(October 17, 2025) – The Spaceman has left the galaxy. Ace Frehley, the fiery guitar-slinging original member of KISS whose blue makeup and silver boots helped blast the band into rock’s stratosphere, died on Thursday (Oct. 16) after a tragic fall resulted in traumatic brain damage. And while rock-‘n’-roll’s greatest ‘70s ambassadors — and the decade’s most fun — were always known for their all-or-nothin’ theatrics, Ace’s biggest triumph came when he and the other members went solo. Or, in this case, solo in solidarity.
In 1978, KISS pulled off one of the most audacious stunts in rock-marketing history: all four members — bassist Gene Simmons, vocalist/guitarist Paul Stanley, drummer Peter Criss, and Frehley—releasing debut solo albums on the same day (September 18). Neil Bogart’s Casablanca Records, riding high on the band’s fame and the disco boom, poured $2.5 million into promotion and unleashed a campaign only the late-’70s and a label already familiar with camp (see the Village People) could dream up.
The Beatles’ former members each had their No. 1 hits, but KISS had this.
Each KISS solo LP cover was identically tailored to feature the band’s logo with each member decked out in their trademark makeup, and each album included a poster that pieced together to form a large KISS mural, enticing the KISS Army to buy the whole set. Each came with its own color-coded label, merch tie-ins, and they were all tied to a made-for-TV movie (Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park) to glue the spectacle together. It was a cosmic cash-grab that could’ve ended in chaos—but didn’t. Casablanca famously produced 500,000 square plastic bags with images of the four album covers. Stores were asked to use them only when a customer bought all four LPs. Not surprisingly, the albums all shipped platinum and debuted in the top half of the Billboard 200 within five rungs of one another—fittingly interceded only by the Animal House soundtrack (and right behind the Muppets’ sendup of Saturday Night Fever with Robin Gibb of The Bee Gees).
Still, one man quietly stole the show.
That man was Ace.
While all the bandmates offered bloated vanity showcases, Ace Frehley’s self-titled album delivered what fans didn’t know they were missing: swagger, crunch, and that one pop hit with a rock beat that could ride the radio waves right alongside “Y.M.C.A.” and label mate Donna Summer’s biggest hits. His cover of “New York Groove”—originally a 1975 U.K. glam-rock cut by Hello—strutted onto the Billboard Hot 100, climbing all the way to No. 13 in early 1979.
It was the only Top 40 hit by any KISS member under their solo names, and it captured exactly what the others missed: attitude, accessibility, and a four-on-the-floor-meets-Bo-Diddley disco-era rhythm that kept Frehley in the mix when hard rock was struggling to find its way. “New York Groove” wasn’t just a top 40 hit; it was Ace finding his orbit outside KISS’s shadow.
While Casablanca’s promotional campaign treated all four albums as equals—the label even shipping one million copies apiece to ensure instant Platinum certification—the charts quickly proved otherwise. In October 1978, Peter Criss, ironically, debuted the highest at No. 85, followed by Ace Frehley at 87, Gene Simmons at 88, and Paul Stanley at 89 on the Billboard 200.
By early 1979, Simmons’ star-studded effort—former girlfriend Cher, Donna Summer, Bob Seger, Helen Reddy, Janis Ian, and Joe Perry all contributed to the heavily orchestrated effort—had climbed the highest to No. 22, as expected, but it was Frehley’s truly rock-n-roll record that benefited from his guitar and showed real staying power, peaking just behind at No. 26 and outlasting them all in the long run. Stanley’s and Criss’s albums barely made the Top 50, with Criss’s peaking the lowest at No. 49, while Frehley’s eventually became the fan favorite—its enduring sales since the modern tracking era began in 1991 quietly surpassing the other three.
It was a classic underdog story—one man’s groove outlasting a three-ring circus of marketing, egos, and makeup.
For all the pyrotechnics and larger-than-life marketing that defined KISS, thanks largely to Frehley’s fiery yet melodic guitar work, his biggest explosion came from something far simpler: the right song at the right time. He might’ve been one of four on stage, but in 1978, Ace Frehley became one of one.
And now, as the lights suddenly dim on the launchpad he helped build, Ace returns to the stars that inspired his alter ego. His undeniable riffs on classics like “Detroit Rock City,” “Shout it Out Loud,” “Calling Dr. Love,” “I Was Made For Lovin’ You,” and “Rock and Roll All Nite,” his swagger, and his sly grin reminded generations that rock could be loud, loose, and a little bit interstellar…but always fun! In a band built on spectacle, he gave us soul—and somewhere, you just know, the Spaceman is back in his “New York Groove.”
R.I.P. Ace Frehley (April 27, 1951 – October 16, 2025)
DJRob
DJRob (he/him) is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, disco, pop, rock and country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff! You can follow him on Bluesky at @djrobblog.bsky.social, X (formerly Twitter) at @djrobblog, on Facebook or on Meta’s Threads.
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