"I'm goin' to Hollywood. They'll see that I'm so good. I won't care how I feel. and I'll get to fuck Brooke Shields."
Here's a chilling new concept for a feature I dreamed up. I sometimes purposely avoid new albums by bands I love that are released when they are well past their prime. I'll also skip records in a band's back catalogue that are renowned for being exceptionally awful. Sometimes it's to spare their dignity, sometimes it's to spare myself. Really, life is too short to listen to crappy records. Isn't it? Well call it masochism or morbid curiosity but monthly I'll be exploring a famously reviled record to answer the question: "How Bad Could It Be?"
The Back Story:
The year is 1981 and Kiss' career had bottomed out hard after their 4 individual solo records, "Dynasty," and "Unmasked," were progressively worse than the one before. They brought back producer Bob Ezrin, the brains behind their commercial breakthrough, "Destroyer," to give their career a jump-start. Bob had been a musical puppet-master, encouraging the band to record Peter Criss' sappy "Beth," which became their biggest hit, insisting Gene sing the Paul-penned "God of Thunder," (which featured strange samples of Bob's children giggling) replacing Ace Frehley on most solos with a session guitarist and generally rebuilt them from the ground up. His ideas were often bizarre and much of "Destroyer," was complete crap but it moved a lot of units and made a lot of cash which is what Kiss (or at least Gene) is all about. So when Bob had had a bunch of wacky ideas for an even more, "out-there," record, the band must have figured it made sense to trust the guy - eccentric genius and all. He just finished making "The Wall," with Pink Floyd for crying out loud.
Well Bob was developing a bit of a coke problem and becoming a full-blown ego-maniac. His "Midas touch," had given him the confidence to make worse and worse decisions with no reference point in reality. Bob sat down with Gene and Paul and decided to create a rock-opera of sorts about an extraterrestrial council of wizards or aliens or alien wizards or some fucking thing, in an attempt to portray Kiss as serious artists. I'll never forget Ace drunk on some talk show making fun of this album, while Gene just sits there looking pissed.
"It's about a boy ... a very special boy."
The silliness of the whole thing wouldn't have mattered so much if it wasn't for the incredibly earnest seriousness with which every overly-dramatic cliched line is delivered.
You have to imagine Ezrin all blasted on coke, thinking this is just epic shit. You appreciate it more that way. Lots of pretending to be serious.
Lou Reed co-wrote three songs and rather than the intended effect of making Kiss look cool, they did the opposite and made Lou seem lame. Lou is credited with the line, "a world without heroes is like a world without sun." Holy shit, really?
The Record:
"The Oath," starts out with a fairly heavy, if unoriginal riff, reminiscent of Iron Maiden's "Flight of Icarus," before Paul Stanley's goofy vocals kill it and layers of synthesizers violate the corpse. It beats the shit out of "Shandy anyhow, so half marks. Many of the songs don't serve any other purpose than to advance the stupid storyline, which is disjointed anyway, when the track order was moved around to emphasize possible singles.
Ace's "Dark Light," and Gene's "I," are highlights. The latter requires the ability to overlook the goofy as shit "believe-in-yourself," lyrics. "The Odyssey," sounds almost like Christian rock. "Escape From The Island," is usually mentioned as a highlight. It's an unspectacular instrumental, notable only because it actually sounds like it might be a rock song.
"A World Without Heroes," is the pinnacle of nauseating tripe. "Just A Boy," is almost worse. "Mr. Blackwell," is a tune I don't mind for some reason but it could sure use some guitars.
The Reception:
Ace's hatred for the album sealed the deal for him to leave the band. For the first time ever the band decided to not bother touring in support of an album. Sales were dismal and reviews were worse. "The Elder," was one of the last Kiss CDs to be released on CD
The Legacy:
The album became it's own punchline, synonymous with utter failure. It is Kiss' "Howard the Duck," or "Ishtar." It is included on many, "worst albums of all time," lists over the years.
How Bad Is It Really?
Truly, the album is as bad as advertised. It is however not nearly the worst Kiss album. It is truly their most ambitious and spectacular failure but light years ahead of anything they did in their hair-metal period.
