Double Platinum (Remastered)by KISS

The first in a seemingly endless line of Kiss compilations, Double Platinum is also perhaps one of the first remix albums ever. A strange idea considering that this was released in 1978, and most rock bands then and now are not big on remixing material that they were satisfied with originally. Of course, one listen to Alive! or Alive II proves that Kiss in studio hardly the captured the raw, raucous glory of Kiss on stage. That being said, the remixes here do not increase the heaviness or energy of any of these songs; most of them merely sound like alternate takes. It is strange that this wasn't marketed as a "remix album" or something similar considering that there was only one new track available, a rerecording of "Strutter" whose disco flavor was a sign of things to come, when looking at the track listing alone. In fact, only half of the material here is left in its original form, and although the severity of the remixing varies from track to track, this is still just as interesting a listen for fanatical collectors as it is for curious neophytes for this reason.

What's most impressive about Double Platinum to this day is its tracklist. A nearly disc-filling 20 songs covers most everything anyone new to Kiss would need or want to be familiar with. To be sure, there are numerous high-quality album cuts not present here. However, when an album track is chosen over a single, it is a far better choice in most cases (e.g. "100,000 Years" over "Nothin' to Lose"; "Do You Love Me" over "Flaming Youth"). The remixes are mostly unremarkable to virgin ears, too, a couple of them even arguably improving on their original album counterparts (e.g. the annoying ending of "Black Diamond" is gone; "Detroit Rock City" loses its extended intro). Nevertheless, two of the bands biggest hits from this era, "Shout It Out Loud" and "Christine Sixteen" are not present, both of which could've easily replaced the likes of "Firehouse" and "She".

Double Platinum really had the potential to be the perfect Kiss album for newbies, if not a gamer-changer for the way that "greatest hits" albums are perceived in the same way that Alive! was for live albums. Had its admittedly generous song selection been ordered chronologically, not been edited as much, and included the two aforementioned hit singles, it would've been flawless. Even so, there is no better single-disc Kiss collection, and even though others are more comprehensive (this only covers the first six albums), non-fans needn't bother with anything after Kiss's golden age, which essentially ended here, anyway.