10 Bands That Changed Rock And Roll
8. KISS
At the dawn of rock and roll, there was no real sense of dress code behind anything. Only in a genre like this could you get heartthrobs like Elvis Presley and dorky looking guys like Buddy Holly and they'd both be just as successful. Even when the T shirt and jeans route was starting up in the '70s, KISS arrived looking like something straight out of a comic book.
Despite some of the more outlandish performers before them like Jimi Hendrix and Alice Cooper, KISS were the first ones to really create some dark mystique behind the music on their records. Aside from their straight ahead rock formula, each member had their own separate agenda whenever they approached the stage, from Ace Frehley looking like he'd been dropped from another planet to Gene Simmons' Demon persona having bubbled up from the bowels of hell.
Most importantly, these guys took the "show" part of the rock show very seriously, turning their entire performance into a spectacle. You weren't just going to get a bunch of guys jamming for an hour...this was all out anarchy on a platform, with everything from blood spitting to flying into the rafters happening at every turn. Bands had better be taking notes, because the baseline for the rock show just went up a few notches.