EP. 125 KISS Destroyer Turns 50 And Still Sounds Massive

Destroyer turns 50, and I’m not letting that milestone pass quietly. KISS released this album on March 15, 1976, right after KISS Alive! lit the fuse, and you can hear a band going from hungry club monsters to full-on arena legends. I break out the record, the memories, and the little details that made this LP feel larger than life the first time you dropped the needle.

A lot of that “larger” comes from producer Bob Ezrin. I talk about his reputation, his hands-on style, and why his choices changed the sound of KISS forever: the cinematic intro to Detroit Rock City, the ominous stomp of God Of Thunder, and the orchestration that turns Beth into a moment. I also get into the deep-fan stuff, like Destroyer Resurrected, the “doing 95” lyric tweak, and the Sweet Pain guitar solo story that still makes people argue.

Then we go full vinyl-nerd. The Ken Kelly cover art, the inner sleeve, the KISS Army insert, and even that weird hidden “Rock And Roll Party” tag after Do You Love Me. Finally, I rank every track from nine to one and explain why my opinions have shifted over the years, even if the album still feels dynamite when it’s hitting just right.

Subscribe to the Ben Maynard Program, share it with a fellow KISS fan, leave a five-star rating, and drop your own Destroyer ranking in the comments.

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Transcript

Housekeeping And Where To Listen

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hey there. Welcome into the Ben Maynard program. Thanks for being here. You see what we're going to be celebrating today, right? That's right. Um, before we get into that, let's take care of some housekeeping first. As you guys know, this program is available wherever you get your podcasts. Just search the Ben Maynor program. Boom, it's right there. Go with it, download it, share it with all your people. Um, you guys can even subscribe to it. That way, when a new episode drops, you'll get notification. Um, you can also leave me a five-star rating because I deserve it. However, if you can't resist some of this right here and you're watching on YouTube, thank you very much. Just do me a favor, subscribe to the channel, hit the notification bell. Again, when you subscribe, you get notified as new episodes are published or they drop. All right. Then next, you have to give me a thumbs up and leave a comment. I love the comments and I do reply to them. Let's see, last but not least, follow me on Instagram, simply Ben Maynard program, all one word. Or you can follow me on the TikTok. That is at the Ben Maynard program. So there are plenty of ways to take in this show for your dancing and listening pleasure. With that, you see, we are celebrating Kiss Destroyer. Kiss Destroyer is turning 50 today. All right. So it's an iconic album by an iconic band. Um, you guys know it's one of my favorites, and I thought no better time than to break it out, discuss it, knock it around a little bit, and um and celebrate this one. Okay. So uh why don't we just dive right into it? As I said, Kiss Destroyer was released on March 15th, 1976. It's the fourth studio album from the band, and it comes off the heels of Kiss Alive, which was released in late 1975. I think that was September 1975. So we're coming off the heels of that, and the band is starting to hit their stride now. They gained a lot of momentum, a lot of notoriety with the release of Kiss Alive. Now people are starting to take notice. So this is the first studio album coming off of that. And um it was met with it, sold a lot to start with. It was selling pretty well to start with, and then it started falling off, and it was met with um a little, I don't want to say resistance, it was met with a little criticism by the by the Kiss Army, so to speak, the fan base. Um, because this album at the time was so different than any other studio album, than the previous three studio albums that the band had put out. Um, Bob Ezrin was commissioned to come in and produce this album with the band's blessing. And for those of you who know who Bob Ezrin is, legendary producers worked with Alice Cooper for many, many, many, many years, has worked with Deep Purple for many years, um, produced Pink Floyd's The Wall album. So, so Bob Ezrin is legendary in the music world. And so he was coming in here to to produce this album for Kiss. And Bob does things a little bit different, usually with with uh a Bob Ezrin production, there's some kind of could be orchestration, could be um choirs. Um there's all kinds of different production when it comes to Bob Ezrin. And he likes to get involved in songwriting as well, um, even background vocals at times, too. So Bob is in the thick of it when he's when he's producing an album. And it was certainly something that the band wasn't used to at the time. Um they called him the Taskmaster, and um, I think it was during this time that he would wear a