Kiss

How does a cutting-edge '70s hard-rock sleaze band wind up featured in a Holiday Inn TV commercial 30 years later? By being incredibly recognizable by sight if not sound, that's how. Outrageous makeup was the band's signature for what became a Kiss-camp following that has endured much longer than the group's musical creativity. Original members Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss hit upon an Alice Cooper-style and dressed it up with power guitar, crashing lyrics and blood-spitting, smoke-swirling, migraine-inducing light shows that had worried mamas checking their kids' backpacks daily for zinc oxide and black grease pencil. Kiss's original fame was guaranteed with Alive and Destroyer, which included top-single "Beth" and later "Lick It Up," a release from their no makeup period. To date, the band has endured the not uncommon changes in line-up, a few solo releases by original members and reunion tours. The band's emphasis on marketing, the excess of which is considered a flaw in their approach by music critics, has kept them an obvious player in the "name that band" game.