Thanks for the Kiss Army link, George, very interesting, especially this part of the Ezrin interview:
"KF: Speaking of which, Eddie Kramer, who would work with the band on the next two studio albums, "Rock And Roll Over" and "Love Gun," once said that, and I'm paraphrasing, "'Destroyer's a good record for a couple of tracks, but it really didn't sound like KISS."
Bob, what do you think of KISS' work with Eddie Kramer and was it more KISS sounding?
BE: Well, I think over the years what KISS have proven is that there's no such thing as "KISS sounding." They're an incredibly versatile group. There is a KISS attitude and a KISS style of lyric writing since there are characters [in the band].
But musically, they experimented more than of ton of other groups. So I think, at the time, Eddie was saying what some of the KISS fans were thinking, which was, "This isn't KISS." When in actuality the definition of the evolution of KISS went from being sort of a one-trick pony into actually being who they were. These guys were heavily influenced by the Beatles and other bands of the '60s. Their tastes were fairly wide-ranging. The kind of stuff that we wrote [on "Destroyer"] went all the way from pop to R&B. They just couldn't find a way to make it work in the context of a KISS album until we got to "Destroyer." And I think "Destroyer" holds up. I think it plays like a work of theater. You can imagine these costumed stage "monsters" prancing around and singing all this stuff. Even the softer stuff.
So I disagree with Eddie's characterization. But I wonder what he would say today."
My feelings exactly - I was sooooo disappointed when I heard Rock'n'Roll Over (dumb title too), it was retrogressive, sounded worse than Dressed to Kill in my ears. Destroyer was Kiss most successful album in Germany to date then so the move to Eddie Kramer kind of left you dumbfounded. But then I'm weird in that I tend to like the more polished sounding Kiss albums: Dressed to Kill, Destroyer, Dynasty (worth having for "Sure know something" alone), The Elder (yes, I like The Elder!), Crazy Nights (with the best Slade song on it Slade didn't write), Revenge and even Psycho Circus (the title track is a killer).
Kiss never made a secret of their admiration of Slade's music and their stage act. Stanley even copies Holder's habit of making announcements and talking with the audience in his singing voice (something Robert Plant or Ian Gillan never do) which I always deem a little artificial. The NME once gave a boisterous review of a Slade gig (after their return from the US post-punk) which concluded "they play the songs that Kiss crave for to accompany their visual act".
