Kiss, The band that shook up the world at a time when rock music was finding its own voice. You wanted the best? You got the best!!! The hottest band in the world.... KISS!!!
You can listen to Pat from the Bead Speaks Podcast and V from Creativity Talkin on this months special Cross Over Event as they dive into every Kiss album from the makeup years and the original line up. Listen to the audio podcast here and watch the live stream video here.
Kiss (stylized as KIϟϟ) is an American rock band formed in New York City in 1973 by Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley, and Peter Criss. Known for its members' face paint and stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid-1970s with shock rock-style live performances, which featured fire-breathing, blood-spitting, smoking guitars, shooting rockets, levitating drum kits, and pyrotechnics. The band has gone through several lineup changes, with Stanley and Simmons the only consistent members. The original and best-known lineup consisted of Stanley (vocals and rhythm guitar), Simmons (vocals and bass), Frehley (lead guitar and vocals), and Criss (drums and vocals).
With their makeup and costumes, the band members took on the personae of comic book-style characters: the Starchild (Stanley), the Demon (Simmons), the Spaceman or Space Ace (Frehley), and the Catman (Criss). Due to creative differences, Criss departed the band in 1980 and Frehley in 1982, though both would return later.
In 1983, Kiss began performing without makeup and costumes, marking the beginning of the band's "unmasked" era that would last for over a decade. The band experienced a commercial resurgence during this era, with the Platinum-certified album Lick It Up successfully introducing them to a new generation of fans, and its music videos receiving regular airplay on MTV. Eric Carr, who had replaced Criss in 1980, died in 1991 of heart cancer and was replaced by Eric Singer. In response to a wave of Kiss nostalgia in the mid-1990s, the original lineup reunited in 1996, which also saw the return of its makeup and stage costumes. The resulting reunion tour was highly successful, grossing $143.7 million, making it the band's most successful tour to date. Criss and Frehley subsequently left the band again, and have been replaced by Singer and Tommy Thayer, respectively. The band has continued with its original stage makeup, with Singer and Thayer using the original Catman and Spaceman makeup, respectively. In September 2018, Kiss announced that, after 45 years of recording and performing, it would embark on its final tour, the End of the Road World Tour, which started in January 2019 and is currently set to conclude in 2023
Kiss is regarded as one of the most influential rock bands of all time, as well as one of the bestselling bands of all time, claiming to have sold more than 100 million records worldwide, including 21 million RIAA-certified albums. Kiss has also earned 30 Gold albums, the most of any band from the United States. Kiss has 14 Platinum albums, three of which earned multi-Platinum. On April 10, 2014, the four original members of Kiss were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Kiss was ranked by MTV as the ninth "Greatest Metal Band of All Time", and placed tenth on VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock" list, as well as being ranked as the third "Best Metal and Hard Rock Live Band of All Time" by Loudwire magazine.
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