KISS at 50: The band’s 25 most remarkable moments
The songs! The action figures! The caskets! To mark the 50th anniversary of KISS' debut, we look back at all the ways the band conquered pop culture
Music Features Kiss
Fifty years ago this month, KISS arrived on the scene with their eponymous debut album, kicking off a career that would see the band become as well known for their kabuki face paint and outlandish outfits as they would be for their hit songs and their flashy live shows. Of course, KISS can’t be seen as a conventional rock band. Sure, they’ve sold millions of albums, reaching the Billboard Top Ten several times in their long career, but reducing KISS to their discography underestimates their influence: they were the first multimedia rock band, sensing the potential of Saturday morning television, comic books, and variety shows—pop culture territories that most other rockers vigorously avoided.
To get a sense of KISS’s impact, you don’t need a list of their best songs or albums: you need a list of their best moments, a combination of music, media, and marketing that made the band indelible. Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley—who led KISS through all its incarnations until the group’s farewell concert last year—were notoriously savvy businessmen, keeping the KISS brand alive throughout the 21st century. Although KISS has made many appearances—they happily accepted seemingly any animated show that came their way, popping up on not one but two Scooby-Doo specials—this list generally concentrates on material from their ’70s rise and ’80s fall, when the band could be seen mixing it up with Hollywood legends and battling bad guys in the pages of a comic book.
78 Comments
where’s the gene simmons-terry gross interview?!
EVERY Gene Simmons interview is gross.
Every time he talks about how he’s never tried drugs or alcohol it comes off like he wants to be sober to better identify the most incapacitated groupies.
They all have their vices. Mick Jagger, while not a teetotaler, wasn’t a real big drug guy (comparatively) but every few years you hear he’s knocked up another chippy.
Ted Nugent is another noted “no drugs or alcohol” guy, but he’s had some…uh…’relationships’.
Ah, the ol’ Knights In Satan’s Service.
“Yes, my husband does me now.”
But yet no KISS Saves Santa
That’s right” NO kiss saves Santa! It’s going to require full-on butt sex to save Santa.
Gene Simmons gets 83 cents for every click on this post.
Id’ve sworn it was .69
Blumpkins are expensive.
I thought inflation was under control. Guess I can’t believe everything I hear on NPR.
Turner D. Century is not a KISS fan.
Unpopular opinion: Turner D Century is based AF
Hey, no one ever said Turner is a good man. He is a passionate one though.
Everyone loves this guy until he shows up at your thanksgiving and burns down the house.
All because of the lack of a turtle soup course and no oysters in the stuffing. We won’t even mention the place card disaster.
Aw, now he looks bummed. Did that bitch not have his money when he asked for it?
Who is this guy I keep seeing in the comments lately who looks as if Monopoly guy became a highly successful narcotics and sex trafficker?
He’s the single greatest Marvel character of all time.‘Nuff said.
You’re having a laugh, mate. That’s Jack The Ripper with a shitty hat, that is.
Shouldn’t “Conning People Into Thinking They’re a Good Band” be #1?
Man, there aren’t too many bands I dislike as much as Kiss. Gene Simmons is an asshole without peer, and as much as I dig classic rock I could never get into them, but as a young kid in the 70’s I do remember thinking the costumes were cool af until the novelty of the cosplay wore off. They absolutely belong in the Rock Hall due to their influence on the genre and record sales alone- but God they suck. I anticipate this to me a minority opinion in this thread, but it is my duty to dissent whenever anyone puts the name of that band in a sentence with a superlative in it.
Despite 70s & 80s rock having some of my favorite bands, KISS never really clicked with me outside of a few songs, and that was before I knew how much of an asshole Gene Simmons is. However, I saw them live at a festival ~10 years ago and they could still put on an awesome show. Easily the best of the entire weekend, which I certainly didn’t expect, as they weren’t even a reason I was there. That’s left this weird feeling where thinking about the band makes me happy, but I still don’t actually care to listen to their songs.
I believe you. I think that as a live act their shows are probably super entertaining because there is so much shit going on, and I also believe that playing an instrument for 50 years will probably make you good at it. If someone gave me free tickets to a Kiss concert, I’d probably go. But after listening to that interview Gene did with Terry Gross where he was a total dick and among other things called Terry a “gentile”- man, I just can’t stand him and it took music I didn’t care for and elevated it to a band that I could dismiss with alacrity. But I could totally see where they could be like Springsteen- even if you’re lukewarm on him (like me) it’s impossible not to be moved by him in concert because the shows are so good. But I’m not sad that I’ll never get to go a Kiss concert, no sir.
