Kiss has enjoyed a lengthy professional career since its debut recording, Kiss (Casablanca, 1974) through Monster (Universal, 2012), its last commercially released studio album, and the many live recordings issued, the most recent being Off the Soundboard: HemisFair Arena, San Antonio, Texas - December 3, 1985 (Eagle Rock, 2025). The band will play their first show since the "End of the Road" farewell tour (that began January 31, 2019, at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, Canada and concluded on December 2, 2023 at Madison Square Garden in New York City), at a special unmasked concert in Las Vegas from November 14-16, 2025, during the KISS Army Storms Vegas fan convention.
One cannot ignore that longevity.
Commercially released on September 10, 1975, Alive! included performances from four spring shows that supported its most recent studio album, Dressed To Kill (Casablanca, 1975), released on March 19, 1975:
May 16, 1975 (Cobo Arena, Detroit)
June 21, 1975 (Cleveland Music Hall, Cleveland)
July 20, 1975 (RKO Orpheum Theater, Davenport)
July 23, 1975 (Wildwoods Convention Center, Wildwood)
At the time of its release, Alive! received mostly negative and mixed reviews from music critics. Rolling Stone magazine judged the band's music to be "awful, criminally repetitive, thuddingly monotonous ... and mildly entertaining for about ten minutes", while noting that Casablanca promoted Kiss as “new bad-boy teen idols.”1 Robert Christgau, writing in his Consumer Guide ‘70s, opined "bemused curiosity" for the album and stated that, while many considered the album to be either "a de facto best-of" or "sludge", he and "the multimillion kids who are buying it don't fall into either category"2.
But time was kind to the band and the recording. AllMusic considered “Alive! to be "Kiss' greatest album ever,”3 while the The New Rolling Stone Album Guide,described the album as "a nonstop Kiss-Krieg of two-note guitar motifs, fake-sounding audience noise, and inspirational chitchat," and also "the next best thing to being there,”4 Finally, Pitchfork gushed that "the album may seem like a joke, mainly because it contains every arena rock cliche in the book," but noting its "total sonic proof of Kiss climbing their apex."5
Clearly, the band and this recording have legs.
Including Kiss Alive! on this “The 100 Best Live Recordings” is completely appropriate considering the popularity of this record among the band’s many fans, who rabidly swear by its excitement, danger and rock & roll quality. This inclusion will also reveal a glaring prejudice of the writer: something that should never find its way into any self-respecting article of this sort.
Imagine our luck as neither this writer nor this article could be considered “self-respecting.”
I have never taken “Make-Up” bands seriously. This includes Kiss, Alice Cooper (except for the exquisite “Under My Wheels”), Twisted Sister, and all their bastard children (Mötley Crüe) coming to popularity in the ‘80s. Hell, it took me 50 years to fully appreciate David Bowie, whose talent outstrips all the aforementioned by light years. I will not (try to) reconcile the inclusion of Alive! on the same best-of list with At Fillmore East because there is none. Nor do I have any recommendations for Alive! as clearly, it needs none (see above).
Niester, Alan. “Alive!” Rolling Stone, 1976. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/alive-91720/.
Robertchristgau.com. “Robert Christgau: CG Book ’70s: K,” 2025. https://www.robertchristgau.com/get_chap.php?k=K&bk=70.
AllMusic. “Alive!,” September 10, 1975. https://www.allmusic.com/album/alive%21-mw0000650368.
Rolling Stone. “Kiss,” 2022. https://www.rollingstone.com/t/kiss/. Archived from the original Rolling Stone article.
Josephes, Jason. "Kiss: Alive!". Pitchfork Media. Archived from the original on November 2, 2005. Retrieved June 28, 2011.