Kiss History Essay, Research Paper

This is a short walktrough in the KISS history. (with credits to Alex Carranza,

from whose KISS FAQ I got most of the material) Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley

met for the first time in 1970, when Gene played one show with Pauls band Uncle

Joe. In 1971 Gene formed the band Rainbow along with Stephen Coronel. Paul

stanley wants to join Rainbow, but is beeing turned down on the phone. This does

not stop Paul from turning up at the auditions, and this time he gets hired.

1972 Rainbow develops into Wicked Lester and gets a record deal with Epic

Records. They record their debut album, but Epic drops the band and the record

is never released. Gene and Paul discovers Peter Criss through an ad in Rolling

Stone Magazine and the band changes name to KISS. In 1973 KISS advertises in

Village Voice for a guitarist, and after auditions they hire Ace Frehley. Now

the band starts wearing makeup, and Ace comes up with the KISS logo. They enter

the Electric Lady Studios in June and record their first album KISS, and in

August they sign a record contract with the new label Casablanca Records. The

album is released in February 1974, and KISS starts of their first tour. In

August they start recording their second album Hotter Than Hell at Village

Recorder Studios in LA, and in October the album is released. The touring goes

on until February 1975, when they start to record their third album Dressed To

Kill, released in March that year. More touring was to come and the recorded

live material resulted in KISS Alive!, released in September 1975 and sold gold

in December. In March 1976 Destroyer, their second goldselling album was

released. The same year in May they made their first performance in Europe on

the "KISS Around The World" tour. This year they also released a tour

album to promote the summer U.S. tour, and Casablanca released the compilation

The Originals, which consisted KISS first three studio albums. In November they

released Rock and Roll Over, and Destroyer recived their first platinum

certification. Love Gun, released in June 1977 became their first record to ship

Platinum, and later that year their second live album Alive II does just the

same. The Alive II tour went on until February 1978, and in April that year the

greatest hits compilation Double Platinum was released. In May and June 1978 the

film KISS Meets The Phantom Of The Park was filmed at Magic Mountain in

Valencia. The film had premiere in October. In September no less than four KISS

albums were released, one soloalbum for each member of the band. In May 1979

Dynasty was released, and a year later in May 1980 Unmasked was released. Now

Peter leaves the band, and Eric Carr replaces him as drummer. In August that

year the first pictures of the band without makeup becomes official. In January

1981 Best Of Solo Albums was released all over the world with exception of North

America. This year KISS recorded and released their first and only concept album

The Elder. In May 1982 the greatest hits album Killers was beeing released all

around the world, once again with the exception of North America. In October

that year the album Creatures Of The Night was out on the market. In November

1982 the KISS lineup changes again when Ace leaves the band, and was replaced by

Vinnie Vincent. In June 25 1983 the band does their last preformance in

makeup… atleast in this era. Later in 1983 Vinnie does his recording debut on

Lick It Up, which was the only KISS album he was involved in. Vinnie was fired

from the band during the European tour, but came back to play the American part

of the tour. When the tour closed in March 1984 Vinnie leaved the band for good,

and Mark St. John took his place. 1984 they released the album Animalize with

Mark on guitar, but later that year he was forced to leave KISS due to a disease

called Reiter’s Syndrome. His place was taken by Bruce Kulick, and in 1985 they

release Asylum. In 1986 the members did all kinds of different stuff besides

KISS, like Gene starring in various movies and so on. Therefore no album was

released this year. In March 1987 the band went into the studio to record a new

album, which was released in September under the name Crazy Nights. To celebrate

that KISS now has been around for 15 years, they released the compilation

Smashes, Thrashes And Hits in November 1988. 1989 the album Hot In The Shade was

released, and the the year after they went on tour with their largest stageshow

ever. In 1991 it was announced that Eric Carr suffered from cancer in the heart,

and in November 24, a very sad day for all KISS fans, he dies due to this. Eric

Singer now takes on the part as drummer in KISS, and in May 1992 the album

Revenge, dedicated to Eric carr, was released. During the Revenge tour the

material to Alive III was recorded, and the album was released in May 1993. In

1994 and 1995 they tour and appeared in various TV-shows. In August the thing

that all fans had wished for happened. The original lineup was reunited for a

stageshow filmed and recorded by MTV, for their unplugged series. The original

lineup preformed two songs, and two more songs was preformed with both the

current and the original lineup. The rest of the show was done with the current

KISS setup at the time. Then the band entered the studio again to record a new

album, which did not not get released at the time, but become known as Head or

Carnival Of Souls. In March 1996 the KISS Unplugged album was released, and

rumors were that there would be a reunion of the original members. The band

wouldn’t comment on this but in February that year they showed up at the Grammy

Award in full makeup. In April they finally announced that they would do a

reuniontour in 1996 and 1997. In June 1996 the album You Wanted The Best, You

Got The Best!, with oldmaterial (some previously unreleased), was released to

celebrate the reuniontour. In europe they also released a compilationalbum

called Greatest KISS in late 1996. Bruce and Eric left the band, and KISS

started out on a big worldtour with the original members. In the summer of 1997

rumers started spreading that the unreleased album was going to be released, and

under the name Carnival Of Souls – The Final Sessions, the album hit the stores

in late october. After the tour the band went into the studio to record a brand

new album with all new material. This album is planned to be on the market in

early 1998, with a major tour following. There will also be a collectors box to

buy in 1998. And the saga continues…