Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame inductee and former KISS guitarist Ace Frehley has made history with his new album, Space Invader, which debuted at number nine on the Top 200 Chart this week. The LP scores the highest charting position of ANY KISS solo album ever, and marks Frehley’s first return to the Top 10 since KISS’s 1998 Pyscho Circus reunion album. The album has also sold better in its first week than KISS’ recently released Kiss 40 album. Internationally, Space Invader has debuted number one on the Independent Chart and number sixteen on the Top 200 Chart in Canada, Top 40 in Switzerland and Sweden, and hit a historic benchmark for the first time ever as a solo artist in Germany.
Space Invader, Frehley’s first studio album in five years, has also received praise from critics. Rolling Stone wrote, “Gene Simmons has claimed Ace Frehley doesn’t deserve to wear KISS’ Kabuki clown paint, but the former Spaceman’s first solo LP in five years says otherwise,” while the Associated Press hailed, “…the original KISS lead guitarist has recorded his best solo album since his groundbreaking self-titled album in 1978.” Paste also confirmed, “Space Invader is a good rock album, and it’s an even better guitar record.”
Frehley stopped by The Tonight Show prior to his album release to sit in with legendary house band The Roots to perform his classic hit New York Groove. Watch it below.
Space Invader features nine brand new original songs, including the first single, Gimme a Feelin’, as well as a cover of Steve Miller’s classic rock staple The Joker. Frehley also tapped long time friend and artist Ken Kelly to create the album art for Space Invader. Kelly created the iconic cover art for two of KISS’s best selling LPS, Destroyer (1976) and Love Gun (1977).
Widely known as the original “Space Ace” and founding guitarist for 16 cumulative years (over two tenures) of the multi platinum selling rock band KISS, Frehley is demonstrably the most popular original member. In addition to having the best selling solo album career (vintage or current) among the original foursome, Frehley’s self titled Ace Frehley (1978), went on to sell over one million copies, producing the only Top 40 single, New York Groove, from any of the legendary KISS solo albums. The massive hit was most recently featured in an episode of cult show Entourage and was also KISS’ second best selling download in 2012, besting such KISS Army anthems as “I Was Made For Lovin’ You, Beth and Calling Dr. Love even after 36 years.
Since departing from KISS, Frehley went on to release four more solo albums and one live EP including his most recent effort, Anomaly in 2009, which debuted at #27 on the Billboard Top 200 chart. Ace also released an autobiography titled No Regrets, which debuted at #10 on the NY Times Hardcover Non-Fiction best seller list in November 2011.
163 Responses
I know these forums are strictly Ace territory. I like Ace. We listened to the whole album in the office this morning and have continued to listen to his solo efforts for the rest of the day. What I don’t understand is the need for this article to seemingly try to justify his standing relative to KISS. Is this article a press release from Ace? The problem is when the comparison is forced, Ace loses hands down.
Love the whole album start to finish! Not a dead song on it. Great job Ace!
I can care less that its #9 on the chart…ACE is back! hopefully theres a tour to follow..
That’s the spirit! However, I would be lying if I said I didn’t want it to chart well and sell more copies. Bands usually give up making studio records if they don’t sell well enough. I wanted Motley Crue to record another record but it didn’t happen.
I keep listening to the album and I like it better than I initially did, but I still think that I like Anomaly better. I found it humorous though that the article had to take another lame shot at KISS by comparing a new, heavily promoted Ace album’s sales to that of another non-promoted KISS greatest hits album. It’s as intellectually dishonest as asking us to ignore that it’s pretty possible that New York Groove sells tons of downloads primarily because it references the most populated city in America.
I think that it should be promoted (as long as my research is right) that Space Invader sold more copies in the first week than Anomaly did. 5 years after his big comeback album and with album sales presumably being far less overall than 5 years ago, I would assume that outselling his album from 5 years ago in the first week would be considered a big positive, right?
Just the first 3 songs alone on the record blow away the last 3 Kiss studio records.
Then there truly is a fine line between the truth and how we want it to be.
He’s only “dreamin”, right? I get it!
Of course that’s how you feel, because you don’t like them.
You know the more you talk the less I believe that you really care about weather Ace is doing well. I think you just want to compare him to kiss because of your disdain for the band. Sheesh!!!
As always you are reading between lines that not even there …
Professor schocomon,
Would you care to explain? Can I hear your expert opinion on how I am reading between the lines? What of the ridiculous claim that “Just the first 3 songs alone on the record blow away the last 3 Kiss studio records”? He must be holding some kind of grudge to make a statement like that because it lacks reason. Alternatively, he just never liked Kiss to begin with. I understand music is like food and we all have different tastes, but if you like Space Invader, your’e missing out on some great music because of this attitude. Monster is not just a good album–its excellent. Sonic Boom was pretty good. Psycho Circus is okay. I just cant believe any of the criticism is coming from an objective point of view.
I never said I did not like Monster, my dear friend. He said so. NONE of ANYONE#s ciriticism here, including yours!!, is coming from an objective point of view. So why are you constantly being upset about others being subjective? Just by critizising THEM for being so utterly subjective your own subjectivity becomes evident. As I said before, this is not the real world. So once you call his opinion, be it as different as it may from yours, “disdain” you are “reading betwen lines” because you are filling it up with your own interpretation.
LOL…, this is what I’m talking about: the genius of scholoman’s post…..you gotta hand it to him for that one.
schocoman, my mistake, laughing and typing….And, for the record, I am totally myself on here, I wouldn’t say anything on here that I wouldn’t say to someone’s face.
If that is really you I pity your neighbours …
If that is true, than his album should out-sell the the last 3 Kiss studio albums. And that will never happen.
I said almost (avant-garde).