20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Kiss, Vol. 3

It's interesting that the three volumes of Kiss' Millennium Collection (shouldn't that be "Kollektion"!) have been broken into 1974-1979, 1982-1990, and now 1992-1999 with Volume 3, the weirdest of the bunch. Had the makeup years been spread across two volumes, the series would make much more sense and be able to stretch three volumes long. Instead, Volume 3 has to cover the last bit of the non-makeup years and the big reunion of the original members along with the ugly, bloated new album that came with it, Psycho Circus. Along the way there's Carnival of Souls, the album that was sorta shelved to make way for the Unplugged album, which marked the tentative return of Ace Frehley and Peter Criss. Best part of this whole era was the reunion tour, but that remains undocumented officially on CD, so with nothing to pull from, Volume 3 has to pull everything released around and outside of the main event. That's good news if you've been waiting for "Nothing Can Keep Me from You" from the Detroit Rock City soundtrack to show up on a pure Kiss release. Showing a little effort on the compilers' part, the Unplugged version of "Got to Choose," which was previously a vinyl-only bonus track, is here, and they have generally made the right choices considering the motley crew of albums they're stuck with. The concept of one disc per decade just doesn't work for this group, but considering the bogus rules it had to play by, Volume 3 tries hard and includes a couple tasty rarities that hardcore fans will appreciate.