Greatest Misses: Kiss (Spotify Playlist)

I’m starting a new music series on this site that I call Greatest Misses, with a debt owed to the Devo collection of the same name. The premise is simple — I ID the least listened-to song for every (or most) of a band’s studio records available on Spotify.

A few caveats: Short, interlude-type songs don’t count for me, and I also don’t count live albums, compilations, or records of the like.

Up first is Kiss, for whom every studio albums is currently available as of this posting except for 2009’s Sonic Boom.

Not surprisingly, this 20-song playlist is composed almost entirely of deep cuts that only the diehards would know (think “Two Timer” from Dressed to Kill or “Murder in High Heels” from Animalize.)

But there are a few ones I was shocked to see heard so little. “Escape from the Island” is a great instrumental and one of the few truly excellent rock tracks from Music from “The Elder.” Ditto for “Got Love for Sale” from Love Gun, which lost out to the album-ending clunker “Then She Kissed Me” of all tracks.

One thing I couldn’t help noticing was how Gene Simmons-heavy this playlist is. 12 of the 20 songs are Gene’s, six are Paul Stanley’s, with one group vocal and the aforementioned instrumental.

Anyway, give it a listen and see if you agree with the masses. Because to be honest, some of my favorite Kiss songs are on this thing.