Everybody knew who Kiss was back in the ’70s.
At their peak, they were one of the biggest bands in the world, even if most people didn’t know what any of them really looked like.
Kiss set the template for big stage shows, and they inspired countless young kids to start playing and form their own bands. They also made a ton of money with their merchandising, and without Kiss establishing merchandising as a major revenue stream for bands, a lot of groups would have gone broke without it.
Kiss put three studio albums before finally breaking through with their fourth album, the live album Alive!, which was recorded at Detroit’s Cobo Hall. When it came time for Kiss to follow up the success of Alive!, the band wanted to prove they weren’t a one shot wonder, and they came back with Destroyer in 1976, which is arguably their best album.
Wanting to knock one out of the park after Alive!, Kiss enlisted genius producer Bob Ezrin, who later went on to produce Pink Floyd’s The Wall, and the album has the band’s anthems Detroit Rock City, God of Thunder, Shout It Out Loud, as well as the band’s biggest hit, Beth, a ballad sung by their drummer Peter Criss.
At first, the fans thought the band strayed too far from their hardcore rock roots, but Ezrin reinvented the band like he reinvented Alice Cooper, and took their music to a whole new level that still stands the test of time.
Now as Blabbermouth tells us, to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Destroyer, “Destroyer / Resurrected,” has just been released. It features the original album cover, created by Ken Kelly, and the tracks were remixed by Ezrin. This package also includes studio out-takes, and it’s a two disc set. (It was also Kiss’s first platinum album).
As one fan commented on Blabbermouth, “76. Alice Cooper, Queen, Kiss. I looked forward to each new release every f*cking year!!!” And indeed, it was a great time to be a rock fan back in the ’70s when bands like Kiss were at their peak.
Producer Ezrin would work with Kiss again several more times when they needed strong advice. As Ezrin says, “That seems to be my role in their lives when they’re at a crisis point, when they need something to push them forward or make some kind of change, to find a direction when they seem lost. Sometimes we were right, sometimes we were wrong. On Destroyer, we were extremely right.”
