Alive!
The live album that isn't really a live album — and still saved a band, rescued a label from bankruptcy and laid down the blueprint for fifty years of stadium rock.
Let's address the elephant first: not everything on "Alive!" is live. Guitars were re-recorded, vocals fixed, crowd noise generously distributed — KISS and producer Eddie Kramer built an idealised picture out of raw concert material. Purists still call it a fraud. They are right. It remains one of the most important live albums ever released.
Because in 1975 KISS were a band with three commercially failed studio albums and a reputation that said one thing only: live, they are unbelievable. That phenomenon had to be got onto vinyl — not as a document, but as a promise. And it works: "Deuce" opens with an announcement that sets the hall alight, "Black Diamond" finally gets the force it lacked in the studio, and "Rock And Roll All Nite", a pleasant chorus on record, becomes here the anthem that will feed this band for the next fifty years.
The trick is the pacing. Paul Stanley's between-song patter is ringmaster rhetoric you either love or find unbearable; the songs are trimmed for maximum impact, every solo in the right place, no dead air between numbers. What is being sold is not a concert but the idea of a concert — and that is bigger than any real night.
The age shows regardless. The sound is cramped, the bass a rumour, and anyone who survives the overlong solos in the middle has earned their applause. Four sides of vinyl was not a law of nature in 1975 either.
But the gamble paid off: "Alive!" saved Casablanca Records from bankruptcy and turned a club band into a stadium phenomenon. If you want to understand why KISS are now ceremonially releasing their 1976 Anaheim show as an album, start here. This is the blueprint.
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Strengths
- +Turns solid studio songs into anthems — "Black Diamond", "Deuce"
- +Pacing without dead air: every track trimmed for maximum impact
- +"Rock And Roll All Nite" only becomes the song everyone knows here
- +Defines how a hard rock live album is supposed to sound
Weaknesses
- −Not really live — overdubs and crowd noise were added liberally
- −The sound is cramped, the bass barely there
- −The long solos in the middle test your patience
- −Paul Stanley's patter is an acquired taste — ringmaster mode, full throttle
Verdict
A prettily touched-up document that contains more truth than any honest recording: "Alive!" doesn't sell you a night, it sells you the idea of KISS — and that is bigger than any real concert. Historically indispensable, sonically dated, still a blast.