Creatures of the Night (Album)
| Creatures of the Night | ||||
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| Kiss studio album | ||||
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Publication |
October 1982 |
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| Label (s) | Casablanca Records | |||
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Format (s) |
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Title (number) |
9 |
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running time |
38:47 |
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Michael James Jackson , Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons |
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Creatures of the Night is the tenth studio album by the American hard rock band Kiss , which was released in 1982. This LP - together with the compilation album Killers , released a few months earlier - represented a turning point in the group's music history, partly because it was the last album before the musicians were unmasked. Critics considered the work to be one of the band's most musically successful albums. It received gold status .
History of origin
Classification in the musical background
With the album Dynasty in 1979 Kiss deviated from their original line for the first time. "Dynasty" and the 1980 follow-up album Unmasked were shaped by the strong disco wave at the end of the 1970s , which largely dominated the music sector. That changed in 1981. That year the group released the concept album Music from the Elder , a conceptually structured rock album with progressive borrowings, on which fanfares and symphony orchestra music played an essential role. The album received good reviews. Kiss' music, however, is so different from the original Kiss sound that the album is considered a low point and a commercial failure by the following. At the same time, "Music From The Elder" is the work on which Ace Frehley contributed the least.
After attempts to gain a foothold in disco music and the progressive field, a musically radical and radical change of direction followed in 1982 towards the original hard rock. The mix of compilation and studio album Killers , released in 1982, already indicated this. The material used there for the four new songs had been written by band members Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons at the same time as the material for the follow-up album Creatures of the Night , which was released in the same year and with which Kiss reported back with loud, rhythmic, bass- and guitar-dominated hard rock .
Origin and result
The album was the last for the time being, on which lead guitarist Ace Frehley was shown in photos as a band member and mentioned by name as an official member of the band. As on "Music From The Elder", his musical contribution on "Creatures Of The Night" had dropped to zero. According to his own statements, because he initially did not agree with the musical direction of the band (disco and concept experiments) and, on the other hand, had to struggle with alcohol and drug problems. The lead guitar parts on the LP were carried out by other musicians, including his immediate successor Vinnie Vincent . Bob Kulick , Robben Ford , Adam Mitchell, and Steve Farris ( Eddie Money , Mr. Mister ) also played guitar on the album . Robben Ford stated in an interview in 2013 that he had recorded the solos of the songs Rock and Roll Hell and I Still Love You for the album and had been in the studio with Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley on a total of nine days of recording.
Many outside artists were also brought in for the songwriting : Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance were involved, Vinnie Vincent wrote three pieces with Paul Stanley under his real name. Eric Carr almost single-handedly recorded the song Don't Leave Me Lonely , played the drums, bass and rhythm guitar, took over the lead vocals and the backing vocals - but the song was rejected and did not end up on the album. Instead, co-writer Bryan Adams recorded the song and released it with slightly edited lyrics on his album Cuts Like a Knife . Other tracks that were not used on the album were Betrayed and 'Back On The Streets', both of which were written by Vinnie Vincent, as well as the tracks It's My Life and Legends Never Die , which were featured on the 1984 album WOW by Wendy O. Williams landed.
Singer and rhythm guitarist Paul Stanley said the album showed what the band could really do. He thinks it's great that the band has reclaimed their status. After this LP, as individuals and as a band, they suddenly knew exactly what they wanted. With the record, the band wanted to get rid of all the remnants of the Music from the Elder disaster . The album is heavy, but not in terms of the music, but in terms of attitude and determination. He had already wanted to leave the make-up off this album, but bassist Simmons was against it. Stanley said the band had no right to exist anyway if they hadn't made it and had success without make-up.
Bassist and vocalist Gene Simmons noted that with this album, the band had finally realized that they should focus on what they do best. They had put a lot of effort into the songwriting, the band was a real unit and everyone had both feet firmly on the ground. The record sounds like Kiss, but they were a new band because they had two new members in their ranks.
