For all that, Music From ‘The Elder’ is cherished among a small minority of diehard Kiss fanatics who consider it the band’s lost classic. As Paul Stanley said: “Peter’s album was ghastly.” To the horror of Kiss fans, this was music that their parents would like. Tellingly, the best song on the album is a ballad, I Can’t Stop The Rain, written by long-time band associate Sean Delaney, and perfectly suited to Peter’s raspy voice.
But this was undoubtedly the worst of the Kiss solo albums.Ī fan of pop and soul music, Criss turned MOR crooner on lightweight toe-tapping tunes such as Don’t You Let Me Down and That’s The Kind Of Sugar Papa Likes. It wasn’t the worst solo album ever made by a drummer – that was Keith Moon’s risible Two Sides Of The Moon. In 1990, Nirvana covered the Kiss song Do You Love Me? and both Kiss and Nirvana were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame at a the same ceremony in New York in 2014, where the Kiss story began so many years ago. Their music was an inspiration for such diverse acts as Mötley Crüe, Anthrax, Pantera and Stone Temple Pilots. In turn, Kiss influenced a generation of rock musicians, especially in America.
When Stanley and Simmons founded Kiss in New York City in early 1973, their primary influences were British, from The Beatles and the Stones through to Led Zeppelin, The Who and Slade.
