Kiss
Released
Rough and ready sounding, quickly recorded, but also drawing on songs that Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons had been working out since their Wicked Lester days, Kiss’s debut album made no significant commercial impact at the time, even if it was the first wide introduction of their now famous imagery and makeup. But a huge part of the album became live Kiss standards and then hard rock ones over time, the blasting, attitude-driven “Strutter,” “Firehouse” and “Deuce,” the snarling drinker’s anthem “Cold Gin,” and the closing “Black Diamond” among them.