whistle in the studio, yeah, like a coach's whistle in the studio. And he didn't refer to the member, the the band members by name. He would refer to them as like campers. Uh, I thought I think I remember reading about that in a book. Um, I think that book was by uh Chris Lent. What was that? It's on my shelf here. Kiss and Sell. Yeah, I think that's where I read that was in Kiss and Sell. Um but uh so Bob could, like I said, be a bit of a taskmaster um and just wanted things a certain way and was going to get it. And the band, you know, the band was still pretty young, so they're looking up to this guy here, and they're pretty much doing what he what what um he wants them to do. I don't think they appreciated it very much at the time, but I believe after the album's release and they saw kind of the success of the album that they that they realized, yeah, this is probably what we needed at the time. So um, you know, look, I could I could go through and read a bunch of notes uh about the album and that type of stuff. And maybe I will, who knows? But what I thought I'd do is run down a tail of the tape for this album and then really kind of just share with you my personal experience with it. I did it all today, you know. I busted out my little um kiss um uh uh beanie babies here. Uh if you guys remember, maybe you do, maybe you don't. The little kiss beanie babies are courtesy of my buddy Mark Roth. He uh yeah, he uh uh gave this gave these to me, I don't know, year and a half, two years ago, something like that. It was very uh very kind of him to do so. So we're celebrating Kiss, so why not break out the Beanie Babies too, right? Um, so yeah, Tale of the Tape. Um the album is nine songs. That's one shy of where they had been on the previous uh three albums. They were releasing albums with 10 songs on them, but the length of the album is 34 minutes and 28 seconds. I didn't go pull out the debut Hotter Than Hell or Dress to Kill to check the running time on them. But I believe that this is the longest running studio album for the band up to this point. Because uh their previous three were around the 30-minute range, 32-minute range. So I believe this is the longest running album for them at this point. And the track listing goes like this. Remember, this is an album. So side one, it opens up with Detroit Rock City, fantastic song, followed up by King of the Nighttime World, God of Thunder, and Great Expectations. Four songs, side one. Then side two opens up with another great side opener, Flamin' Youth, Sweet Pain, followed by Shout It Out Loud. Then the band's what ends up being the band's biggest song for quite some time, Beth, and then it closes out with Do You Love Me. Now, if you guys have the album and you're even close to my age, then you know when you would play the album, after Do You Love Me, there would be this um, I don't even know what to call it because it wasn't a song, but you would hear at a low volume, great expectations, then you would hear Paul Stanley screaming, rock and roll party. And it almost sounded like it the that thing that Paul was screaming, it almost sounded like it came off of Kiss Alive when Paul is uh greeting the crowd after Deuce before they go into stutter, where he's like, Hey, how y'all doing? Looks like it's gonna, you know, looks like we're gonna have a rock and roll party tonight, something like that. And um, so it sounds like it could have come from that, and then they cut the tonight part off and just left rock and roll party. But uh, when I would play the album, the especially the first time, it's that's not on the track listing. So Do You Love Me ends, and then a few seconds later, here comes this. What I thought was like a mistake on my album. I'm I'm like, I don't know, 11 years old when I get this album. I think um I didn't get it on release because I think I I think I've mentioned before, my first kiss album that I got was Alive. And then um I started thinking about this. I thought that it was that I had picked up Love Gun afterwards, but no, that's not no, that's not right because when Alive 2 came out, I was so familiar with all the all the songs um that were on Alive 2. So I already know that I had Destroyer before then, but I do think I picked up Love Gun before I bought Rock and Roll O. So I I know I was buying albums out of sequence, but um, but I do I I think uh Destroyer was the second kiss album that I bought in my collection. And um, of course, look at that cover. You got guys, I mean, just the color, the the the I don't know, I don't want to say ferociousness of the the appearance of the band on the cover, and they're standing on they're standing on rocks, a pile of a pile of rocks or what would be rubble. And then if you look in the background, there's some buildings on fire. It's very when you're 11, 12 years old, it's kind of creepy. And then the album titled Destroyer, what these guys just went and stomped out this town, and here they are