I'm not the kind of guy who looks at setlist.fm before a show to see what songs a band has played in prior shows. I like to be surprised. There are songs I'm sure KISS is going to play, and there are many that I am certain there is no chance in hell they will play. It's the latter thought that kind of prompted me to make this list (even if some of these songs might end up being played live).
Yesterday was the 45th anniversary of the release of KISS's self-titled debut album. In the '70s, KISS put out 11 studio albums, which includes the four "solo KISS" albums that each band member released on the same day in September 1978. Every one of those albums (other than the "solo" albums) featured the original four members of the band: Peter Criss on drums; Ace Frehley on lead guitar; Gene Simmons on bass; Paul Stanley on rhythm guitar; and all four of them on vocals at one time or another. By the end of the '70s, Criss was on the way out, and he only ended up playing on one song on the band's last album of the '70s, Dynasty. Frehley would follow suit a few albums later.
For many, including me, the "real KISS" is the classic lineup. That's not to say I have anything against Eric Carr, Vinnie Vincent, Mark St. John, Bruce Kulick, Eric Singer, or Tommy Thayer, or the music the band made when they were members. I have a good bit of '80s KISS in my collection, although I don't have everything the band released in the '80s. On the other hand, I do have all of their '70s releases, which brings us to the list.
For this Tuesday Top Ten, I decided to go with my favorite non-charting song from each of the 11 studio albums the band put out in the '70s. For this list, "charting" means making an appearance on the Billboard Hot 100. Some of the songs on this list are considered classic KISS songs by fans, so this list isn't necessarily meant to be a "deep cut" list in that sense. The hope is that you -- as perhaps a casual KISS fan or maybe someone who has never heard anything other than "Rock and Roll All Nite" or "I Was Made For Lovin' You" -- will discover some of the band's more hidden gems.
For each song, I'm going to give you the lead singer and the songwriter(s), and for each album, I'll give you the songs, if any, on the album that hit the Billboard Hot 100.
1. "Cold Gin" (KISS, 1974)
Songwriter: Ace Frehley
Songs on album that charted: "Kissin' Time" (#83)
The band's self-titled debut album is full of KISS classics. "Strutter," "Deuce," "Nothin' to Lose," "Firehouse," "Black Diamond," and the one and only "Cold Gin." It was a tough choice. "Cold Gin" is one of my favorite KISS songs. Ace wrote it, but he wasn't comfortable singing at that point, so he asked Gene (who doesn't drink) to sing the song.
As someone who likes a stiff drink now and then, I appreciate the song. The first lyric grabs you: "My heater's broke and I'm so tired / I need some fuel to build a fire." You're thinking, Broken heater AND being tired? That's a bummer because it's really hard to fall asleep when you're shivering, but it sounds like he's going to get some logs, kindling, and matches, so everything should work out. Then he tells you the girl next door's lights are out, and his landlord is gone, too. Nowhere to go -- except the liquor store, that is. Enter the chorus: "It's cold gin time again / You know it'll always win / It's cold gin time again / You know it's the only thing that keeps us together."
Let me be clear about one thing: I hate gin. My sophomore year in college, I had a gincident, after which I cannot even smell gin without gagging a little. A relationship built solely on gin (no matter the temperature) is doomed to fail. Nonetheless, I love this song.
2. "All The Way" (Hotter Than Hell, 1974)
Songwriter: Gene Simmons
Songs on album that charted: None
Hotter Than Hell is the only KISS album in the '70s (not counting Peter's solo KISS album) that didn't have a song that charted on the Billboard Hot 100. However, several of the songs have become live staples and are fan favorites ("Got to Choose," "Parasite," the title track). One of the strangest songs on the album is "Goin' Blind," which, I kid you not, is a song sung from the point of view of a 93-year-old man who is attempting to woo a 16-year-old female ("I'm ninety-three, you're sixteeeeen" is an actual lyric).
"All The Way," on the other hand, kicks off the second side of the album, and is not about unrequited love with a 77-year age gap. It's a nice, catchy rock song that I have apparently been mishearing this whole time. I just looked at the lyrics of "All The Way" for the first time, and now the song makes a lot more sense than the lyrics I had always heard in my head. The chorus is "You just keep talkin' louder / Complain to your mother and father / One of these days you'll push me all the way," and not "You just keep talking about her / Whoa no, 'til you're gonna get louder / One of these days you'll push me all the way."
3. "She" (Dressed to Kill, 1975)
Songwriters: Gene Simmons and Stephen Coronel
Songs on album that charted: "Rock and Roll All Nite" (#68)
Dressed to Kill featured the band's most iconic song, "Rock and Roll All Nite," although the studio version only hit #68 on the charts before the live version (off of Alive!) hit #12 less than a year later. This is another album that has a lot of great options. I really like "Room Service," "Rock Bottom," and several others, but I'm going with "She" because I love the riff, and it's a gritty rock song. The first line -- inspired by a line from the movie Hondo -- is great: "She walks by moonlight / No one really knows." Fun fact: Ace's guitar solo starting at about the 2:48 mark was inspired by another one of my favorite bands (Robby Krieger's solos on The Doors' "Five to One") and was the inspiration for Mike McCready's solo in Pearl Jam's "Alive."
