Kiss - Destroyer (1976)

Destroyer or the first successful studio album by the infamous four New-Yorkers in make-up and high heels.

After getting a smash hit with the live version of Rock And Roll All Nite off the album Alive!, a classic that should be reviewed here soon, the band headed back to the studios, working with producer Bob Ezrin, producer of Lou Reed and Alice Cooper, and who will later produce Pink Floyd's classic The Wall. The first single to be released, before the album comes out, is the classic Kiss anthem Detroit Rock City, with a little Peter Criss' song as the B-Side, Beth, a song just thrown there to make Peter happy but which will turn out being the actual hit single. Other classics on this album are God Of Thunder (which was to become the Demon's anthem, having him perform his bass solo with blood drolling/spitting before the song during concerts), the anthemic Shout It Out Loud and Do You Love Me (which Nirvana covered during their MTV Unplugged performance), but some hidden gems are to be found on this one as well, like Flaming Youth, Great Expectations (featuring a children's choir), King Of The Night Time World, which has rarely been heard separated from Detroit Rock City, or Sweet Pain which had Hollywood Vampyres' guitarist Dick Wagner on lead instead of Ace Frehley, who was quite unhappy with working with Ezrin. Tracklisting goes:

A1. Detroit Rock City

A2. King Of The Night Time World

A3. God Of Thunder

A4. Great Expectations

B1. Flaming Youth

B2. Sweet Pain

B3. Shout It Out Loud

B4. Beth

B5. Do You Love Me ?

Out of all the Kiss albums, this one could be the most influential and is often mentionned as a big favorite of the Kiss Army, along with Alive! (1975), Rock And Roll Over (1976) or Creatures Of The Night (1982), which I may discuss soon here as well. Personally, I think it's among the best albums Kiss has ever recorded, a very essential piece of music. I do own 2 copies of this one: a french pressing by Vogue and a german pressing by EMI Electrola which has an altered logo (see picture).

Kiss - Dynasty (1979)

Dynasty or the beginning of the end for the original line-up of Kiss. The band had become a big sensation in the US in 1977/1978 yet, like every trend, Kiss was to fade away... There were some problems in the band, linked to drugs, alcohol and ego and to avoid a departure of Peter Criss, who felt, after the success of Beth (from Destroyer, an album I'll discuss later), he could be a successful solo artist, each member did a "solo album". These 4 albums, which I'll discuss later as well, had still a Kiss logo on it and were named after the member performing. They were released in september 1978.

Anyway, it's in this "egoes at stake" situation that Kiss entered the studio and "reunited" to record their 7th studio album (excluding the studio side of Alive II and the solo albums). The problems with Peter Criss kept going though, and Kiss had to hire a session drummer, Anton Fig who had appeared on Ace Frehley's album, to record the album while Peter Criss only contributed to one song, Dirty Livin' while Paul Stanley had 3 songs (Sure Know Something, Magic touch and the disco-rock hit I Was Made For Lovin' You), Ace Frehley 3 songs as well (Hard Times, Save Your Love and a cover of The Rolling Stones' 2,000 Man) and Gene Simmons 2 songs (Charisma and X-Ray Eyes). The album was produced by Viny Poncia, who produced Peter's album the year before. The following tour wasn't much better: problems with Peter Criss were more and more important, and one could never tell whether the night would be good, bad (irregular tempo, Beth badly done, see the Largo 1979 concert) or if Peter wouldn't cause trouble, causing a fight after throwing sticks at Gene or simply stopping playing in the middle of the concert. Needless to say, Peter left the band at the end of this tour, in december 1979 though it was made official only in may 1980.

The album itself now: it was released in may 1979 and had nice features: a merchandise order form and a poster with Kiss in black straightjackets with a grey background on which one could see a Kiss logo. The out of North America pressings had only a poster, though the Japanese pressing had a booklet with credits in japanese, the poster and the lyrics in english and japanese.

Interestingly, the back cover had the titles in alphabetical order rather than in the running order.

It has 9 tracks:

A1. I Was Made For Lovin' You

A2. 2,000 Man

A3. Sure Know Something

A4. Dirty Livin' 

B1. Charisma

B2. Magic Touch

B3. Hard Times

B4. X-Ray Eyes

B5. Save Your Love

Personally, I'd say it's a pretty good album, though I sometimes get sick of I Was Made For Lovin' You, which isn't really the best song Kiss has done nor the most representative of their catalogue. The other tracks are hidden gems though, too bad only IWMFLY and 2,000 Man were played live on a regular basis (though Sure Know Something was played on the MTV Unplugged and Paul played Magic Touch during the Live To Win Tour in 2006/2007). I do own 3 copies of this album: a french pressing without the poster, a complete US copy and a Japanese pressing with the booklets.