I grew up a big KISS fan, most of my love for music came from an interview I heard when I was like 12 from Gene Simmons where he basically said: "Be a fan of music, not just of a band, listen to the people that influenced your favorite bands and the people that influenced them, its a much deeper experience".
So I've actively been a fan of music ever since.
As for KISS, my favorite albums are the first 3.
KISS (1974)
Hotter Than Hell (1974)
Dressed To Kill (1975)
In just over a year the band put out the foundation for the rest of their entire career, and the top 3 albums they ever did in my opinion. the early albums to me are like the first 3 James Bond films, they were original and set the pace.
I like the style of the early albums, an extension of the 50's rock'N'roll era but with cool guitar licks and a little more attitude.
The first three studio albums sound grittier and rawer than the cleaner sounding albums that followed, and even have more of a whole live feeling to me. All of the songs from the first three albums ended up on ALIVE! which was their most successful album probably to this day, which is basically a best of album, all from the first 3 releases.
In my opinion after the success with ALIVE! Destroyer felt to me like the band were trying to move towards commercialism and mainstream "arena rock" status. I like songs from Destroyer but that was when you had other musicians coming in to play parts and other writers coming in to write. Bob Ezrin was the kind of producer that was really pushing KISS to be different than what they were. He added piano parts and choirs and had session musicians play parts that he felt the band couldn't play. This style of producing became the norm for KISS through out the rest of the 70s, 80s and 90s. They would almost never write songs together again, and relied heavily on outside writers and outside musicians to shape their albums. They began trying to cast a wider net and lost some of their charm. Then they really started selling out and focused on toys and lunch boxes maybe a little more than trying to write a cool jam.
The original KISS really started coming apart with Destroyer.
They were trying to appeal to everyone from your grandmother to your grandkid, where as the first three albums are more true to the artistry and musicianship of KISS (I know I'm stretching when I say "Artistry and Musicianship")
I like the less produced KISS, I like the charm of the early stuff, it sounds more authentic. It's even heavier, songs like Strange Ways, Goin Blind and Parasite, and those to me are of the strongest songs they ever wrote.
My favorite song from each album:
It's hard to pick, I really love 100,000 years but I gotta go with Black Diamond from KISS (1974)
It became a live staple and has probably the best vocal Peter ever did:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0nNZ5wAWZE
My favorite KISS albums is Hotter Than Hell (1974) and picking a favorite song is hard to do, but again I have to go with a Peter tune, Strange Ways just has the coolest riff and vocals from the whole album and the guitar solo is awesome and sounds nothing like Ace ever did before or since and is probably one of my favorite KISS songs period:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zod3TQJ3D1g
For Dressed To Kill (1975) I have almost a tie between C'mon and Love Me and Rock Bottom but I'm going with the former, I like Paul's vocal, the lyrics, the guitar playing and again its one of my top KISS songs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjMYTRJxXOQ
Now I'm not saying I don't like any other KISS stuff, I like lots of KISS music, even stuff from albums like Unmasked (1980) and Hot In The Shade (1990), just for me, the old stuff is the cream of the crop.
