I am a die hard KISS fan and The Elder is the best KISS album and Just a Boy is individually the best KISS song. Great melody and feeling. Sadly fans and other music lovers never found this album. Odyssey is another hidden jewell, though not written by KISS.
You speak only for yourself. When someone says “This album is the BEST” what they SHOULD say is “This album is the BEST for ME”. Blanket generalizations do not work for music or movies or just about ANY subject. We’re all thrilled that you love this album so much but clearly you are in the minority.
My favorite 80s album 😄 I love I believe,A world without Heros,and The oath. This album was amazing to me when I first heard it. I didn't mind that it doesn't sound classic KISS because it's still good to me
@@maxgamez4259 And I totally respect your opinion because you said "It was the best FOR YOU" and you didn't force your opinion on anybody. When Kiss first came out in '74, I had a buddy that would come over and we'd sit around sparkin' one(or 2) and "dissect" what we liked about those early albums. He played drums and I played bass so there was a lot to dissect. It was always fun to bounce ideas and opinions off each other as we never got mean-spirited or elitist about it.
I WAS ONE OF THOSE KISS FAN'S FROM 1977 THAT STUCK BY KISS FROM THAT POINT I LOVE EVERY LP THEY PUT OUT, I LOVEED DYNASTY AND UNMASKED, I LOVED THE MUSIC FROM THE ELDER. I HAVE HEARD MANY ELDER DEMO'S, I LOVE THE SOUND OFF THIS " I'M JUST BOY " ALSO MAKES YOU FEEL IT'S 1981 AGAIN AND I'M I THE STUDIO WITH THEM! WOW! THANK U!
I Love this album also & Unmasked. I will be doing a review for Music from the Elder soon. just want to let some fans know so they can check it out If they want.
This is great...nice to hear this demo version...the instrumentation is perfect as is Paul's voice. Even in this raw unpolished form...just goes to show the man can sing.
I Was There!! when that buckwheat pic was taken it was at a video shoot for the song " I " a video they never released Ace was plastered and could barely stand Also witnessed Paul playing Eric's drums It was Epic! Just about a week later Ace pulls a no show at a lip synced Studio54 performance shown via satellite at an Italian music festivel yet the Trio Rocked On!!
Always liked this song, great upload I've never heard this! The "piano version" instrumental part sounds very cinematic, like it would be music in an Elder movie somewhere, after the vocal version had already played. Very beautiful. Cool pics too, some I haven't seen. if Eric was alive it'd have been great for them to do a single Elder show somewhere.
This album was always better than most of their stuff... I mean really, a few years after this we had to listen to Gene sing about Putting his log in your fireplace.
I've always thought that about Gene: wasted potential. He had a great voice when he wasn't trying to be the God of Thunder. His solo album stands out for it's originality and diversity. In the end he was sucked in by his ego.
I think the failure of this album is to blame for that.. He was really hyped about making a consept album, and when it crashed hard he spaced out until "Revenge" when he was hyped again
vocal version starts at 11:55, too bad they buried the acoustic guitar & piano on the final mix, although the electric guitar overdubs rock cool pic of Gene & Eric, never seen that one before "it really is glorious"
One thing i don't agree with Gene and Paul is that if this turned out to be a successful album they would have loved it. But it wasn't so it stinks to their minds. They should love it no matter what anyone else thinks or how it sold. Defend what you did and leave it at that. No one will care, it's just an opinion anyways.
Paul has said that people don't understand what was going on during the recording of this album. You may have a point...if it had been successful, Paul may have had a better experience with it. He felt the band was full of themselves at this time and had forgot what got them there. That's why he hates it so. He has said that the music is so pompous (my word) that if forgets the "meat and potato's" of what KISS had originally intended to be.
Ryan Cornell Oh I agree, I find this album as a treasure. I think it was nice to get away from the normal music that Kiss was known for at that time. I understand Paul's feelings however. Making the album is much different then experiencing it as a fan; especially in 1981. Even then I found the album to be great and I was 11. It has aged well from me. I am a musician and am currently in the middle of an album and let me tell you the songs I recorded in November (it will be done and released in May) I am not "feeling" the same about. And in my mind, that was my best stuff. But since then, I've made better stuff (in my opinion).
