOUR)
- Kiss – Northhampton PA March 19th, 1975 (Bootleg Series) – Album Review (DRESSED TO KILL TOUR)
- Kiss – The Hottest Show On Earth (Bootleg Series) – Album Review (THE HOTTEST SHOW ON EARTH TOUR 2010)
- Kiss – All the Way to the Ball Room (Bootleg Series) – Album Review (Australian Tour 1995)
- Kiss – Kiss of Thunder (Bootleg Series) – Album Review (The Rising Sun Tour 2006)
- Kiss – Agora Ballroom 1974: The Cleveland Broadcast plus Bonus Cuts (Bootleg Series) – Album Review (THE KISS TOUR)
- Kiss – Hotter Than Hell: Radio Broadcast 1976 (Bootleg Series) – Album Review (ROCK & ROLL OVER TOUR)
- Kiss – The Tickler (Bootleg Series) – Album Review (LICK IT UP TOUR 1983)
- Kiss – Barbarize (Bootleg Series) – Album Review (ANIMALIZE WORLD TOUR 1984 – North American Tour)
- Kiss – They Only Come Out At Night (Bootleg Series) – Album Review (ANIMALIZE WORLD TOUR 1984 – EUROPEAN TOUR)
- Wicked Lester and the Progeny Demo Sessions (Bootleg)
- Kiss – Black Diamond: Lafayette Music Room, Memphis, TN April 18th, 1974 – FM Broadcast
- Kiss – End of the Road: In Allentown 2020 (PPL Center, Allentown, PA, 4th February 2020) (End of the Road Tour) – Blu-Ray
- Kiss – ‘Monster Tour: Simpsonville 2013’ (Charter Amphitheatre at Heritage Park, Simpsonville, C – 13th August 2013) – Blu-Ray
- Wicked Lester – The Original Wicked Lester Sessions (Bootleg)
- Kiss – The Ritz on Fire (August 12, 1988, The Ritz, New York City. A radio broadcast – Crazy Nights Tour)
- Kiss – Kiss My Axe 1978: Live from the Los Angeles Forum in California, August 25, 1977 (Love Gun Tour)
- Kiss – Gods of Thunder: The Legendary Concert Broadcast – Sao Paulo, August 27, 1994′
- Kiss – Black Diamond: Lafayette Music Room, Memphis, TN April 18th, 1974 – FM Broadcast (Alternate Cover)
- Kiss -Alive! in Amityville: June 1973 – (2021)
- Kiss – Set the World On Fire: Live (10 CD Box Set – Radio Broadcasts 1974-1994)
- Kiss – Diamonds in the Dust (2022)
