Best charting hit for KISS didn't even feature Paul Stanley on lead vocals

KISS is undoubtedly one of the biggest and most famous rock and roll bands in the genre's history. They had a huge impact on what rock music evolved into in the 1980s.

The band first hit the charts in 1974 with a song appropriately named "Kissing Time." For the rest of that decade, they became famous for unapologetic rock anthems like "Rock and Roll All Night," "Calling Dr. Love," and "Shout it Out Loud," among many others.

Apart from the music itself, they were famous for never appearing on stage without their signature face paint. It kept their faces unknown to the public and created an air of mystery about them.

What was KISS' highest charting song and who sang it?

In 1983, just as the Hair Band Era of rock and roll took off, KISS released "Lick It Up." Ironically, it was the first time they went sans make-up, just as other bands like Motley Crue, Poison, and others were donning makeup as part of their look.

In the mid-to-late-eighties, the band enjoyed moderate success with songs like "Lick It Up," "Heaven's on Fire," "Tears Are Falling," and "Reason to Live," as well as a handful of others. Most of these songs firmly made it into the Billboard Hot 100, but none cracked the top 40.

In 1990, they released the ballad "Forever." It became their second-highest charting song, reaching as high as number eight.

In 1976, the band released their terrific rock anthem single, "Detroit Rock City," but a ballad on the B-side of that single that became their highest-charting song of all time. That song was "Beth."

Drummer Peter Criss had previously been in a band called Chelsea and had co-written "Beth" with a member of that band, Stan Penridge. That band never recorded it, so Criss brought it with him. There is a lot of controversy over just how much input Criss had in the writing of the song, according to JimBeviglia of American Song Writer.

Regardless of how much writing Criss did on the song, he sang lead vocals when KISS recorded it. The song was a big hit and peaked at number seven on the charts in September 1976.

The success KISS had with "Beth" became a blueprint for rock bands in the 1980s. Bands would record a record full of rock and roll, with a couple of ballads mixed in. These ballads seemed to be some of the best charting songs for these bands. Think about Motley Crue's "Home Sweet Home," Poison's "Every Rose Has it's Thorn," Dokken's "Alone Again," and Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child O' Mine." It was a formula that worked over and over throughout the eighties.

It's very ironic that one of the biggest rock anthem bands in history had two ballads as their highest chart songs. This is even more so when you consider their biggest hit didn't even feature Paul Stanley on lead vocals, but Peter Criss.

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