Alive! Box Set

There is no shortage of Kiss collections out there, but, as they used to say before Paul, Gene, Ace, and Peter took the stage, "You wanted the best and you got the best!" Spanning four discs, Alive! 1975-2000 makes a great time capsule for Kiss Army completists, packed with a quarter-century of pictures and band reminiscences. And then there's the music. Remastered and packaged together for the first time, the immortal hard-rock one-two punch of Alive! and Alive II together with 1993's makeup-free Alive III showcase the legendary band in their element: driving audiences wild with their thunderous riffs, bombastic ballads, and shameless showmanship. Previously unreleased, Alive: The Millennium Concert captures the reunited and remasked original lineup at the New Year's Eve 1999 stop on what appears to be a never-ending farewell tour. It's safe to say the definitive live Kiss experience is captured here--from Paul Stanley's barefaced buttering-up of the crowd ("This song is dedicated to you, 'cause this song is about people who know what rock 'n' roll is about") to Peter Criss's nearly-epic "God of Thunder" drum solo, and four, count 'em, four, versions of "Rock and Roll All Nite." Kiss was never a band likely to be accused of understatement, and Alive! 1975-2000 is an appropriately exalted celebration of their excess and excellence. --Ben Heege