Alive! (Kiss album)

Alive!
Live album by Kiss
Released	September 10, 1975
Recorded	March - July 1975
Genre	Hard rock, heavy metal
Length	74:50
Label	Casablanca
Producer	Eddie Kramer
Kiss chronology
Dressed to Kill {1975} Alive! (1975) Destroyer (1976)

Alive! is the first live album, and fourth overall, by American hard rock band Kiss. It is considered to be their breakthrough and a landmark for live albums. Released on September 10, 1975, the double-disc set contains live versions of selected tracks from their first three studio albums, Kiss, Hotter Than Hell and Dressed to Kill. It was recorded from concerts in Detroit, Michigan, Wildwood, New Jersey, Cleveland, Ohio and Davenport, Iowa.

Album information

Despite their reputation and success as a live act, which emphasized theatrics as much as it did music, their notoriety did not translate to increased record sales. Fans told the band that their albums were not capturing how the band sounded live, so the band decided to release a live album. Kiss was essentially surviving on then-manager Bill Aucoin's American Express card. Complicating matters was the fact that their label, Neil Bogart's Casablanca Records, was having financial difficulties of its own stemming from a major misstep. The label had released a double album of Johnny Carson monologues earlier in the year. However, the album was a flop, but Casablanca had pressed millions of copies in anticipation of it being a strong seller.

Casablanca, however, did think a Kiss live album would be a respectable seller. The album outperformed expectations as it was certified gold, becoming both Kiss' and Casablanca's first top ten album. Years later, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons recounted that in the weeks after the release, they saw a significant increase in concert attendance. In the documentary Kiss: X-treme Close Up, Stanley remembers that at one particular show in Dayton, Ohio, "the place was packed; I mean you couldn't have gotten another person in with a shoehorn".

The album's title was an homage to the 1972 live album Slade Alive! from the English rock group Slade, a band that Kiss were heavily influenced by.

Overdubbing controversy

There has been considerable debate as to how much use was made of studio overdubs. Simmons states in his autobiography Kiss and Make-Up, that very little corrective work was done in the studio and that most of the studio time was devoted strictly to mixing down the multi-track recordings. He also emphasized that Kiss could not have done extensive overdubbing even if they had wanted to; thanks in no small part to the Johnny Carson album fiasco, the extremely meager budget allotted to the band simply would not allow it.

The original recordings from the July 23, 1975 concert at the Wildwood Convention Center, "Deuce", "Hotter Than Hell", "Firehouse" and "Black Diamond", along with the June 21, 1975 Cleveland Music Hall Concert, "Rock and Roll All Nite", have shown there was very little overdubbing used for the Alive album. According to Dale Sherman's book Black Diamond and Goldmine magazine, in the early 1990s, Eddie Kramer stated there were a few overdubs to correct the most obvious mistakes: strings breaking or off-key notes, for instance. However, in recent years, Kramer has stated that the only original live recording on the album is Peter Criss' drum tracks. Stanley has noted that there is a bass mistake in the choruses of "C'mon and Love Me". He has also made comments that even though there have been live albums recorded later that make Alive! sound like it was recorded in a washroom, he has no qualms about it. Criss has also claimed, in his 2012 autobiography Makeup to Breakup, that the only original live recordings on the album were his drum tracks.

During the program Classic Albums, the band members all stated that while many changes had been made, such as overdubbing vocals and mixing together various crowd sounds to get a more amplified sense of the 'live' sound, they considered the changes minor. In particular, they stated that they only altered the noise of the crowd to better capture the feel of the actual performances, since the raw recordings only dimly picked up the audience. They also stated that they had difficulties capturing vocals due to the natural jumps, dancing, and other stage activities.

