Kiss

Work is afoot on the Kiss vinyl collection since it got trimmed in the late 80's and early 90's although I've always loved the band and have many of their albums on compact disc. The combination of the album art, sound and nostalgia of the moments when you got the new album and put it on your phonograph all point to a reason to tackle this part of my vinyl project this year.

The core left was:

Alive II -  US Original with the Evolution of Kiss booklet and thick gatefold cover featuring a stage shot.

Double Platinum - US Original in foil jacket and full inserts.

Dynasty - Italian LP

This was replaced by an US original with the poster, original inner sleeve and Kiss Army mechandising leaflet.

The original colour inner design.

Original mechandise leaflet and full colour poster with no pinholes or blu-tack marks.

Unmasked - Italian lp (no poster)

In 2014 the whole Kiss Catalogue was re-issued in remastered form on vinyl and I got a new copy of Unmasked. This included the poster!

Music from The Elder (UK) 

A concept album that introduced us to the late Eric Carr on drums and saw a new Fox make up scheme for him devised for concerts and promotional material and home to the singles I and A World Without Heroes.

Kiss Killers UK (stone mint)

Creatures Of The Night UK CANL 4.

Replacements for ether lost originals or cassette editions:

Dressed To Kill 1975 UK original with some wear to sleeve but Excellent condition vinyl with "Bogart" label

Destroyer US with Kiss Army inner sleeve

Although only VG+ graded apart from a few crackles through Beth this plays really well and sounds much better than any European lp issue I've ever heard.

Rock and Roll Over US copy has stickers and insert but is a bit noisy. 

Love Gun (no gun or merchandise leaflet) US copy.

My copy is a regular Casablanca pressing but for the Columbia Record Club which was a mail order discount club very popular at the time.

It has the same STERLING stamper as the regular shop sale version coming out the same press but has this stamp to denote ist is a "Club Issue".

For some reason the 1982 UK PolyGram re-issue and the first cd issue have a grainy sound with poor high frequency extension but the US original doesn't.

Such measures are common on "Club issues" to ensure discount copies were not being put in regular sales and also to make it easy for them to not be taken as part exchange.

My original copy was bought around March of 1983 although it was a good few years older being a sealed deleted stock item with a small corner triangular cut but sealed,

It has this original merchandising leaflet for Kiss Army products and membership included.

ln addition it had a comic style Love Gun you could push out the card insert, fold and produce your own that would make a loud Bang!

While it is frustrating not have a copy with everything your original did, many of these bits were lost y owners at the time being used as intended and so copies with them are a lot more expensive and in the end it is the music and the inner with the bands logo written on green marble that matters more.