I use to think that way regarding their attitudes towards records, but there are exceptions. I never heard them abandon Creatures. That album bombed but they always stood behind it and played a number of tunes off that record during their unmasked years. The public finally came around to their thinking on that one. And Paul seems to get married to personal favorites as well. Psycho Circus seems to be one of his as is Modern Day Delilah, and even Hell or Hellelujah. None of those records set the world on fire but you can tell he personally likes them so he pushes them with the belief if they are played long enough, they will be accepted. If you think about it, most of the songs in their set list are not top 40 hits. Sure, some are, but much of it is from their mid to late 70's concert lists because they play like soundtracks to that era. So in many ways the strength of a song written today is probably viewed by them entirely different since the old days of 45's and albums are long gone.
I love this album and always have... It's not all perfect, but it's all entertaining and solid. Something I find funny is that it gets hit with the "Doesn't live up to the spirit of KISS" label, which might be true for parts, but in other places ("Mr. Blackwell" and "I" in particular) it feels more "KISS" than a lot of the stuff they had done in the years just before this. It's my wife's favorite album of theirs, and my seven year old daughter is obsessed with "Just A Boy." (Although she sings it as "I am just a boy! No longer a woman!" which puts a whole other spin on it.)
Bob Ezrin always used his classical training with every band he produced, which always made the bands sounds more unique, Destroyer and the Alice Cooper stuff are great!
Simply Wonderful, great Album for sure! , very good songs, good time, (Congratulations) to everyone ..., Grupo Kiss does amazing things, always did! and it makes a big difference ... stay with God.
Thank you so much. I have an infinite fondness for that LP. It's the closest we can get to the creative process and it's fascinating to hear these guys work.
The second best song on The Elder, Just a Boy is melodius and memorable and has some of Pauls strongest falsetto . This demo track only deepens the enjoyment of a record the band maligned for decades but the fans hold it close.
The Elder is everything they thought it would be. It’s awesome and clearly their best album. It’s the only album I’m not tired of listening to. The originals and this one, Paul’s solo album come in close.
Wow! This is amazing! Thanks for the upload. The Elder was the first album I bought as a kid and was hooked on KISS ever since. I love the solo on this song as well. I try now to find all I can on The Elder. Amazing piece of KISS art at its finest IMO
Very cool rare demo from "The Elder" session. This is so cool to hear this compositional exercise for the main theme. I happen to love "The Elder" album like a lot of you guys. But I do think that the way the record company put "The Oath" as the opening track when it was pressed and came out in 1981 was a good choice. It made the album start out heavier and then go soft later. But later when KISS put out the remastered version in 1997, they had the soft tunes open the album again. Story wise, it makes sense, but musically, I still love "The Oath" to start the album with an adrenaline pumped rocker. Either way, I love this album. It was such a very creative album. Ace does some of his best guitar work on it too. Plus, Gene and Paul both so some of their best singing, really pushing their ranges up. I loved the album from day one when it first came out. I was only 10 that year and got it for my birthday. I listened to it everyday for a long time. I will say that when "Creatures Of The Night" came out, I loved that album way more, but I always remember that time when "The Elder" came out. We were all really as kids loving what Eric Carr brought to the band too. Paul was really singing high in those days. I agree that while "The Elder" is a strange and very symphonic album, it was a classic and most of the die hard fans like it a lot these days in retrospect. I still love the heavier KISS albums better, but this album is still awesome to put on from time to time. It's so different from anything else ever made. One thing is for sure is a list of variables that influenced that album's ideas-Back then in 1981, dark age barbarian hero movies like Conan were #1, Bob Ezrin had just finished producing "The Wall" with Pink Floyd and watched it go to #1 platinum as well as the movie afterward, so Ezrin was thinking that an abstract concept /movie/ album formula was a sure fire route to go to success in rock and roll at the time (think about it, only a short time later Styx released "Killroy Was Here" , a concept album filled with weirdness that sounded nothing like Styx's normal music), Gene happened to have a story at the same time that he wrote about with a dark age hero with a very heavy theme, Paul had yet to try anything like Phantom Of The Opera yet, but was interested in an experiment to have a little more symphonic approach in the band's vocals, KISS felt like a lot of hard rock bands like RUSH had done really well previously with a "2112" type concept album, They also idolized The Who's "Tommy" album, KISS was trying to do something different, Eric Carr's drumming was so powerful and versatile that it set the band on a kick to try different tempos and styles. Once you combined these factors with KISS' music and put it all together, you can see how with Bob Ezrin also lending an added push, "Music From The Elder" was born. Though people look back on it now as a very unique and very cool album, most people are happy it was only a one off album experiment and that KISS would return to straight forward heavy metal rock and roll afterwards..
