Greatest Kiss

Greatest Kiss is a fine collection of the group's biggest hits presented in their original studio versions, with the notable exception of a live version of "Shout It Out," a track recorded at the opening of the group's 1996 reunion tour that was added to entice dedicated collectors. Ignoring "Shout It Out," Greatest Kiss lives up to its billing, since it captures the band's most familiar material – "Rock & Roll All Night," "Strutter," "Beth," "Cold Gin" – on one disc, making it and Alive the only necessary albums for casual Kiss fans.

Greatest Kiss is a compilation album of greatest hits by the American hard rock band Kiss. It was released in 1997 on Mercury. Along with You Wanted the Best, You Got the Best!!, this album was issued to coincide with the group's 1996–97 Alive/Worldwide Tour. The US version covers only selected hits from 1974 to 1980, with an exclusive live version of "Shout It Out Loud"; the non-US releases include the band's 1992 hit "God Gave Rock 'N' Roll To You II.

Although several other hard rock acts have seen their hits repackaged more times than Kiss (namely the Who, Motörhead, Black Sabbath, etc.), the masked quartet certainly isn't far behind, as 2002 saw the group's latest in a long line of collections, The Very Best of Kiss. Despite recycling many of the same selections over and over on these sets (1978's Double Platinum, 1988's Smashes, Thrashes & Hits, 1997's Greatest Kiss, etc.), fans will flock to the stores to buy any piece of Kiss merchandise to complete their collections, hence the arrival of another of hits. While The Very Best of Kiss does contain a smattering of songs to make their debut on a hits collection…

Alive! was the album that catapulted Kiss from cult attraction to mega-superstars. It was their first Top Ten album, remaining on the charts for 110 weeks. Culled from shows in Detroit, New Jersey, Iowa, and Cleveland on the Dressed to Kill tour, the record features producer Eddie Kramer doing a masterful job of capturing the band's live performance on record…

It should come as no surprise that Enrique Iglesias' 2008 Greatest Hits begins in 1999, when he made the leap from the Latin market into the mainstream. All his very successful '90s albums on Fonovisa are bypassed, written off as prehistory, so the spotlight shines only on his English-language singles of the new millennium: the club tracks and syrupy slow songs that gave him a significant number of crossover hits. With the exception of a couple of minor blips on the charts like 2000's "Sad Eyes," all these are here, starting with 1999's "Bailamos" and "The Rhythm Divine," running through 2000's "Be with You" and 2001's "Hero," stopping for 2004's "Not in Love," winding up with 2007's "Do You Know? (The Ping Pong Song)" and wrapping up with two new duets, "Away" with Sean Garrett and "Takin' Back My Love" with Ciara. While this approach may lop off half of his career, it also does exactly what hits collections should do: it gives the casual listener the hits they want to hear and nothing else.