KISS Alive I DOUBLE LIVE LP

Alive! is Kiss' fourth album and is considered their breakthrough, as well as a landmark for live albums. Released on September 10, 1975, the double-disc set contains live versions of selected tracks from their first three studio albums, Kiss, Hotter Than Hell, and Dressed to Kill.

Despite Kiss' reputation as a live act, which emphasized theatrics (such as explosions, smoking guitar solos, fire breathing, and blood spitting), as much as it did the music, their notoriety did not translate to increased record sales. Kiss was essentially surviving on then-manager Bill Aucoin's American Express card. Complicating matters was the fact that their label, Neil Bogart's Casablanca Records, was having financial difficulties of its own stemming from a major misstep: the label had released a double album of Johnny Carson monologues earlier in the year. However, the album was a flop, and Casablanca Records had pressed millions of copies in anticipation. The band and Aucoin were nevertheless able to convince Bogart that a memento of a Kiss show would boost their album sales.
Years later, both guitarist Paul Stanley and bassist Gene Simmons recounted that in the weeks after the release, they saw a significant increase in concert attendance. In the documentary Kiss: X-treme Close Up, Stanley remembers that at one particular show in Dayton, Ohio, "the place was packed; I mean you couldn't have gotten another person in with a shoehorn."

Overdubbing controversy

There has been considerable debate as to how much use was made of studio overdubs. Gene Simmons states in his autobiography Kiss and Make-Up that very little corrective work was done in the studio and that most of the studio time was devoted strictly to mixing down the multi-track recordings. He also emphasized that Kiss could not have done extensive overdubbing even if they had wanted to; thanks in no small part to the Johnny Carson album fiasco, the extremely meager budget allotted to the band simply would not allow it.
According to Dale Sherman's book Black Diamond and Goldmine magazine, in the early 1990s, Eddie Kramer stated there were a few overdubs to correct the most obvious mistakes: strings breaking or off-key notes, for instance. However, in recent years, Kramer has stated that the only original live recording on the album is Ace Frehley's guitar. In a recent televised interview, he also stated the only original live recording on the album is Peter Criss' drums. In addition, on the recent VH1 special of the story of Kiss, the band members themselves make it more known that the album was severely doctored in the studio, and various musicians comment on the album in this special, revealing how disappointed they were to find out their heroes doctored the supposed "live" album in the studio.
Paul Stanley has noted that there's a bass mistake in the choruses of "C'mon and Love Me." He's also made comments that even though there have been live albums recorded later that make Alive! sound like it was recorded in a washroom, he has no qualms about it.
It peaked at #9 on the album charts. The album charted for 110 weeks, by far the longest in the band's history.
In 2003, the album was ranked number 159 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Track listing
# Title Writer(s) Lead vocals Length
1. "Deuce" Gene Simmons Gene Simmons 3:32
2. "Strutter" Paul Stanley, Simmons Paul Stanley 3:12
3. "Got to Choose" Stanley Stanley 3:35
4. "Hotter Than Hell" Stanley Stanley 3:11
5. "Firehouse" Stanley Stanley 3:42
6. "Nothin' to Lose" Simmons Simmons, Peter Criss 3:23
7. "C'mon and Love Me" Stanley Stanley 2:52
8. "Parasite" Frehley Simmons 3:21
9. "She" Simmons, Stephen Coronel Simmons, Stanley 6:42
10. "Watchin' You" Simmons Simmons 3:51
11. "100,000 Years" Stanley, Simmons Stanley 12:10
12. "Black Diamond" Stanley Criss, intro by Stanley 5:50
13. "Rock Bottom" Frehley, Stanley Stanley 4:59
14. "Cold Gin" Frehley Simmons 5:43
15. "Rock and Roll All Nite" Stanley, Simmons Simmons 4:23
16. "Let Me Go, Rock 'n' Roll" Stanley, Simmons Simmons 5:45

Paul Stanley - rhythm guitar, vocals
Gene Simmons - bass guitar, vocals
Ace Frehley - lead guitar
Peter Criss - drums, vocals