Kiss Music:

The Very Best of Kiss Track Listing:
1. Strutter
2. Deuce
3. Got to Choose
4. Hotter Than Hell
5. C'mon and Love Me
6. Rock and Roll All Nite [Live]
7. Detroit Rock City
8. Shout It out Loud
9. Beth
10. I Want You
11. Calling Dr. Love
12. Hard Luck Woman
13. I Stole Your Love
14. Christine Sixteen
15. Love Gun
16. New York Groove
17. I Was Made for Lovin' You
18. I Love It Loud
19. Lick It Up
20. Forever
21. God Gave Rock & Roll to You II

Editorial Review:
Japan exclusive 'Memorial Edition' of 2002 compilation featuring 21 tracks. Details TBA. Mercury. 2004.

Description of The Very Best of Kiss:
Sure, Detroit had the MC5 and the Stooges, but Long Island's Kiss threw down their own gauntlet. Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley, and Peter Criss cleaved a spot between glam, punk, waning Woodstock rock, and adult-oriented pop and became a phenomenon in the process. Kiss kept their music simple and, of course, sexual, with the likes of "Hotter than Hell," "Love Gun," and "Calling Dr. Love," paving the way for the waves of pop-metal sexpot wannabes and winning fans in such quantities that they launched the so-called Kiss Army. Their magnetism permeates this 21-song set, with Criss sounding so lonesome he could cry on "Beth," and the fire-breathing, blood-spitting Simmons unfailingly serving up a comical mix of menace and lasciviousness. The version of "Rock & Roll All Nite" comes from 1975's crowd-noise drenched Alive!, cut at the time when live albums were de rigueur. This collection was made smartly enough that only four songs come from the band's post-Dynasty period, making The Very Best of Kiss an essential primer on 1970s rock grandeur. --Andrew Bartlett

The Very Best of Kiss Reviews:
the very best of kiss
2009-11-21 - The CD was in perfect condition. It sounds great. The only problem I have is the amount of time it took to receive it.

The best to start with
2009-11-17 - Yes, it is missing a bunch of tracks, and it isn't exactly the very best of KISS. However, it's a great album for someone who has never heard KISS before. It primarily focuses on the pre-solo album years, and then they use an Ace Frehley track, which is followed by a quick synopsis of KISS afterwards. It goes in chronological order, which is the most logical way to go when doing a compilation album. This album is missing a few classics, but again, the important ones are there. Also, it goes past Dynasty. "I Love it Loud," "Lick it Up," "Forever," and "God Gave Rock and Roll To You II" are definitely the best choices for post Dynasty tracks, and "I Was Made For Lovin' You" is the best choice to use if you're going to use just one track from Dynasty. I've only heard Ace Frehley's solo album of the four, but from what most people have said, his was by far the best. I feel that putting one of the solo album tracks is great in splitting the album into when the original line-up played, and when they had changed members around (even original members were credited). They also rejected the few tracks where they used other musicians instead of original members (I think "Flaming Youth" is the only time when that happened back then), not counting "Beth" obviously.

This is definitely my number one recommendation for a KISS compilation to get, if you get one, but the only other KISS compilation that I've heard is Greatest KISS. Most people would say Double Platinum or Gold, but from what I understand, Double Platinum uses an alternate version of "Strutter," changes the end of "Black Diamond," and uses the "Rock Bottom" introduction for "She," and Gold is a two-disc album that ends before Creatures of the Night, so this is probably the best single disc album to get if you want a single-disc KISS compilation.

You wanted the best, You got the good.
2009-09-02 - It is hard to knock a Kiss compilation and that is not my intention. But it is a disk heavily slanted toward the earliest KISS wit a few of the more recent charting songs. No real inspired picks here.

At this point in their career Kiss should have been more adventurous considering this is the 10th compilation disk (including Live stuff). Classics Like the Peter Criss voiced "Baby Driver", the under appreciated "Thrills in the Night". More adventurous Gene Simmons songs like "Naked City", "Charisma" or the classic metal thunder of "Young and Wasted" would be preferable to yet another pressing of Strutter.

In the end of it all, KISS will be remembered for the lavish stage shows, but this is a shallow dip into what was probably one of the most adventurous and variety filled rock bands of all time. The problem is that a lot of the songs don't fit into the mold of the visual representation of KISS. The Disco themed classic chart buster that was "I Was Made for Lovin' You". The trippy 70's psychedelic adventure of Ace Frehely's "Ozone". Peter Criss's soulful rendition of the classic "Tossin' and Turnin'" or the exquisitely dramatic piano ballad "I Can't Stop the Rain" which puts "Beth' to shame and exposes it as the simplistic predecessor that it is.

I may be nit picking as this is an appropriate intro for new listeners, but maybe the rest of us deserve more than a contract filler disk after almost 30 years.

One of the only good classic rock bands!
2009-05-30 - Face it folks, classic rock is classic crap. Bands like The Who, Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin, The Beetles and The Rolling Stones were all a bunch of groupie-loving drug addicted cringe inducing untalented mongs. "Dark Side of the Moon" is probably the most boring album ever created. Thankfully, KISS made up for all of this with their awesome music! They created heavy metal which was copied by poor imitators like Black Sabbith. Songs like "Love Gun" contained both awesome musicianship and poetry. The only other good classic rock artists are The Darkness, The White Stripes, Elton John's "Victim of Love" album and Bush. If you're new to classic rock, you got to listen to this album. It pwns all that Rush and King Crimson n00b stuff.

An Amazing Collection
2008-07-27 - This is one of the most amazing collections of songs I've ever had the pleasure of listening to. I highly reccomend it to all music fans, KISS fan or not. I give this CD a 10/10. Truly a great collection.