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…