claiming victory, standing on this uh pile of rubble. It's crazy, but it's it was a tremendous cover, so eye-catching, especially when you're 11, 12 years old. Um, and then the back cover, of course, is the same, and I don't want to say the same thing, but sort of the same thing, minus the members of the band. And then, of course, it's just got the track listing across the top there. But um, you know, you'd open up the album. Did I get that on there right? Yeah, I did. Okay, but then you open up the album and you pull out the inner sleeve, and this is what was cool. Um, from my recollection, Kiss a Kiss Destroyer is the first Kiss album to have anything other than a paper sleeve on the inside. And it's got uh, you see right here, I'll turn it over this way first. It's got shouted out loud across the top of the inner sleeve, and then the Kiss Army logo, which the Kiss Army was now like brand spanking new. Um, that was a new thing. And then it's got information here. If you want to join the KISS Army, you know, whatever, send five bucks to this P.O. box here. Um gosh, what does it say? Oh, let me oh you wait, wait a second. I haven't read this thing in forever. Hold on, hold on. That Kiss Army logo, though, is so dynamite. That is so that is just so great. But it says, okay, it says, join the Kiss Army. As a member of the Kiss Army, you will receive number one, the official Kiss Army news published quarterly. Number two, your own official Kiss Army ID card. Number three, a KISS discography information about all Kiss albums and singles. Dang. I missed out. I should have, I should have signed up for this. I never joined the Kiss Army. As crazy of a Kiss fan as I am and never joined the Kiss Army. That would have been so cool to have um not just the newsletter, but the uh or the Kiss Army News or whatever, but to have the the album information, including information on the singles too. That would have been really, really interesting. Uh number four, biographies on Gene, Peter, Paul, and Ace. Number five, you get an official or uh oh, an official membership charter. Okay, probably some sort of certificate. Number six, you get a Kiss Army Iron on Patch. That would have been cool. Uh next, number seven, you get a full color poster, 22 by 35. That's a good size poster. Yeah, that is. That's a good size poster. Those are the kind of that's the size posters that we'd buy at uh at the record store. So yeah, that's a full color poster. Then uh number eight, you get an eight by ten color photo of the group and two black and white concert photos, all for the low, low price of five dollars per year. And you send your cash or check or money order for five dollars to Kiss Army Headquarters, Department A1, 21777, Ventura Boulevard, suite 244, Woodland Hills, California, 91364. I should look up that address and see what's there now. That would have been really, really cool. So on the other side, which I was showing you at first, you get the nice beautiful KISS logo at the top. Oh, and this is not paper. This is like, you know, some heart, this is some nice cardstock here, like an album cover. Um, you've got the lyrics to Detroit Rock City. And um, yeah, that was cool. That was the first time that any kiss lyrics appeared uh on any album on the the inner sleeve. They never had a lyric sheet, anything like that. As a matter of fact, let me think now. Rock and roll over, nope, no lyrics, no lyric sheet, no lyrics on the cover, nothing for Love Gun, um, nothing for Dynasty, nothing for Unmasked, nothing for The Elder. I don't think that I think the next time that there were lyrics, uh song lyrics in the album on an inner sleeve or a lyric sheet or anything like that, I think that was Creatures of the Night. Someone can check my math on that, but I think that's what that was. So this was really cool because then you could put the album on and you could just sing along like Paul on Detroit Rock City. And what was funny is is you know, looking at the lyrics in the um one, two, in the third verse, you know, um yeah, the third verse, because there's four verses and four choruses or five choruses, but you know, Paul sings moving fast, doing 95, hit top speed, still moving much too slow, feel so good, so alive, that kind of thing. Hear my song playing on the radio, it goes. Well, you read that in the lyrics right there, but on the studio recording, Paul always said, moving fast down 95. Now, why? I don't know. The lyrics say doing, and when you hear the live version on Kiss Alive 2, Paul sings doing 95. But um in was I 2012, 2013, somewhere around there, Bob Ezrin went into the studio, remixed Destroyer, and it was re-released with a very similar cover to this, but you see the band here wearing what they call they considered their destroyer outfits, costumes, whatever you want to call them. The original cover that Ken Kelly, dynamite artist, um painted was like I said, very similar cover to this, color, theme, and everything, but