Kiss’s Music from the Elder

By Joel Goldenberg, September 21st, 2012

In a 1990s Goldmine Magazine interview, the original members of the band Kiss were asked to give one to five star ratings for each of the albums in which they were involved. The most highly acclaimed by all the band members were their debut Kiss and their first live album Kiss Alive!, their breakthrough chartwise.
The most interesting evaluation was given to 1981’s Music From the Elder. Kiss leaders Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons all but disowned the album. Paul Stanley gave it a “question mark” and Simmons gave it a zero, although he allowed that it deserved two stars if it was a “bad Genesis album.”
Simmons’ comment was key — to the band, it was not a Kiss album, which meant it was not hard driving, sometimes brutal, hard rock with more than a smidgen of pop sensibility. Instead, to them, it was an overblown attempt at a concept album and (never filmed) fantasy movie that took the group in directions it later regretted. In fact, it played a major role in guitarist Ace Frehley’s decision to leave the group — his protestations against the concept were ignored and, according to him, producer Bob Ezrin erased many of Frehley’s guitar solos.
One can’t blame the band, in a way, for dismissing the album. Their career was in decline at the time and they were trying for something new. Drummer Peter Criss had been fired/quit (depending on who you ask) the year before and Ezrin has admitted that his drug problem at the time was impairing his judgment.
But the critics liked it — the Rolling Stone Record Guide (second edition) gave it a three-star rating and considered it a great improvement over some of their previous albums.
I can understand the Kiss Army dismissing the album, alongside their heroes. But not being a purist myself, it’s one of my top-5 favourite Kiss albums — along with the debut, Dressed to Kill, Hotter than Hell and the 1978 compilation Double Platinum.
Yes, the album does have a fair amount of overblown moments, with medieval horns and massed choirs. But so did the more Kiss-embraced Destroyer, especially on the track Great Expectations, which has what sounds to me like a strained Simmons vocal.
Let’s go song by song on this one:
• The Oath: The U.S. pressing started with this track, as it sounded the most like a Kiss trademark song. It’s also one of their best in years, after the poppy sound of the Dynasty and Unmasked albums. The band dismisses the song as “token Kiss,” but I give it more credit. And it has wonderful drumming from then-new pounder Eric Carr.
• Fanfare: The international version of the album, and at least one CD pressing, begins with this instrumental that contains medieval sounding instruments. Yes, it sounds nothing like Kiss, but whaddaya want, it’s a concept album!
• Just A Boy: The song has a great melody and pounding rock parts. The only sore spot is Stanley’s overly high falsetto.
• Dark Light: One of Frehley’s best Kiss tracks with great guitar and a cool vocal, and Lou Reed wrote the lyrics.
• Only You, Under The Rose, A World Without Heroes and Mr. Blackwell: The U.S. pressing’s track order meant that four tracks in a row were sung by Simmons, and some of them were his best vocals ever, in turn heartfelt and subtly sinister — especially in comparison to the fun but far from subtle God of Thunder from Destroyer.
• Escape from the Island: An excellent, hard driving Frehley instrumental. Again a big improvement over the band’s then-recent more poppy compromises.
• Odyssey: Stanley says his singing of this Tony Powers song is “tragic.” I wouldn’t go that far, but this is one of the more overblown tracks on the album, and my least favourite.
• I: Aside from being slightly preachy, this is another pulverizing track that does have the Kiss trademark. And it has the distinction of being the first song in a while to have lead vocals by both Simmons and Stanley.
• Finale: This is a small taste of what the movie would have been like. This is basically an instrumental with some spoken words by an actor.
Not long ago, I interviewed Gene Simmons when the band was promoting Sonic Boom. If I ever interview any members of the band again, I may debate them on the merits of this unjustly maligned album.
On the other hand, their costumes at the time were rather cringe-worthy.