KISS: You Wanted The Best, You Got The Best! : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

You want the best? When it comes to Kiss on record, you've probably got it already: "Alive," "Alive II," "Destroyer," "Love Gun." This shameless reunion-promotion biscuit is just a culling from those first two live albums (which are basically the group's current set list) padded out with four drippy leftovers from the Alive library and an astonishingly dull interview with Jay Leno that takes up an entire third of the disc. The Leno bull session is strictly jive goods - a kid-gloves exchange that makes a Barbara Walters special sound like the Spanish Inquisition - and a low marketing blow from a band that has always prided itself on giving big bang for their fans' bucks. Cynicism on a stick.

"Filthy Lucre Live" is, in theory, an even bigger ripoff: a live reprise of the entire "Never Mind the Bollocks" album (plus the odd '70s-vintage B side) for no reason other than wringing a little extra cash from old chaos. Surprise! With a muscularity and vengeful ardor that no one had any right to expect, the reunited Pistols piss all over their punk-rock juniors and reaffirm that, yes, many moons ago - before Malcolm McLaren took history into his own greedy hands and turned the group into a situationist farce - the original Sex Pistols were a killer band, full of