the band was wearing the alive outfits, so I guess they were moving on from that. But um uh I don't even remember where I was going with this because we were talking about Detroit Rock City, but um how silly of me. Um, anyway, so Bob Ezrin released the album. It was a re-release, I should say, as Resurrected. It was Kiss Destroyer Resurrected. And and he changed the lyric in Detroit Rock City from down 95 to doing 95. So that was interesting. He made that change. And then, if you're not aware, the song Sweet Pain, there's a um there's a guitar solo in the middle of the song that Ace did not play, the one that's on the original Destroyer album. It was played by a musician named Dick Wagner, guitar player that was in Alice Cooper's band at the time. And um I think there was something said that Bob just Ace did play on that song, and he did have a guitar solo, but but but Bob had cut it out and replaced it with Dick Wagner's guitar solo. And I think he just wasn't happy with the way it looked or sounded at the time. It looked, yeah. Okay. I'm I just don't think he was happy with the way it sounded at the time. So um I know that in later years, especially after the resurrected edition of Destroyer had come out, Bob had taken the original guitar solo from Ace and put it back in the song and said that that's how the song should have been all along. He doesn't know why he he went with the Dick Wagner guitar solo. He's not sure. Because they are they very different sounding, very different sounding guitar solos, if you're familiar with Sweet Pain. So, and and on this album, it's the first time that the band has some outside writers helping them out, and that would include Bob Ezrin, because I told you he he would always co-write with whatever band he's working with. Um, but a guy by the name of Kim Fowley, who uh probably is more well known for putting together the all-girl band, The Runaways, in the late 70s. Um co-wrote, he's got a co-write on King of the Nighttime World and another song on the album. I don't remember which one. Um shoot. Yeah, I can't recall which one it is. Well, you know what? Why don't I just do this? Why don't I just pull the record out of the sleeve? I wish this was the original album that I had purchased. It's not, and I don't I really don't even know where this one came from. Um but I I would like to to go and purchase the original pressing of the one that I had, and that was uh, let's see, where's Kim Fowley? Kim Fowley is right there on King of the Nighttime World, and then Kim Fowley appears one more time. Do you love me? Okay. So do you love me? Um, but if you can see the label on this, it's the tan label, the tan Casablanca label, kind of a desert scene, that type of thing. The original, the original pressings uh from Casablanca, the original um album labels, even on even on uh Destroyer, were what was called like the purple label. And the bottom half of it would be a you know a purplish color, the bottom half of this label, and then the top half was more silver, and it had the Casablanca logo and all that. And then it had it had a guy that I guess maybe he was supposed to represent maybe like a Humphrey Bogart type character, kind of had a silhouette of him with a cigarette, um, just uh like a just a headshot, you know, but he had a hat on and that kind of thing. So that was the original label on the album. And um then later pressings, they went with this this one here. When these first came out, I thought they were cool. But you know, if you're gonna go relive your childhood stuff, you know, and and relive those memories, and you're gonna go back and buy vinyl, you kind of want it to look like it did when you were a kid. So when I go out and I buy the vinyl, and you guys know I have some vinyl sitting right here to my to my right, um, that's what I look for. Did it have the stickers in there? Did it have the poster, the the order form? I want it on this label, not this label, all that kind of stuff. That's what I look for because it's like I said, that's how it was when I was a kid, and that's how that's what I that I want those memories to come back with all that stuff. So anyway. Um, so uh okay, so the track listing, we went through that. Let me put this back in the sleeve here. There we go. Excellent. And I, you know, like I said, I remember getting this album thinking it was just the greatest thing ever. Um best Kiss album ever. And for years, for years. It was like, you know, people say, hey, so which album is Kiss's best album? Oh, it's Destroyer. Destroyer, hands down, boom. That's their best album. And you know, at honestly, even to this day, there can there's a lot that can be uh um there's a lot that can go into that argument because up until the band really ceased touring, what was that, 2023? I think was when they ended all. That was when end of the road tour finally ended after five years. But um the band still plays. I mean, the primarily songs from or the