Kiss: self-titled [CASABLANCA/MERCURY/UNIVERSAL]

Why you'll love it

This 180g Back to Black edition includes a download voucher and "Kissin' Time," added to the album a few months after it first came out. It's the record that introduced the makeup, the riffs and a stage show to match.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Download card included
• Pressed in the EU
• Stereo mix

About the album

Kiss played their first show behind this album on February 5, 1974, at the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium in Edmonton, so as far as we're concerned the hottest band in the land started out as an Alberta story. Three days later Casablanca put the record out, with a launch party complete with palm trees and a Humphrey Bogart lookalike.

Much of it was written by Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley in their earlier band Wicked Lester, and producers Kenny Kerner and Richie Wise cut the lot at Bell Sound Studios in New York in about thirteen days. "Strutter" and "Deuce" became concert staples for decades, "Cold Gin" is Ace Frehley's barroom stomper, "Firehouse" got the full siren treatment on stage, and "Black Diamond" closes with Peter Criss on lead vocals and a slow, crushing finale.

Joel Brodsky shot the cover in his Manhattan studio on January 31, 1974, and the photo, with Criss's tribal lion makeup done by the pros, became an instant classic. Everybody else in the band did their own face, which explains a great deal about the eyeliner budget.

Also at Kops: more Kiss on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Casablanca / Mercury, a reissue of the 1974 album.