Flamenco guitar solos and steals from Beethoven are not the most obvious ingredients for a Kiss record — but then Destroyer is not your typical Kiss album. With Alive! (1975) having bookended the band’s primal phase, producer Bob Ezrin — who had honed his craft with Lou Reed and Alice Cooper — envisioned Kiss as a caricature of all the urges of youth, and pushed them far beyond the groin-grinding of their earlier work. The results were enduring anthems that the band would spend the rest of their career trying to match.
“Detroit Rock City” opened with a flamenco flourish before exploding into one of rock’s great riffs, while “God Of Thunder” became Gene Simmons’ definitive signature tune. The hit ballad “Beth” surprised everyone, and “Great Expectations” — Ezrin’s audacious raid on Beethoven’s Pathétique — raised eyebrows and then brows. The package was wrapped in an eye-popping Ken Kelly painting so spectacular that Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott famously admitted he bought it purely for the sleeve. Fans have debated its merits ever since, but the band have never stopped trying to top it.
“I don’t know about ‘classic.’ I don’t toss that word around.”
— Gene Simmons, 2002
Kiss – Destroyer (1976)
| # | Title | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | Detroit Rock City | 5:18 |
| 02 | King Of The Night Time World | 3:21 |
| 03 | God Of Thunder | 4:17 |
| 04 | Great Expectations | 4:28 |
| 05 | Flaming Youth | 3:00 |
| 06 | Sweet Pain | 3:23 |
| 07 | Shout It Out Loud | 2:55 |
| 08 | Beth | 2:45 |
| 09 | Do You Love Me? | 3:43 |