Producer Michael James Jackson described how he and Kiss met after The Elder . At that time it seemed to him as if Kiss was "pretty messed up" with the music. It seemed to him that her career had come to a standstill. At that time, AOR was very successfully established as a market for a more adult target group. Kiss, like the other Rock N'Roll bands of that time, u. a. Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep and Nazareth, more oriented towards melodic songs. He wanted to help them solve the problem and tried to get them to shed old habits, that is, to concentrate more on the melody and the songs instead of the attitude and performance. While no one had managed to copy the amazing, live theatrical performance of Kiss, it had become clear that it was time to record a completely different album. Kiss would have definitely wanted to try other alternatives, because it wasn't the band members, v. a. Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, knew that Kiss’s tried and tested recipe for success had no longer worked. He and Kiss tried to build something up and were determined to help the band regain their own identity and capture their true spirit. While they were recording Killers , they also started working on the Creatures LP. For his part, he insisted that he wanted to help them get back to where they were before. The beginning was made with Killers , but he thinks that they really only made it with Creatures .
dedication
The album is dedicated to Neil Bogart , who died of cancer on May 8, 1982 at the age of only 39. Bogart and Bill Aucoin , Kiss manager from 1973 to 1982, belonged to the actual inner circle of the band. He was the founder of Casablanca Records , the record company that published the first Kiss albums, one of the most important people and promoters of the group's career.
Track list
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Chart positions Explanation of the data |
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- 4:01 Creatures of the Night (vocals: Paul Stanley; text and music: Paul Stanley, Adam Mitchell)
- 4:50 Saint and Sinner (vocals: Gene Simmons; text and music: Gene Simmons, Mikel Japp)
- 4:00 Keep Me Comin ' (vocals: Paul Stanley; text and music: Paul Stanley, Adam Mitchell)
- 4:08 am Rock and Roll Hell (vocals: Gene Simmons; lyrics and music: Gene Simmons, Bryan Adams, Jim Vallance)
- 3:55 Danger (vocals: Paul Stanley; text and music: Paul Stanley, Adam Mitchell)
- 4:15 I Love It Loud (vocals: Gene Simmons; text and music: Gene Simmons, Vinnie Vincent)
- 6:06 am I Still Love You (vocals: Paul Stanley; text and music: Paul Stanley, Vinnie Vincent)
- 3:19 Killer (vocals: Gene Simmons; text and music: Gene Simmons, Vinnie Vincent)
- 4:14 War Machine (vocals: Gene Simmons; music: Gene Simmons, Bryan Adams, Jim Vallance)
Chart successes
Although the album was positively received by the critics and the band itself today describes it as one of the three best, it did not make it into the top ten in any country despite its gold status . It reached 22nd place in Great Britain, 42nd place in Germany and 45th place in the USA.
Extractions were I Love It Loud , and the opening song Creatures of the Night . Both songs performed disappointingly internationally. I Love It Loud ranked 76th in Australia and 102nd in the US, while Creatures of the Night ranked 34th in the UK only.
Reviews
- Popcorn said in 1982: “Finally, Kiss are back on the hard track of the earlier days. On 'Creatures of the Night', their 12th album [sic!], The quartet Stanley, Simmons, Frehley and Carr cannot build on the hard rock class of 'Dressed to Kill', but at least take a clear step into it Direction."
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Rock Hard Online ( Memento from February 17, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Kiss - The Story . In: Rock Power , June 1992, pp. 20/21
- ↑ Old iron does not rust . In: Rock Hard , July 1992, p. 40
- ↑ swr.de
- ↑ Ace Frehley, Joe Layden: No Regrets . MTV Books, 2011, ISBN 978-1-4516-1394-0
- ↑ a b c Malcolm Dome, Mike Seifert: Brilliance and glory with ach and a noise . In: Rocks - The magazine for Classic Rock , issue 06.2011, pp. 24–32
- ↑ D'Addario: Robben Ford on His Weirdest Gig . YouTube, accessed January 29, 2013
- ↑ David Leaf, Ken Sharp: Kiss Unmasked: The Official Biography . 1st edition. IP Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-931624-28-5 , p. 289
- ↑ David Leaf, Ken Sharp: Kiss Unmasked: The Official Biography . 1st edition. IP Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-931624-28-5 , pp. 289, 287
- ↑ David Leaf, Ken Sharp: Kiss Unmasked: The Official Biography . 1st edition. IP Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-931624-28-5 , pp. 287, 288
- ↑ Charts DE Charts UK Charts US
- ↑ kissfaq.com
- ↑ kissfaq.com
- ^ Popcorn , October 1982
