You’d need a Sherpa to reach that far corner of the planet to find someone who hasn’t heard of KISS. It’s an industry unto itself, a global icon revered by millions and regarded as one of the most influential rock and roll bands of all time. If you were a child of the 1970s, KISS was your Beatles. It dominated the American pop culture landscape like no band had before them and no band has since.
But it wasn’t always that way.
KISS rose from the primordial ooze that was New York City in 1973. As legend has it, guitarist/vocalist Paul Stanley and bassist Gene Simmons answered a Rolling Stone ad placed by classically trained Brooklyn drummer Peter Criss. It read, “Drummer willing to do anything to make it.” They rounded out the lineup with local guitar wiz Ace Frehley and hit the club circuit on the back of the five-song demo tape that would frame their debut album.
Critics panned them, and the album didn’t sell, but they rapidly gained a reputation as The Hottest Band In The Land due to their incendiary live shows, which featured kabuki makeup, fire breathing, blood spitting, smoking guitars, cutting-edge pyrotechnics and levitating drum risers. The handful of diehard followers morphed into the 100,000-strong KISS Army - the most rabid fan base the world had seen since Beatlemania.
Thirty-seven albums, more gold and platinum than any other American band, over 100 million sold worldwide, 30 globe-spanning tours and hundreds of millions of concert tickets later, Universal Music Enterprises proudly presents KISS ICON Series: 2 CDs, 24 tracks that include all the hits, fan favorites, plus a few live nuggets for good measure that span the career of one of the world’s greatest rock bands.
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