Re-release

Alive! was first issued as a 2CD set in what has now become known as a 'fatboy' 2CD case. When the Kiss back-catalogue was remastered it was housed in a slimline 2CD case, and in keeping with the rest of the reissue program, had the artwork restored. Alive! was re-released in 2006 as part of the Kiss Alive! 1975–2000 box set. The short running-time of Alive! allowed for a single, unedited CD edition in this release. The remastered CD edition eliminates the breaks between the four sides of the original LP release, resulting in this version of the album playing as one continuous performance. The 72-page booklet that comes with the CD set erroneously credits songwriting for "Cold Gin" to Stanley instead of Ace Frehley.

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
Blender
Robert Christgau	B-
Pitchfork Media	10/10
The Rolling Stone Album Guide

Alive! received positive reviews. Greg Prato of Allmusic rated the album four-and-a-half stars out of five and stated that "Alive! remains Kiss' greatest album ever." Robert Christgau rated the album a B-, stating that he and "the multimillion kids who are buying it" "fall into neither category" of those who regard the album "as a de facto best-of" and "those who regard it as the sludge."

In The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, the album was rated four out of five stars. It was called "a nonstop Kiss-krieg of two-note guitar motifs, fake-sounding audience noise, and inspirational chitchat", but it was then restated as the next best thing to being there, clearly. Jason Josephes of Pitchfork Media rated it ten out of ten points and said that "the album may seem like a joke, mainly because it contains every arena rock cliche in the book", but called it "total sonic proof of Kiss climbing their apex".

Alive! peaked at #9 on the album charts, and charted for 110 weeks, by far the longest in the band's history. In 2003, the album was ranked #159 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 2006, it was placed at #26 on Guitar World magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Albums of All Time. In 2009, the same magazine placed it at #3 on their list of Top 10 Live Albums.

Track listing

Side one

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Lead vocals	Length
1.	"Deuce"	Gene Simmons	Simmons	3:56
2.	"Strutter"	Paul Stanley, Simmons	Stanley	3:22
3.	"Got to Choose"	Stanley	Stanley	3:40
4.	"Hotter Than Hell"	Stanley	Stanley	3:30
5.	"Firehouse"	Stanley	Stanley	3:50

Side two

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Lead vocals	Length
6.	"Nothin' to Lose"	Simmons	Simmons, Peter Criss	3:33
7.	"C'mon and Love Me"	Stanley	Stanley	3:05
8.	"Parasite"	Frehley	Simmons	3:34
9.	"She"	Simmons, Stephen Coronel	Simmons, Stanley	6:56

Side three

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Lead vocals	Length
10.	"Watchin' You"	Simmons	Simmons	3:49
11.	"100,000 Years"	Stanley, Simmons	Stanley	12:12
12.	"Black Diamond"	Stanley	Criss, intro by Stanley	6:16

Side four

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Lead vocals	Length
13.	"Rock Bottom"	Frehley, Stanley	Stanley	3:21
14.	"Cold Gin"	Frehley	Simmons	7:16
15.	"Rock and Roll All Nite"	Stanley, Simmons	Simmons	3:59
16.	"Let Me Go, Rock 'n' Roll"	Stanley, Simmons	Simmons	5:45

Personnel

Kiss

• Paul Stanley - rhythm guitar, vocals
• Gene Simmons - bass guitar, vocals
• Ace Frehley - lead guitar
• Peter Criss - drums, vocals

With

• JR Smalling - introduction

Charts

Album - Billboard (North America)

Year	Chart	Position
1975	Pop albums	9

Singles - Billboard (United States)

Year	Single	Chart	Position
1975	"Rock and Roll All Nite" (Live)	Pop singles	12

Singles - Billboard (Austria)

Year	Single	Chart	Position
1975	"Rock and Roll All Nite" (Live)	Pop Singles	18

Singles - Billboard (Canada)

Year	Single	Chart	Position
1975	"Rock and Roll All Nite" (Live)	Pop singles	12

International album charts

Chart	Peak Position
U.S.A.	9
Austria	13
Canada	3
Japan	56
Norway	31
Sweden	22
U.K.	49

Certifications

Region	Certification	Sales/shipments
Canada (Music Canada)	Gold	50,000^
United States (RIAA)	Gold	500,000^
^shipments figures based on certification alone