Bought my first KISS album in 1978. Alive II. It was the first album I ever purchased. I fell madly in love. Been a KISS Army soldier since. I was 7 at the time. When the Elder came out I had sort of lost track of everything and my music took a back seat to . . .IDK movies and video games maybe for a year or two. It wasn't that i wasn't listening, I just wasn't listening to anything new on album. My mom had quit letting my buy albums for a little while, I think she had a religious virtue thing or something. Regardless, I never stopped loving KISS and eventually, after the album had been out for a while, I was able to pick it up from a friend's collection that was also a KISS fan, but my older brother's friend, not mine. When I took the cassette tape home he copied for me I found god again in KISS. I love this record as much as any KISS album today, mostly more than the rest. It is the most mature album they could have done at that time and should be honored for it's greatness. I know why they talk about it as they do, but I think it's shallow at best, and now that I understand business I think it's also a bad move to continue to act like they hate it. I think they feel the pressure FINALLY, from fans to play these great songs. I am glad. I intend to see them play this summer for the first time in years if they wind up touring along with Metallica again finally. All hail the gods of thunder and rock n roll
As a KISS fan from the 70s I loved this album. It captured the fantasy that KISS created and took the listener into a world where the boy went on a journey...much like we the fans were going through...as we grew. The song “I” is one of the best songs of all time. The slimmed down costumes was a refreshing pace from the abundance they were coming out of.
Thanks for posting. The Elder could have been a virtual re-birth of KISS at the time, but their PR firm at the time, Howard Marks, et al, was too busy using money fronted to them to promote KISS, and instead were jamming it up their noses. The irony of it all is the album was about wanting to cling to innocence and self-reliance. Paul and Gene should have seized the reins of the KISS juggernaut during the release of the solo albums. Things would have been much different, especially if there had been more emphasis focused on getting airplay on radio and MTV. True fans like myself should remember this, and WE are vindicated, because ask anyone under 30 who Flock of Seagulls are, and see what kind of answer you get...
Bob Ezrin is the one at fault regarding this album. He was getting too caught up with its mystical edge. Ace never had any say regarding the album. This was the tipping point for Ace to originally leave the band. Had it been a true KISS album, he might have even made it to the Lick It Up album.
This album to me has aged okay. Those lost years between Dynasty and this is pretty much me from 2 years old to about 5. My first musical love. I would dream of Gene Simmons, I wouldn’t tell my mother because everything else I said I dreamt about she would take away because everything was a nightmare to her.
No offense to you all, but what do you think demo recordings are? Well let me tell you..........they are REHEARSALS for fine tuning the song. So this would be BOTH.
What a Shame!!!! it makes me so sad to listen... to me this is their Best Album...each to their own I guess...Paul learn the words and sing it Live Please
I was an early KISS fan but got turned off by 1978, too much pop radio cartoon music for my liking. I discovered The Elder sometime in the mid 80's and really loved it. They seemed to be trying to rid themselves of the cartoons and disco of the 70's and show the world that they can do some thinking music. Other than Pauls "Let's get physical" headband and Genes haircut, them getting back to black was great.
A much better album than Unmasked IMO. The oath and I are great Kiss songs and I get a kick out of Under the rose and Escape from the Island is really good. Mr. Blackwell and Dark light are also very good, it's the rest that makes it a bit lame. Ace was right that it was the wrong direction to take and Creatures of the night showed that. Ace would have made Creatures a much better album. Ace obviously wasn't in any shape to hold his end but still. Gene and Paul knew what they had to deal with in Peter and Ace's flaws and they let it go and that ultimately led to Ace withholding songs for his solo record which led to bitterness from Gene and Paul and Dynasty led to Unmasked and the end of the original four. I can also understand why they must have thought: hey let's go back with Bob Ezrin since he made Destroyer after the failure of Unmasked. And 1980-81 was the NWOBH so times change and KISS couldn't adapt
