The Kiss song that Paul Stanley will always regret: “It doesn’t really have any gravitas”
They were, for a time, perhaps the ultimate American band. A set of superheroes built on the backs of sex, rock and a heavy amount of commercial backing. But while one decade would give the band wild success, the 1980s were a difficult time for Kiss.
The American hard rock kings dominated the 1970s with their combination of shock rock and massive theatrics. Of course, songs like ‘Rock and Roll All Night’ and ‘Detroit Rock City’ helped them cross over to radio, but Kiss were always a spectacle band first and foremost. They truly needed to be seen to be believed.
So, in a decade where the band lost their core audience, took off their makeup, and struggled to fit in with hair metal bands a full decade younger than them, it’s fair to say that the 1980s weren’t the best for Kiss.
Music From “The Elder”, the band’s 1981 quasi-soundtrack album, was certainly a bad omen. A mix of progressive rock, symphonic rock, and conceptual art, Music From “The Elder” was supposed to bring Kiss respect as musicians and storytellers. That didn’t quite happen. In fact, the sales of the album were so disappointing that the band lost guitarist Ace Frehley and declined to go on tour to support it.
The album was supposed to have a film project attached to it as well, but when that fell through, Music From “The Elder” became a soundtrack album without any other media attached to it. It’s no coincidence that Kiss opted to fully change their image following its release – after one final album with their signature makeup, Creatures of the Night, the band opted to show their faces and lean into hair metal for 1983’s Lick It Up.
Any attempt to salvage Music From “The Elder” turned into an abject failure. ‘A World Without Heroes’, the album’s first single, only peaked at number 56 on the Billboard Hot 100. ‘I’, the album’s second single, missed the pop charts completely. Although Kiss performed the former track at their 1995 MTV Unplugged performance, Paul Stanley has largely attempted to forget the latter.
“It’s from Music From “The Elder”. Hmmm, this isn’t one of my favourites,” Stanley told Classic Rock in 2021. “Gene has written some very good songs, but to me, this isn’t one of them.” The track is more than a bit flimsy in comparison to some of Kiss’s other, more powerful songs. For Stanley, the tune will always remain in the lower echelons of Kiss’ incredibly dense catalogue of tunes.
When a lot of effort is put into writing a song, more often than not, the Gods of the arts can turn against you and leave you falling flat. Stanley continued: “I think it was an attempt to write an anthem, but it’s a bit light-hearted, and it sounds a bit like a commercial, it doesn’t really have any gravitas or depth to it. Gene has written great songs, but that’s not in my top ten.”
‘I’ has yet to be performed by any iteration of Kiss in the live sphere apart from their appearance on the American television programme Fridays. Given that the band are staring down their live retirement at the end of 2023, it seems unlikely that ‘I’ or any other songs off Music From “The Elder” will be remembered fondly.
Check out ‘I’ down below.