I think you’re right about the live shows. A friend of mine (a fellow musician) once said to me, totally un-ironically “You’re not going to believe this, but I went to a KISS show and it was one of the greatest shows I’ve ever seen!”
There must be something with the lights, the boots, the fire, the blood, the lasers, the exploding guitars . . .
There’s something about people playing together for decades that just makes for amazing musical alchemy. The mid-90’s iteration of the Allman Bros (when they still had Dickie Betts) and Jimmy Herring was as good of a band as I’d ever seen, and Bruce Springsteen in his early 60’s put on what might be the best show I’ve ever seen… I bet since Kiss has been doing it almost as long as I’ve been alive they kinda know what works and get every drop of juice from the means at their disposal. Still, fuck Gene Simmons into the sun.
I had similar experiences with AC/DC and the white stripes. Couldn’t pay me enough to sit down with headphones and listen to one of their albums all the way through, but both put on amazing live shows
that i’m not crazy about either to begin with or that i enjoyed them live? (both at festivals fwiw, wouldn’t shell out $50+ for “let’s see what we got here”)
AC/DC is definitely better live, but from where I sit their studio tracks still bring plenty of energy. I actually like WS better recorded than live, which I rarely say.
I don’t mind the bon scott greatest hits type stuff, but being a jazz fusion and prog rock head i’d lose my mind at an hour of four major chords and brian johnson
Now it’s coming together.
I have the opposite feeling about Joe Satriani. I enjoy listening to his records but his live show was boring as hell. The only show I left before it was over.
KISS was a horrible band.
Bobby Ezrin got a good album out of them . . . by having anyone but KISS play on it . . . oh, I see . . .
I remember seeing pictures of KISS in all their getup as a kid and thinking they must be the most kickass metal band ever. That was until I heard “Beth” on the classic rock station and that illusion was shattered forever.
Well, I mean, if the only Warrant song you know is Heaven . . .
Let me finish that for you.“Well, I mean, if the only Warrant song you know is Heaven……then you are a very lucky person.”
Down Boy!
To get a sense of KISS’s impact, you don’t need a list of their best songs or albumsThat’s because KISS is a totally average late 70s-80s rock band. There is nothing special or exceptional or original at all. Their uniqueness is entirely aesthetic. And like, that’s fine, if you can make money selling an image, go off. But there’s nothing innovative there musically. And honestly toward the end, their increasingly weird attempts to seem edgy and extreme were just kind of cringe. Just a bunch of old weirdos dressed like cyborg furries, pretending to smash their non-functional prop instruments.I mean, say what you will about Motley Crue or Jackyl or Def Lepperd, but I one hundred percent believe their public images, in that those public images were “we are gross dudes who like girls and playing guitars and getting drunk and high” as opposed to “We are rock and roll space robots ewwww scary.”
How come 1/2 (or more) of the hard rock and metal guitarists of the ‘80s and ‘90s site Ace as their favourite guitar player, or the reason they even picked up a guitar? KISS have a LOT of bad songs (and some of them are raging dickheads), but their first 6 albums (plus the 2 live ones) are pretty kick-ass – far above average – and were hugely influential on hard rock, metal, grunge, even punk a bit.
Dunking on KISS for being image-over-all meathead bullshit has been easy sport since at least the 80’s, but I assume since the beginning. You’re totally right about their influence on a generation of hr/hm musicians, particularly Ace, but I suspect a lot of that was generational, getting to these guys at the right time, at the right age. It’s hard to imagine a better way to discover KISS than when you’re like, nine years old in 1977.
Thus my defensiveness, lol!
Yes, me at 7 in 1979 thought KISS was the greatest.
hell, i discovered them during their much-maligned 80s cheese era, and i still like them.
Surprised you left off Psycho Circus, which was hyped as being the big reunion album when in reality the band lied through their teeth and the original line-up only fully played together on a single track, with most of the other songs having Simmons & Stanley backed by uncredited session musicians.
i only recently found out that gene simmons didn’t play bass on most of their hits. granted, most of them were their 80s hits, but still….
