5 Above picks five great songs within a specific category. Look out below--these are five that rise above.
We gather today to party with my five favorite KISS tracks.
I don't claim to be one of the most avid KISS fans on the whole friggin' planet, but I've always liked them. Dig what you dig. You don't like KISS? Yeah, you've gotta dig what you dig, too. It's okay. I betcha there's another corner of the internet that you'll find more dig-worthy than my post here today. No offense taken.
The rest of you? You wanted the best. You've got the best. The hottest band in the world. KISS!!!
Well..."best" for rhetorical purposes anyway.
But you know what? It's not faint praise. KISS was the the headlining act at my first rock concert. KISS was also the subject of my first magazine cover story as a freelance writer. If KISS isn't quite (or anywhere near) as high in my rockin' pop pantheon as the Beatles, the Ramones, and the Flashcubes, I have a specific affection for KISS, and I always will.
It was not a challenge to pick out my five favorite KISS tracks. Nor would it have been difficult to round the list up to a Top Ten, with "I Love It Loud," "King Of The Nighttime World," their gender-swapped Crystals cover "Then She Kissed Me" (a proudly idiosyncratic pick), Gene Simmons' exquisite "See You Tonite" (from his 1978 solo album, which is considered part of the KISS catalog), and either "Strutter," "Comin' Home," or "Tomorrow," with the likes of "Mr. Speed," Paul Stanley's '78 solo "Wouldn't You Like To Know Me" and Ace Frehley's "New York Groove" bubbling under as strong contenders. No Peter Criss solo tracks would even come close, but his ballad "Beth"--from KISS' Destroyer LP--would have made my KISS all-time Top 25.
Today, though, we're sticking with just five, listed alphabetically by title. And they're five solid selections indeed.
ANYTHING FOR MY BABY
Four out of my five picks for the best KISS tracks are, frankly, not terribly imaginative. Each of the four tracks listed below was a hit record, each scored Top 40 AM radio airplay when I was in high school, and each would be included in any decent list of KISS's best-known songs.
From 1975's Dressed To Kill, "Anything For My Baby" is my one deeper track. And man, it's a good one, an absolute peer to anything KISS has ever done. I've read that the song's author Paul Stanley doesn't care for this track. I'll overcompensate for Stanley's dismissal of the song by confessing that there are days I prefer this to the group's great signature tune "Rock And Roll All Nite."
Heresy? Yes. Nonetheless true.
CALLING DR. LOVE
In the fall of 1976, as I began my senior year in high school, I was at least peripherally aware of KISS if not quite yet a fan. I had no real specific interest in the group prior to that December, when my friend Tom suggested we go to a KISS concert.
What the hell. Why not?
A Christmas gift from family netted me the six bucks I needed for a ticket to see KISS with special guest Uriah Heep. KISS is a fantastic choice for one's first rock concert, a spectacle that can make ya scream for MORE!!, an urgent demand for crass, delighted overabundance. I've described KISS elsewhere as the definitive '70s rock band: loud, garish, celebratory, and as infectious as an arena cheer. Heading into the concert, I was curious and eager; by the time the lights came back on, I was a KISS fan.
It still took me a little while to get around to buying a KISS record. I bought KISS's appearances in Marvel Comics' Howard The Duck and their own fire-breathin', printed-in-KISS-blood Marvel Comics Super Special. I fell hard for the AM radio hit "Calling Dr. Love;" man, I loved that track, and I suggested with great passion that our North Syracuse Central High School Class of '77 really oughta have that song blarin' as we marched in to claim our hard- (or barely-) earned diplomas. That plan did not come to pass. I almost bought the 45 at Gerber Music. But I held off, suspecting I might be receiving the song soon enough via other means.
My first KISS record was the Rock And Roll Over album, a high school graduation gift from my sister in 1977. "Calling Dr. Love" was far, far and away my favorite track on the LP. I did listen to the whole album pretty frequently that summer, a go-to alongside my Beatles, Monkees, Sweet, Rubinoos, Fleetwood Mac, Raspberries, and Boston LPs. I was on the verge of discovering punk, an interest sparked by Phonograph Record Magazine, ignited when WOUR-FM played the Sex Pistols, fanned into a raging inferno when I heard the Ramones' "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker."
"Calling Dr. Love" is not a punk record. But let's consider it a gateway. Not the only one I've ever had. We know what the problem is. The first step of the cure is...KISS!
DETROIT ROCK CITY
I'm pretty sure Destroyer was my second KISS album, my first after Rock And Roll Over. I confess that there was never really a KISS album that I loved; with KISS (as with many other acts), I was an individual song guy rather than a whole LP guy. In the '70s, my primary Destroyer go-tos were the first two tracks on Side One, "Detroit Rock City" and "King Of The Night Time World," and then "Shout It Out Loud" on Side Two. I tried to get into the rest of the album, and I would have probably liked "God Of Thunder" without its special effects. I would have been fine with a four-song Destroyer EP of "Detroit Rock City," "King Of The Night Time World," "Shout It Out Loud," and the hit AM ballad "Beth." I am as a god of thunder made me.
"Detroit Rock City" remains a favorite. Get up, everybody's gonna move their feet, get down, everybody's gonna leave their seat. I avoid getting sucked into arguments about whether or not KISS is power pop; they're not, but honestly, I think some of their songs come closer to my idea of power pop than, say, 20/20's (still wonderful) "Yellow Pills" does.
Your mileage may vary. But look out for that truck ahead.
ROCK AND ROLL ALL NITE [live]
Okay, put aside what I said about "Anything For My Baby." Not only was "Rock And Roll Alll Nite" the first KISS record I ever heard, it is beyond doubt the sine qua non of KISSdom, the one thing without which there is no other thing. I got into the original studio version in the early '80s, when I snapped up a beat-up free copy of the 1975 Dressed To Kill album (same album that gave us "Anything For My Baby"). But the in-concert version from Alive!, also in '75, is definitive. It really is what put KISS on the map, what got them on AM radio, and what brought them to my ears in the first place. Hijinks ensued, even if the result was belated for teen me. Rock 'n' roll all night. Party every day. Message received. Initiative approved. You drive us wild. We'll drive you crazy.
SHOUT IT OUT LOUD
The Greatest Record Ever Made!
My favorite KISS record, and one of my all-time top tracks by anyone. The link above takes you to an early version of its chapter in my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). An infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns.
KISS deserves a turn, or maybe five turns. You wanted the best? Okeydokey. I have my choices, garish and celebratory. I'm happy to shout 'em out loud.
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Carl's new book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is now available, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books. Gabba Gabba YAY!! https://rarebirdlit.com/gabba-gabba-hey-a-conversation-with-the-ramones-by-carl-cafarelli/
If it's true that one book leads to another, my next book will be The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Stay tuned. Your turn is coming.
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.
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