KISS - (Music From) The Elder... thoughts?

I'll say this much - at least The Elder was the catalyst for the band to give us Creatures Of The Night the next time around!

 

Love Creatures Of The Night, too.

 

When I first opened it up and saw the artwork and the essay on the inner sleeve, I expected to see Rick Wakeman's name in the credits list!

 

You're right, the artwork does look like mid-70's Rick Wakeman stuff. A bit like "King Arthur".

 

It's not such a radical departure from its predecessors, if you think about Gene's solo album.

My conjecture on the Lou Reed involvement is simply that they appropriated a lot from the Velvets, even though they swear a little too adamantly that they knew nothing about the EPI when they were growing up-methinks that Gene and Paul doth protest too much. The bondage gear and the light show totally came from the Velvets.

When it came time to create "serious" music, I'm almost certain that Lou Reed was secretly Gene's "go-to" guy. You can buy the light show and the black costumes, so why not the lyrics?

I think that "Elder" is a very interesting record. It's just not full of hooky anthems and dirty lyrics, so there was nothing for us adolescents to immediately grasp, at the time.