Kiss’ fourth album was a make or break moment for the band. It was 1975 and their first three albums had received a reasonable but unspectacular reception, leading to them being dismissed as a gimmick band with a few decent tunes. With the bands record company Casablanca in serious financial trouble, the band needed a hit. Rooted in an act of desperation, it was decided that Kiss would release a live album in the hope that it could capture what their studio albums could not, the energy and wild theatrics of the now legendary Kiss live show.
The decision to do this was looked upon with great scepticism for a couple of reasons. Firstly, in the early 70’s, live albums were something that only well-established bands released, and even then, they were still often a commercial failure. So, for the band to take the decision to make it a double live album, something which had never been done before in the music industry, of their ‘best songs’ when they hadn’t even had one hit, was a pretty ballsy move.
That album was ‘Kiss - Alive!’ eighty minutes of exciting but raw material cherry picked from their first three albums injected with intense steroids which is still looked at today as one of the if not ‘the’ greatest live album in the history of rock and roll.
The track listing of ‘Alive!’ showcases the strength of Kiss’s early writing such as the heavy riffs in ‘Parasite’ and the chorus hooks of ‘Strutter’ but the tracks are taken onto a whole new level in this live setting. The underwhelming studio recordings were pale in comparison to the live versions with tempos kicked up a few extra notches and grittier guitar sounds adding more energy and aggression.
Without a doubt, however, the main thing that ‘Alive!’ showcased was Kiss’ theatrical performance and huge onstage presence. All of Kiss’ live stunts are all left in the album to really get across the feeling of being at a Kiss show and many were also filmed for promotional material. All of this comes together to really showcase what Kiss were all about in concert; they were loud, proud, and were out to prove they really were “the hottest band in the world.”
Of course, there has been much subsequent debate over the true nature of ‘Alive!’ and how honest the description of ‘live album’ really is. The band to this day maintain that although obvious errors were dubbed, there was minimal work done later in the studio. This story makes sense as due to the financial troubles of the label as the band didn’t have the financial backing to do this. However, Eddie Kramer the producer who recorded and mixed ‘Alive!’ has claimed that the majority of the album was over-dubbed with only the drum track being the totally un-dubbed live recording. Kramer noted that all the fireworks and pyrotechnics, combined with the bands stage antics, often lead them to miss musical cues which it would make no sense to leave in the recording. The band has also subsequently admitted to amplifying the audience noise because they really wanted the listener to feel as though they were in the venue experiencing the concert. Although some musical purists believe this somewhat ruins the ‘live album’ concept, the band and their fans believe it doesn’t threaten the integrity of the album. Kiss set out to try to create an album which captured the energy and insanity of a live concert, for people to listen at home and imagine they were there and they achieved this perfectly.
The impact the album had on Kiss’ career was meteoric. Their previous albums had only sold between fifty thousand and ninety thousand copies each in the previous thirteen months, ‘Alive!’ sold over one million copies within a month of its release, but the album also had a great impact on the music industry. The theatrics and energy that are heard on ‘Alive!’ and seen in corresponding promotional videos form the basis of most live concerts today. In the mid 70’s, no other band had pyrotechnics at every single show, no other band breathed fire and set off fireworks and had smoke machines clouding the stage at every single show. These antics would have a profound effect not just on rock music, but much of the next decades Punk and Metal scenes with them trying to continue the energy Kiss’ showed in their live shows. We can even see Kiss’s influence in shows today with bands like Muse picking up the gauntlet to concentrate on not just their music but the whole show. Paul Stanley the bands lead singer said: “When you go to a concert you listen not just with your ears but with your eyes” ‘Alive!’ made people want to see the band because of the energy thundering out of their speakers and the album has helped shape the music industry over the last forty years to reflect that.