The Top Ten Songs by Kiss
That was a decade ago and for my 21st birthday, I got to see Kiss live in St. Louis. I have seen them again since then and would not hesitate to do it again.
So, from a lifelong Kiss fan (complete with the “Kiss shrine” in my computer room, here are the top ten songs by Kiss.
I had to debate number one with my wife, but eventually I won because I’ve been a fan longer. The best Kiss song of all time has to be “Beth”.
My wife made strong arguments for “Hard Luck Woman” which I will happily acknowledge as second best. I’m not sure she bought the argument that “Peter Criss is a better song writer than Paul Stanley and that’s why ‘Beth’ is a better song,” but, well, I win.
“Beth” and “Hard Luck Woman” both exhibit the softer side of the band, while making it clear that they can still rock.
Both songs are easily in the top ten Kiss songs and maybe in the top ten songs of the decade. The ballads were always something Kiss did well, even much later when Paul Stanley shared songwriting credits with Michael Bolton on “Forever”.
Number three on my list is “Back in the New York Groove”. Technically, the song is Ace Frehley, not Kiss, but it was made when all four band members did solo projects and released them, so I think it counts. Ace is probably my favorite member of the band, so including something that was purely Ace was okay with me.
Of course, no list of Kiss top songs would be complete without “Rock and Roll All Nite.” It’s number four on the list with “God Gave Rock and Roll to You” a close fifth.
In the sixth position is another tribute to my wife and her roots, “Detroit Rock City.” The movie with Edward Furlong is okay too. Strangely, we reached the bottom half of the top ten list before we hit the really rocking songs. And, it was just for a moment.
For the longest time, music from The Elders was a hard album to come by, but “A World Without Heroes” is definitely one of the best things Kiss ever did. For years, I was disappointed that it was such a difficult song to come by, kind of like the video for Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park. “A World Without Heroes” is my number seven song and would have ranked higher if I thought more people had heard it.
My number eight song is “God of Thunder.” As with all top ten lists, this list is very personal and that song is on the list for very personal reasons. When you have parents like mine and a middle name like Thor, the “God of Thunder” jokes are just a given. Better to embrace it than scorn it.
Coming in at number nine is “Do You Love Me? and number ten is “I Love it Loud.” One of the greatest appeals of Kiss through the ages was their ability to meld musical styles with the generation of music listeners who were buying albums and somehow meld the current sound into a rock anthem.
For the record, there were a lot of also-rans in this crowd, some disqualified from the top ten because of the content like “Plaster Caster”.
“Strutter” was disqualified because it is the name and anthem of a Kiss cover band that I have seen and that left me in pain, not because they were horrible musicians or anything like that, but because they tried so hard to emulate Kiss that one member breathed fire on stage, in a tiny little entertainment complex with very low ceilings and very sensitive smoke detectors. I imagine it will be years before I can listen to “Strutter” again without hearing fire alarms in my head.
Other songs, I eliminated because the memory of them made my wife giggle. She said something about the video for “X in Sex” and just not being able to take “Calling Dr. Love” seriously. Honestly, there are few songs by Kiss that I take “seriously”. Mostly, this is simply a fun band that I grew up loving and still do.
