Credit: Far Out / Alberto Cabello / Led Zeppelin

“Hands down”: the band Gene Simmons picked over Led Zeppelin

Wed 27 May 2026 15:00, UK

If push came to shove, who would you choose to keep over the other, Led Zeppelin or The Jeff Beck Group?

I know I’d certainly have a hard time choosing which to keep and which to discard (although, perhaps not for the same reason as most other people would do), but Gene Simmons didn’t find it such a conundrum.

In a 2023 interview outlining ten albums that changed his life, Simmons selected a fair few discs that might come as a surprise if you’ve got even a passing familiarity with the music he made with Kiss.

First up was the 1962 compilation Ray Charles Greatest Hits. Technically, that’s a bit of a cheat, since choosing a greatest hits album when discussing life-changing records can feel like a cop-out. Still, most of the songs collected here had previously only been released as singles, so we’ll let Simmons off the hook, especially considering Charles also released the landmark Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music that same year.

Simmons’ next pick was The Beatles’ White Album, and he explained the choice by saying, “The Beatles’ White Album is one of my favourites because you’re seeing turmoil within perhaps the greatest band that ever existed,” and before long, he was back to a bunch of other greatest hits selections. Dave Clark Five, Greatest Hits. Patsy Cline, Greatest Hits. ABBA, Greatest Hits. James Brown, 20 All-Time Greatest Hits!

Among these Accidentally Partridge choices (“What’s your favourite Beatles album?” – “I’d have to say The Best of The Beatles“), was something potentially even more contentious than picking a load of Greatest Hits releases amongst your all-time favourite albums.

His pick for an album from The Jeff Beck Group was another cheat, as Simmons opted for the 1991 combination release of Truth and Beck-Ola – actually, they’d been released as two separate albums, in 1968 and 1969, before being bundled together a quarter of a century later, but even still, that’s not the part that most people would take issue with.

“Before Led Zeppelin”, Simmons explained, “There was a band called the Jeff Beck Group, and then Jimmy Page heard what Jeff was doing and said, ‘I got to put a band together,’ and he formed Led Zeppelin. For me, if I had my druthers, playing the first two Led Zeppelin records or the first two Jeff Beck Group records, it’s the Jeff Beck Group, hands down.”

Not that he didn’t like what Led Zeppelin were doing as well, as he also included Led Zeppelin’s eponymous debut album in his list, alongside the Kiss album Destroyer and The Who’s Tommy.

So sure, Gene Simmons thinks the first two Jeff Beck Group records are better than the first two Led Zeppelin releases, but who does he think has the better greatest hits collection?