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 All news should be considered an unconfirmed report unless verified, and all information published at KISS Asylum is attributed to the source from which it was received so that readers may judge the validity of the statements for themselves. All information is confirmed where possible, and all publication is governed by common sense.
From: USA Today We've looked at the SoundScan-era sales of Rush and Donna Summer, and while I doubt if it changed any minds about whether those acts deserved induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it was interesting data. Today we'll take a look at the other member of your triumvirate of artists most unfairly excluded from the Hall (your opinion, not necessarily mine): KISS. Like Rush and Summer, KISS' sales heyday came long before 1991, when SoundScan began tabulating record sales. They sold (and their label pressed) a ton of records in the '70s; these SoundScan-era numbers will represent just a fraction of those older titles' totals. Still, it's always intriguing to see what's continuing to sell and what's mired in the doledrums. The long list follows. Year of release Title: Sales 1974 Kiss: 174,000 1974 Hotter Than Hell: 153,000 1975 Dressed to Kill: 166,000 1975 Alive: 258,000 1976 Destroyer: 580,000 1976 Rock and Roll Over: 183,000 1977 Love Gun: 193,000 1977 Alive II: 295,000 1978 Double Platinum: 510,000 1978 PETER CRISS: 23,000 1978 ACE FREHLEY: 46,000 1978 GENE SIMMONS: 31,000 1978 PAUL STANLEY: 33,000 1979 Dynasty: 157,000 1980 Unmasked: 171,000 1981 Music From The Elder: 110,000 1982 Creatures of the Night: 148,000 1983 Lick It Up: 92,000 1984 Animalize: 93,000 1985 Asylum: 81,000 1987 Crazy Nights: 104,000 1988 Smashes, Thrashes & Hits: 810,000 1989 Hot in the Shade: 112,000 1990 First Kiss: 786 (hmm..., what is this, anyway?) 1992 Revenge: 596,000 1993 Alive III: 552,000 1996: MTV Unplugged: 300,000 1996 You Wanted the Best, You Got the Best!!: 329,000 1997 Greatest Kiss: 394,000 1997 Carnival of Souls -- The Final Sessions (not quite, actually): 175,000 1998 Psycho Circus: 479,000 2001 Box Set: 141,000 2002 Very Best: 433,000 2003 The Millennium Collection: 311,000 2003 Symphony: Alive IV: 134,000 2005 Gold ('74-'82): 105,000 Total: 8.6 million So what can we conclude about latter-day KISS fans from all this? They like hits collections: Smashes, Thrashes is the band's best-selling album of the SoundScan era, and other, largely redundant collections have solid sales. The live albums score well, especially III, which actually came out during the SoundScan era. Destroyer is by far the best seller of the early studio albums. Hard to argue with this esthetically, considering the metafictional pinnacle that is Detroit Rock City is on this album. There are about 90,000-100,000 fans out there that have to have everything in CD form. Except the four simultaneously released solo albums from 1978. And Ace is still winning that battle (of course, he had the only hit from the releases, his cover of Hello's New York Groove). |
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