Kiss Alive 1975 Vintage vinyl double gatefold LP with booklet

$

25

• This vintage and classic 1975 LP is in great shape overall with some visable shelfwear & light vinyl playwear. 
• Contains the original insert sleeves
• Contains 8 page full color booklet with a bit of creasing and corner damage at top right

Uncertainty and risk

Despite Kiss' reputation as a live act, which emphasized theatrics as much as it did the music, their notoriety did not translate to increased record sales. 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 Records 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".

[edit]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 proven that there was very very little overdubbing used for the Alive album. These recordings can be seen on YouTube.

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 Ace Frehley's guitar.

Stanley has noted that there's a bass mistake in the choruses of "C'mon and Love Me". He's 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.

[edit]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 (also featuring Alive II, Alive III and Alive! The Millennium Concert). The short running-time of Alive! allowed for a single, unedited CD edition in this latest release. This 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 Frehley.

[edit]Reception

Alive! has received generally positive reviews. Greg Prato of Allmusic rated the album four-and-a-half out of five stars. He stated that "the band's youthful energy is contagious" and that the album contains "positively electric versions of their best early material", "although there's been some speculation of extensive overdubbing to correct mistakes". Erik Rupp, an administrator at Vista Records, rated Alive! five out of five stars. He stated that the album "never lets up" and that "KISS sounds like a freight train roaring down the tracks at top speed." 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 10 out of 10 points, 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".

[edit]Legacy

• In 2006, the album was placed No. 26 on Guitar World magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Albums of All Time.
• It peaked at #9 on the album charts. The album charted for 110 weeks, by far the longest in the band's history.
• In 2003, the album was ranked number 159 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

[edit]Track listing

[edit]Credits

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

with

• Junior Smalling - Introduction

[edit]