Kiss is presented their first (unofficial) Platinum award

On 26. January, 1976, Kiss was presented their first (unofficial) Platinum awards, for their “Alive!” album. Casablanca Records Co-Founder Larry Harris flew out to Detroit, Michigan, to present them with the awards before the encores at their show at the Cobo Arena. However, “Alive!”, released on September 10, 1975, and Kiss’ other previous releases would never be able to reach higher than Gold status, no matter how much they sold, as Platinum was a new RIAA rule that applies to albums released after January 1, 1976. Neil Bogart simply had Platinum awards made up in order to celebrate this event, ignoring the rules and that “Alive!” was released 3 months “too early”.

“Alive!” reached Gold 4. December, 1975.

“Alive!” has since sold equivalent to 9 Platinums making it the band’s fourth best selling pre-1991 album. The RIAA acknowledge only 500,000 units sold in the United States, even though the album has sold over 9 million copies worldwide. The album has not been re-certified by RIAA after the Gold award on December 4, 1975, 3 months after it was originally released.

Larry Alan Harris:
“A matter of weeks later, the album passed the one-million mark for units sold. Again, it was a first for KISS and us. The RIAA, the industry association responsible for tracking sales and handing out awards, had created a Platinum award at the beginning of the year for albums that had sold one million units. Prior to that, no matter how many units you’d sold, you would never get anything other than a Gold award. So, it seemed that Alive! would be our first Platinum album. However, the new award was not retroactive: it only applied to albums released after January 1, 1976. There was no way Neil was going to let the occasion go unheralded just because of some arbitrary RIAA rule, so we had Platinum awards made up and I again flew out to a gig, this time at Cobo, in Detroit, on January 27. We made a big event of it. I arranged with KISS’s road manager, J.R. Smalling, to present the awards onstage just before the group did their encores. The record industry was often a glamorous gig for me, even just sitting behind a desk in the office bullshitting with distributors or artists could be a rush, but there’s nothing quite like walking onstage in front of twelve thousand screaming people and a battery of spotlights to raise your heart rate. The event was an even bigger thrill for me than it was for the band. I left the stage with the most intense high I’d ever experienced. No matter what drugs I’d experimented with in the past, none of them ever had that effect on me. Kinda makes you understand why people become entertainers.”
– “And Party Every Day: The Inside Story of Casablanca Records” by Larry Alan Harris.