Destroyer [Original recording remastered]

Kiss | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 12, 1997)
• Original Release Date: 1997
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Island / Mercury
• ASIN: B000001EL3
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (165 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #19,666 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential recording

With their 1976 album Destroyer, the band's fifth release in two years, Kiss began to expand their fan base by shedding a bit of their edge, taking on a more melodic sound and a less menacing image. The Peter Criss ballad "Beth," written for his wife, is the most sentimental love ballad the group ever recorded, and songs like "Detroit Rock City" and "Shout It Out Loud" had the kind of arena-rock punch that kept subscriptions to the Kiss Army at an all-time high. Despite, or because of, the blatantly commercial direction the band seemed to be heading in, 1976 was the most creatively rewarding period in its lengthy career. In addition to releasing Destroyer, the band pumped out the equally touted album Rock and Roll Over, which included the pounding "Take Me" and the groovin' "Calling Dr. Love." The only finer year was 1978, when the band starred in the classic B-grade flick Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park. --Jon Wiederhorn

Product Description

Japanese-only SHM-CD (Super High Material CD) paper sleeve pressing of this classic album from the Glam Hard Rockers, originally released in 1976. SHM-CDs can be played on any audio player and delivers unbelievably high-quality sound. You won't believe it's the same CD! Universal. 2008. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hard to top the success of "Alive!"...... but KISS found a way, August 11, 2000

By 

R. Gorham "RCG2" - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Destroyer (Audio CD)

THE BAND: Gene Simmons (Gene Klein), Paul Stanley (Stanley Eisen), Ace Frehley (Paul Frehley), Peter Criss (Peter Crisscoula).

THE DISC: Released 3/15/76. Recorded at The Record Plant, NYC. 9 songs clocking in at approximately 34 minutes. A classic album cover painted by Ken Kelly. Originally released on Casablanca Records in 1975; this remastered edition was released in 1997 on Mercury's label. Much improved sound in my book (deeper bass guitars and crisper highs). Liner notes are slim - a 3 page fold out with song titles, writing credits, song times, lyrics to one song ("Detroit Rock City"), and a KISS Army logo. Underneath the disc on the inside cover, there's an informative 5 paragraph history of what the band was going through at the time.

COMMENTS: A classic studio album from KISS, and easily one of their best efforts. Decades later, it still rocks like no other KISS album. How to keep the momentum going...? New songs, new costumes, new feel, new producer... enter Bob Ezrin. A KISS album with a choir, orchestra and lots of sound effects. This was Ezrin's doing. Along with Paul and Gene each co-writing 4 songs, and Peter with 1, Ezrin helped co-write 7 with the band. Ezrin gave the album depth and a very theatrical and polished feel. I truly believe 7 of the 9 songs here are some of the best the band has ever written... the exceptions being "Great Expectations" and "God Of Thunder" (always a better song in concert). Not many KISS albums (outside of "Alive!) can claim that. "Flaming Youth", "Sweet Pain", "Detroit Rock City", "King of the Night Time World" and "Do You Love Me" are all hard rock classics. The unexpected ballad "Beth" is Peter's best song (earning KISS a People's Choice Award in 1977). "Shout it out loud" was a tune created in the same vein as "Rock & Roll All Nite".... one of those anthems written for the youth. "Destroyer" is filled with great songs - a KISS studio classic.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE BEST KISS ALBUM IN THE STUDIO?, March 29, 2006

By 

Kevin Dobbs "dragonboots" (Perth Western Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Destroyer (Audio CD)

From the get go the big difference is the production. Thanks to the added magic of a proper producer in Bob Ezrin KISS finally evolved into a mythical beast rather than the raw beast they were up to this point. Money in the pocket I guess frees up artistic licence. Despite the foray into uncharted waters they swam back to shore quickly after this (despite the success) and cranked up again for subsequent releases. Shame really cause they really do have more to say musically than often they end up saying (apart from a few rare exceptions). Other than the orchestrations and effects, the major change is the lyrical content, being more around the trappings of fame and their kabuki characters being explored rather than sexual gratification. The evolution of KISS can really be heard in the cinematic "Detroit Rock City" and co headliner "King of The Night time World", "God of Thunder" in its eeriness and backwards masking and the gloriously vain "Do You Love Me" complete with chiming tubular bells and trash can drums. Nine tracks in all. All classics in KISS terms.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Far and away their best album, June 26, 2011

By 

B. S. Marlay (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Destroyer (Audio CD)

After `Alive' broke them commercially with the smash hit anthem, `Rock and Roll All Nite', expectations would, I imagine, have been extremely high. So what better idea than to team up with the stratospherically successful producer of another theatrical rock act for their next studio album? It was clearly a master stroke. Bob Ezrin was behind the ongoing success of Alice Cooper (`School's Out', `Billion Dollar Babies', `Welcome To My Nightmare') and he delivered wholesale with `Destroyer', both wiping the band's earlier albums off the map and setting a creative benchmark that they would never ever reach again.

`Destroyer' is an epic - darker, more energetic, more theatrical, beautifully crafted, cleverly written and grand at every turn - a soaring hard rock musical vision that befitted and delivered on the physical image and stage show the band had created for themselves. Though it sports radio play introductions, strings and choirs on various tracks, these features are never allowed to overwhelm the group, ensuring that the end product is whole-heartedly hard rock. It has the feel of a concept album, but it isn't.

Beginning with a news report about a youth killed in a head-on collision against what sounds like the crash scene, complete with Kiss playing on the car radio, `Detroit Rock City' is the dramatic opener which literally crashes into `King of the Night Time World' followed by the cacophonous `God of Thunder'. Elsewhere a children's choir embellishes Gene Simmons on `Great Expectations' and a string section backs Peter Criss on the band's first and best ballad, `Beth'.

One of the album's great strengths is the creative involvement of the entire band. Again Paul Stanley's fingerprints are all over it, writing or co-writing 6 of the 9 songs. Gene Simmons even sings Stanley's `God of Thunder' completely making it his own, and writes or co-writes 4 of the other songs. `Flaming Youth' sounds like Ace Frehley had a heavy hand in it as co-writer and Bob Ezrin's compositional involvement in 7 of the 9 tracks clearly elevates the material. Though Kiss would resort unsuccessfully to trying to emulate the success of `Rock and Roll All Nite' throughout their career, the anthemic `Flaming Youth' and `Shout It Out Loud' never feel like poor cousins to that hit, nor are they remotely corny (the trap of later attempts). In fact there is not a weak moment on this album. It is quite literally a masterpiece. And the 1997 remaster sounds fantastic.