bulk of the songs in their set are from Destroyer and the debut album. So something to be said for that, most definitely. But I did, I was always, oh no, Kiss Destroyer, Kiss Destroyer, Kiss Destroyer. That's the best album, that's their best album ever. Uh, I don't believe that anymore. As a matter of fact, um, I when I had put together my studio albums, uh, my kiss studio albums that I ranked a couple years ago. I went back and looked through my notes and I think Kiss Destroyer. Now, this I was shocked, but I think that Kiss Destroyer I ranked it at like number 13. So that's I I was when I went through my notes and I saw that, I thought I was like, wow, I actually ranked it that low. Um, and I would say probably I did that because I've heard the album so many times over and over and over, especially as a kid. And so, you know, there was a lot, there's obviously there's a lot of kiss albums out there and 20 studio albums to be exact. So this was only number four on the studio side of it. And um, so there's a lot to to choose from, a lot to listen to. And being that I had listened to this one so much, I think there was maybe a little bit of a burnout factor because the album is absolutely dynamite. It really is. It's a fantastic album. The production's great. I think I I do think that the the the songs are great. Um not all nine tracks. I I'll run it down really quick. Um, how I would rank the songs myself from nine to one. And I think that like my number nine song would be Shout It Out Loud. For some people, they love that song. And when the band wrote that song to put on this album, they're coming off of having an anthem in rock and roll all night. And they were really looking to try to repeat that. And it is some sort of or some kind of or type of an anthem. It really is. It has that anthemic feel and that um not a call and response, but but just that chant of shout it out loud, you know. Um, and so there's a lot to that, and the band, it was still on the set list right up to the end. Now, of course, in the 80s, the band took a break from playing a lot of the 70s stuff, like almost all of it. But it was a different time, a different era of the band, and certainly releasing their newer material, newer material, let's get that right. They were um putting a lot more focus on that. And that's the way music was back then, too. That's the way the bands were. When the bands, any band, it doesn't matter who it was, it doesn't matter the genre, it doesn't matter what band, when they would go out and tour and play live, they're out there supporting those albums. They would play four or five songs off of an album, no problem at all. No problem. Um I mean, here's an example. The the first time I saw Journey, and we're this is a kiss, this is a kiss episode, but I'll I'll bring it back home. The first time I saw Journey, that was at the Rose Bowl. They were um, that was in July of 1982, and they were on the back end of their escape tour. They played nine songs off the escape album. The only song they didn't play was Lay It Down. And I think um, I think I read somewhere, I never heard it live. I think I read somewhere that they played it like once live. So, but that was a thing. You're out there touring, supporting your brand new album. You played stuff off of it, so yeah. So as KISS moved along in the 80s, they were right up until like Hot in the Shade, the Hot in the Shade tour. That's when they started to bring back some of the some of the tracks from the 70s and include those in the in the set list. Um Love Gun. I think there was one, I think even was it I Stole Your Love, maybe. But definitely Love Gun. They started bringing back um Rock and Roll All Night. You know, they would pretty much always play Detroit Rock City. Um, I can't say Deuce, I think they were bringing that one back, but you guys get what I'm saying. All right. Um so Shout It Out Loud was number nine for me. Honestly, even going back to late 1976 when I bought the album, Shout It Out Loud was not one of my favorites. I don't know. I I I started thinking about it. Why is Shout It Out Loud? Why do I not care for that song too much? And I think it's the opening of the song with the really, really high-pitched lead guitar, that that just that really high-pitched guitar and the bass. The bass is very light. It's not uh, it's not heavy. The bass isn't heavy on that. Um, and I always thought maybe well, now I would describe it as sounding very thin, but back then I was like, it just kind of does, it sounds like wimpy almost. So I was never a fan, a big fan of Shout It Out Loud. So just that's the way it is. All right. So that one would be number nine for me. Number eight, let me look at here, get my glasses on. Number eight would be Do You Love Me? I think that's a good song. Um I remember my buddy Patrick Sorelli and I, we were in my garage and we had an uh we had an electric guitar not plugged in. And I'm strumming the guitar to Do You Love