4. "King of the Night Time World" (Destroyer, 1976)
Songwriters: Paul Stanley, Kim Fowley, Mark Anthony, Bob Ezrin
Songs on album that charted: "Beth" (#7), "Shout It Out Loud" (#31), "Flaming Youth" (#74)
Destroyer is kind of the pinnacle of KISS studio albums, from its iconic album cover to the many great songs that have become beloved among KISS fans. It was the first KISS album to go platinum, and it also happens to be the first KISS album I ever bought. The obvious choice here would be "Detroit Rock City," but I'm assuming more people know that than some of the other non-charting songs on the album, so I'm going with the second track on the album, "King of the Night Time World." I can only imagine how many suburban teenagers considered this song an anthem in the late '70s on weekends when they roamed to and from whatever their town's equivalents were of the Top Notch, moon tower, and Emporium.
5. "Ladies Room" (Rock and Roll Over, 1976)
Songwriter: Gene Simmons
Songs on album that charted: "Hard Luck Woman" (#15), "Calling Dr. Love" (#16)
Rock and Roll Over is a solid album, and it's the only KISS album with two songs that reached the Top 20 on the Billboard charts. I had a couple choices, but I'm going with "Ladies Room" because it's a song that I think embodies Gene's persona more than most. Basically, it's an invitation to a somewhat coy woman to meet in the shitter, presumably for a quick raw dog.
6. "Shock Me" (Love Gun, 1977)
Songwriter: Ace Frehley
Songs on album that charted: "Christine Sixteen" (#25), "Love Gun" (#61)
Love Gun is a great album top to bottom (or at least top to the penultimate song, since the last song on the album is a seemingly out-of-place cover of "Then He Kissed Me"). For as many songs as Ace had written for the band, until the Love Gun album, he was too self-conscious to sing his own songs. That all changed with "Shock Me," which is the first song on which Ace sang lead vocals -- although he recorded his vocals lying on the floor because of his vocal insecurities. It's a somewhat tongue-in-cheek reference to a December 1976 concert in Florida where Ace was electrocuted during the band's first song when he touched an ungrounded metal railing. Luckily, he was only knocked to the ground, and the concert was only delayed for about 30 minutes. This is kind of Ace's theme song, and it's a great rocker.
7. "That's the Kind of Sugar Papa Likes" (Peter Criss, 1978)
Songwriters: Peter Criss and Stan Penridge
Songs on album that charted: None
Upon further reflection, it's quite possible that I like Peter Criss's voice the best out of the four original members. It has some grit to it, and perhaps it's not a coincidence that two of the band's biggest Billboard hits in the '70s ("Beth" and "Hard Luck Woman") were sung by Criss. His solo album is considered the weakest of the four solo efforts, and I don't disagree. The songs tend to be a little schmaltzy, and listening to them now, they are certainly dated. I'm going with "That's the Kind of Sugar Papa Likes" because it's the best song title on the album, and it's not a bad song.
8. "Rip It Out" (Ace Frehley, 1978)
Songwriters: Ace Frehley, Larry Kelly, Sue Kelly
Songs on album that charted: "New York Groove" (#13)
Ace's solo album is the highest-selling of the four KISS solo albums, and it is widely regarded as the best of the four as well. This is probably my favorite KISS album, to the extent you can consider it a KISS album, since Ace is the only member of the band to play on it. Either way, it's a really good hard rock album and proved that Ace had come into his own in all three phases (singing, guitar playing, and songwriting). "Rip It Out" is the first track on the album, and it sets the hard-rocking tone for the entire album. The song is a fantastic hard rock song, with a driving beat and a message of scorned love to the narrator's former mate.
9. "Burning Up With Fever" (Gene Simmons, 1978)
Songwriter: Gene Simmons
Songs on album that charted: "Radioactive" (#47)
Gene's solo album was a star-studded affair, with the likes of Joe Perry, Bob Seger, Rick Nielsen, Helen Reddy, Janis Ian, Skunk Baxter, Donna Summer, and Cher (not to mention a young Katey Sagal, aka Peg Bundy) contributing to the album in one way or another. One of the more pathetic KISS moments is when Gene ends the album with "When You Wish Upon a Star." It's brutal. But most of the other songs on the album are pretty good. "Burning Up With Fever" is a solid rocker, with Baxter contributing guitar work and Summer contributing backing vocals.
10. "Wouldn't You Like to Know Me" (Paul Stanley, 1978)
Songwriter: Paul Stanley
Songs on album that charted: "Hold Me, Touch Me (Think of Me When We're Apart)" (#46)
Paul's solo album is probably the second-best of the bunch, behind Ace's. Like the Paul in the Beatles, this Paul also has a good pop sensibility, albeit with a more hard-rocking touch. "Wouldn't You Like to Know Me" is a power-pop gem that could have just as easily have fit on a Cheap Trick, Babys, or Nick Lowe album. I honestly don't know how this song wasn't chosen as a single from the album because it's catchy as hell.
11. "Hard Times" (Dynasty, 1979)
Songwriter: Ace Frehley
Songs on album that charted: "I Was Made For Lovin' You" (#11), "Sure Know Something" (#47)
On their last album of the '70s -- and their last album on which all four original members appeared -- the band (or at least some members) listened to outside forces. The result was disco KISS -- or would that be KISSco? "I Was Made For Lovin' You" was the big hit, which predictably alienated a lot of fans. Ace Frehley tried to counterbalance the disco rock with some hard rockers, and "Hard Times" was one of those songs. He may not be the best singer, but at least it wasn't disco. The Ace-sung cover of the Rolling Stones' "2,000 Man" is also good, but I wanted to stick with original songs.
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