摧毁者 (1976)

Destroyer is the fourth studio album by American hard rock band Kiss, released on March 15, 1976, by Casablanca Records in the US. It was the third successive Kiss album to reach the top 40 in the US, as well as the first to chart in Germany and New Zealand. The album was certified gold by the RIAA on April 22, 1976, and platinum on November 11 of the same year, the first Kiss album to achieve platinum. The album marked a departure from the raw sound of the band's first three albums.

Background

After attaining modest commercial success with its first three studio albums, Kiss achieved a commercial breakthrough with the 1975 concert album Alive!, which was the first album by the band to be certified gold. The success of Alive!, which spent 110 weeks on the charts, benefited not only the struggling band but also its cash-strapped label Casablanca Records. Kiss signed a new contract with Casablanca in late 1975, partly because the label had been very supportive from the start of the band's career. In an indication that Casablanca was uncertain whether the group could duplicate the accomplishments of Alive!, the contract was for only two albums.

Songwriting and recording

In August 1975, while the group was embarking on its supporting tour for Alive!, rehearsals for Destroyer began. Bob Ezrin, who had previously worked with Alice Cooper, was brought in to produce the album. The band felt that Ezrin was the right person to maintain the commercial success the members had achieved with Alive! and to help them take the band's sound to the next level. Before meeting with Ezrin, the band had written and recorded a 15-song demo in the Magna Graphics Studio in August 1975. The first demo recorded during the Destroyer sessions was "Ain't None of Your Business" featuring Peter Criss on vocals. The plodding, heavy song, written by country songwriters Becky Hobbs and Lew Anderson, was rejected by the band and later appeared on the 1977 debut album by Detective. Although this song was rejected, other outside songs and suggestions were accepted by the band. In particular, Kim Fowley and Mark Anthony became important contributors during the songwriting process, bringing in the title and basic structure of the song "King of the Night Time World" from their previous band The Hollywood Stars' then-unreleased 1974 album Shine Like a Radio (which also featured the original version of the Alice Cooper song "Escape" from Welcome to My Nightmare).

Ezrin flat-out rejected most of the material; only heavily re-worked versions of "God of Thunder" and "Detroit Rock City" made it to the album, and another song, "Mad Dog", was pilfered for lyrics to "Sweet Pain" and a riff for "Flaming Youth". Other songs from this demo were re-worked for the following album Rock and Roll Over and Gene Simmons' 1978 solo album, while others remained unreleased until the 2021 release of Destroyer as a 2-CD set and Super Deluxe box set.

The first recording sessions for the album took place on September 3–6, 1975 at Electric Lady Studios in New York City, during a brief break between the Dressed to Kill and Alive! tours. The basic album tracks were recorded during this time. The majority of the recording sessions for Destroyer took place in January 1976, after the conclusion of the Alive! tour. Ezrin introduced to Kiss sound effects, strings, screaming children, reversed drums (on "God of Thunder") and a children's choir. The song "Great Expectations" uses the first phrase of the main theme from the second movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13 (known as Sonata Pathétique), but the songwriting is credited to Simmons and Ezrin.

The lyrics of the opening song "Detroit Rock City" tells the story of a fan who died in a car crash on the way to a Kiss show. Various dates and events have been mentioned but journalist James Campion managed with the help of a Kiss roadie from the era to link the event that inspired the song and a handful of candidates to the November 30, 1974 show in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

During the recording sessions, Ezrin resorted to numerous tactics designed to increase the quality of music Kiss recorded. Because none of the group were trained musicians, Ezrin halted the sessions at one point to provide lessons in basic music theory. To instill a sense of discipline, he wore a whistle around his neck and exhorted the band with sayings such as, "Campers, we're going to work!" When Simmons stopped playing during the recording of an outro, Ezrin yelled at him, saying, "Don't you ever stop a take unless I tell you!"

Paul Stanley later compared the experience of working with Ezrin as "musical boot camp" but said that the group "came out a lot smarter for it". Simmons echoed the sentiment by stating: "It was exactly what we needed at the time."