“Crazy”: The 1975 album Kiss thought would kill them for good
Given how one of the band’s strengths was always the dramatic displays they would put on during their live performances, it might be hard to comprehend how a live album by Kiss would work without all of the visual stimuli to accompany the sounds.
If you’re just listening to a live recording, you can’t see all of the cannons being fired, the over-the-top face paints being worn by all of the different members in their hellish personas, and for better or worse, you certainly can’t see Gene Simmons’ tongue. Fortunately for Kiss, they have at least always had enough going for them in terms of their musical aptitude, and their music, whether rocking out or catering to their poppier sensibilities, was always going to have enough about it to entertain.
To put it simply, the band may well have made a spectacle out of their live performances, but that shouldn’t take away from the fact that they wrote and recorded some of the most phenomenally bombastic stadium rock anthems of the 1970s and ‘80s, and ultimately, that’s what’s going to help you in your quest to sell records.
The problem for them was, on their first three studio albums, while they’d certainly established something of an identity for themselves, they hadn’t quite managed to capture the attention of enough people and were struggling to meet their own expectations when it came to record sales.
With their self-titled debut and its follow-up, Hotter Than Hell, languishing in the lower positions in the US album charts and barely scraping their way into the top 100, third album Dressed to Kill was a relatively significant leap forward in terms of its reception, but still nowhere near the levels they wanted to be reaching.
Almost desperate to gain some traction after these underwhelming offerings, the band opted to roll the dice and make an effort to grab attention with what could have been a significant risk. However, while onlookers may have thought of it as a potentially career-ending move, it ended up being the best thing they could have done to save their career.
“Alive was the last ditch effort of a band that didn’t break through on the first three records,” Simmons told Music Radar in a 2012 interview, referring to the live album they released in 1975. “Our record company was going out of business. In American football it’s called the Hail Mary pass, you have nothing to lose, so fuck it, go for the crazy throw.”
A live album for a band who had a meagre following compared to the titans of the period feels like commercial suicide, but Simmons continued by saying the they felt as though they had nothing to lose by this point, and that an all-or-nothing approach was going to be the best way to experience a potential downfall. “We decided to put out not just a live album, but a double album. If this was going to be our last record, let’s go out in a blaze of glory.”
Alive ultimately rescued the career of Kiss, and with the release of their commercial breakthrough, Destroyer, early the following year, they had clearly saved themselves from the brink of extinction by making such a bold move. Who said that Kiss needed the visuals to prove they’re an incredible live act?
Never Miss A Tale
The Far Out Classic Rock Newsletter
All the latest Classic Rock content from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.