Tracklist: 01. Crazy Crazy Nights | 02. Rock And Roll All Nite | 03. I Was Made For Lovin’ You | 04. God Gave Rock ‘N’ Roll To You II | 05. Detroit Rock City | 06. Beth | 07. Lick It Up |08. Heaven’s On Fire | 09. Tears Are Falling | 10. Unholy | 11. Hard Luck Woman | 12. Psycho Circus | 13. Shout It Out Loud | 14. Calling Dr. Love | 15. Christine Sixteen |16. Love Gun | 17. Shandi | 18. I’m A Legend Tonight | 19. Modern Day Delilah |20. Hell Or Hallelujah
Does the world need another Kiss best of? Of course it does. It needs everything KISS bring out Including box sets, limited editions and any other type of package or repackage. I make this their 18th compilation give or take, and it comes just three years after the understandable anniversary greatest hits double release ’40’, which has a much more comprehensive collection of tracks, containing at least one from every album over their illustrious career. So unless you are an obsessive KISS ARMY member (still) and must have everything you might be able to pass this one by…
Released after the EUROPEAN tour finished and just before the AMERICAN tour concludes, this is a mixed bag with 14 tracks coming from the make up years and just six from the make up free years.
The trouble with a ‘Best of’ is that you can never please everyone even if you put every track you’ve ever recorded on it and give it away for nothing and of course people will always have favourites. Long time fans will always have obscure tracks that rarely get the recognition they deserve and that casual fans are largely unaware of – try ‘Tomorrow’, ‘Danger’ and ‘Who Wants to be Lonely’ for starters.
Most of the usual suspects are here: ROCK AND ROLL ALL NITE is the original DRESSED TO KILL version and not the ALIVE version which usually appears on their compilations. DETROIT ROCK CITY (surely one of the greatest tracks ever written) appears in full here, complete with intro; and it’s always good to hear BETH again. LICK IT UP and HEAVEN’S ON FIRE are good enough to grace any album even thought they are now over 30 years old.
UNHOLY is KISS at their heaviest and doesn’t get enough airplay and just shows what GENE can do when he actually puts his mind to it: something he didn’t do often enough in the 1980’s. I’ve always loved PSYCHO CIRCUS as a track and whilst PAUL STANLEY himself has stated he doesn’t like the album there is some good stuff on there and the title track certainly stands out.
Conversely CHRISTINE SIXTEEN was never one of my favourites, though it’s nice to hear the original version of LOVE GUN and not the remix version which is always played on rock radio. As guilty pleasures go SHANDI is one of my favourite KISS tracks of all time from the underrated UNMASKED album and i will die a happy man after seeing them play it live twice both Downunder!
I’M A LEGEND TONIGHT wouldn’t have been my choice of the new tracks that appeared on KILLER (I would have gone for NOWHERE TO RUN but everyone is different. There are also two tracks from each of their last releases finish this compilation off.
There are rumours of a new album. Apparently Kiss have been throwing ideas around in the studio. There are more rumours that up to eight songs have been put in tape. Amidst lots of claims by “inside sources” one thing is for certain – that three are keen on a new album but one person isn’t. Until there are official noises from the band, stuff like this will have to do. Although I also understand that the DVD series KISSOLOGY 4 is about “85% done”
Quite how compilations fit in in this world of easy accessible and freely available music where it is simple to create your own compilations I’m not sure. The die hards will have it all (many, many times) and after 44 years, I’m not sure there are many casual fans who will catch on to them this late. But is it possible to have too much KISS? For me at least maybe not!
Crap cover though. 5/5 for the music. 1/5 for the idea.