That was the one tour I saw KISS live, and I almost missed the show because after having some beers in the parking lot before the show, a friend of a friend got us down on the floor between the opening act (remember Econoline Crush?) and the start of the show, only for me to have to really unload the used beer. Rather than piss on the floor, I left my spot on the floor and ended up watching the show from our original seats. It was fine and I didn’t piss on myself.
It’s 2024! And KISS is 50! So here’s a slideshow of their moments so far,
In lockdown, I read a lot of rock star bios. Think stories of surviving crazy situations helped me cope, I dunno. But my biggest excursion was reading all four memoirs by the founding members of KISS.
Two things. One; those four guys should never be in the same room again, sheesh.
Two; they were all kind of what you expected.
Paul Stanley talked shit about everybody. The band, other bands, their management, his family, his ex-wife, you name it. Then he’d go on about how he’s done a lot of work on himself in therapy and changed for the better over time.
Gene acted like he’d never failed in his life, even during times where he and the band very obviously failed. He comes off like the ultimate starfucker rather than a star himself, just endlessly name-dropping. Nothing but an upward slope for Gene.
Peter’s is kind of what you expect from a rock star bio i.e. bragging about all the drugs he did and all the groupies he banged.
I should mention all four bios have kind of a Rashomon thing going on when it comes to certain events, but in a stupid way. For example, Peter was fired after a “re-audition” after a break when he showed up with sheet music, but still played terribly. In Peter’s book he says, “Yeah I did that, but I was fucking with them ‘cause I wanted out.” Uh huh.
And Ace barely remembers anything that doesn’t involve music. Seriously, he recalls specific amps and mic placement while recording his solo album, but the reunion tour gets one whole chapter and that’s it.
Hahaha, oh wow, I’ve read a bunch of hard rock/metal bios in the last few years but I don’t think I’ve done the Rashomon thing for any of them, that’d be a tall order, but some of these bands with multiple members’ bios out there and might be interesting for it; some of them I just didn’t read them close enough together to compare much.
I haven’t read any of those, but I did read Nathan Rabin’s review of Peter’s on this site when it came out, just his descriptions of what was inside that book was entertaining.
I strongly recommend watching The Paul Lynde Halloween Special. It’s absolutely goddamn bonkers in that particular 1970s variety show way. In addition to KISS, it features:Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz as Lynde’s maid, who is revealed to be an oddly familiar-looking green-skinned witch, who is the sister of Witchiepoo from H.R. Pufnstuff because of course she is.Lynde as a butch truck driver battling Tim Conway and Billy Barty for the affections of a diner waitress played by Roz “Pinky Tuscadero” Kelly. He wears perhaps the most ambitious chest hair merkin in the history of television.Lynde as a sultan trying to seduce Florence Henderson.A closing number, “Disco Baby,” which is a de-gendered version of “Disco Lady.”KISS’ two performances were the most normal parts of the whole show, but they were on-stage in the background for the closing number and I don’t know if that was intentional but they looked perplexed by the whole thing.
KISS is not a great band. And all four members are problematic. But they were everywhere in the 1970’s. They made an impact and they’ve earned their place in pop-culture.
Honorable mention: KISS appears on “Kids Are People Too” to introduce new band member Eric Carr aka The Fox.
I remember seeing Blondie on “Kids Are People Too”, but I don’t remember Kiss on there. I might have changed the channel, since Kiss creeped me out as a kid. I wish “Kids Are People Too” was available somewhere these days.
Eric Carr is highly underrated. His drums on Creatures of the Night are INSANE.
KISS rocks!
I don’t love KISS, but practically every heavy metal/hard rock musician from my generation grew up loving them.
I was never into Kiss, they seemed pretty silly even to 9 year old me (not a popular opinion at the time, I probably should have at least pretended to be a fan), but I really don’t get why Gene was so upset about the Tom Snyder thing. Snyder himself seemed to be having a good time, and Criss is the only thing that made it memorable. If Gene wanted a serious interview, they probably shouldn’t have been in the makeup and goth drag.
Christine Sixteen isn’t “an unabashed celebration of teenage lust” it’s a song where a grown man literally talks about how he decided he wanted to fuck a 16-year-old when he saw her leaving school. Holy shit, guys.
The release of the KISS Colorform set is top of my list from ‘79. Then “I Was Made for Loving You.” That’s about it.
“Detroit Rock City” is at least 3 times as funny as the shitty “American Pie”.
Kiss! Alive! Like Frampton!