Me? And you guys know I can't play an instrument, but I'm um I'm strumming to the beat of Do You Love Me? And I think he started pounding on cardboard boxes or something like that. We just put on a tape recorder, started recording it. And when I start going into the to the to the chorus of Do You Love Me, Patrick leans into the to the tape recorder and starts doing the background vocals, you know, do you love me? The high pitched stuff. So it's just that's that is my memory of that song. It's a good memory. I like it. I'm not gonna, yeah, I'm not, I'm not like ashamed of it or anything, but um that would probably be song number eight. I don't know. It's gotta be somewhere, right? So why not eight? But number seven would be great expectations. For some reason, even though a lot of people hate that song, um I always dug it. I just always dug it. Yeah, something about it. Um, you know, during the production of this album, you see not only outside writers coming in, there's orchestration, there's choirs. Um my uh I'll I'll talk about it when I get to it. Um so there's a lot of different stuff, and that's Bob Esrin. That's what he brings to the table when he's gonna come and produce your album. So uh something about it, just but it's number seven for me. Just something about it I really, really dig. And then uh my number six song will probably be King of the Nighttime World. It's a great song. I love the song, and I like the way Detroit Rock City just kind of rolls right into the uh to the opening of of uh that song, but um I probably like the studio version of King of the Nighttime World better than the live version on Alive 2. I don't think I ever liked that. I never liked that, I guess. And I think if I remember correctly, too, when I went to go, when I saw KISS, it was my very first concert. I saw KISS on the Dynasty tour at the fabulous forum. They what did they open with? I think they may have opened. Oh, you know what? I'm gonna get it right here. I I was gonna say, I think they may have opened up with King of the Nighttime World, but I'm gonna look right here because I've got this fantastic book, Kiss Alive Forever. Isn't this great? I'm recording this live and then I'm just like producing on the fly. Uh revenge. Let me look at this this book right here. I don't think it's in print any longer. Kiss Alive Forever. It's got every every concert, every performance that the band made in their entire career, up to, I think it's up to the farewell tour. I think that's where it stops. Uh let's see. I don't know, maybe not, because that's a picture of Eric Singer in Peter's makeup. But Eric did, I think Eric did make a couple of appearances on the farewell tour. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So let's not get bogged down with all that, and let's get back to where we're going. The dynasty tour. Unmasked. That's a very short one. Uh there we go. This is yep. This is the dynasty tour right here. My show is November 79. That's September. And I bet this is fun to listen to, right? Me just thumbing through this book here. Uh okay, there it is. Alright. Set list. 15,822 in attendance. Oh, see the set list from July 21st. That's what the set list was. Okay. Because the band, they would change it up from time to time. Move songs in and out of the set list. Yep, there it is. King of the nighttime world is what they opened up with. So um, yeah, it just, I don't know. Never one of my favorite songs, but um not live, I guess. Later on, I maybe in later years, I guess I came to appreciate it more, but but whatever. So King of the Nighttime World would be number six. Boy, that's all it's a long row to hoe, right? Number five is Beth. I've always loved that song. It's just a it really is a great song. Certainly, it's a tremendous departure for the band, especially at this time where they never even had anything close to a uh a ballad. Uh I guess the love theme from Kiss off of the debut album, sort of. But there's no lyrics to that, it's just an instrumental. But um, I've always loved Beth. Um, I've always liked Peter's delivery. And I have always loved the orchestration in the middle of the song. I've thought it, I just it's so powerful. Um when it ends, it's when it gets, you know, when it ends in the in the middle break of the song before Peter gets back into the last verse. Very, very powerful and really honestly like bombastic. Um and I'll digress for a moment, but when Kiss put out um a live for the um symphony album, that was one of the songs I was looking forward to the most was hearing Beth live with whether it was, and I think then because they played with an ensemble and then they played with the full orchestra, they missed the mark on Beth because they didn't bring that just bombastic horns in the middle break of the song. And I just when I first heard it, I was waiting for that, and my head just kind of sank when I didn't get what I was looking for. There was no payoff. There was no payoff. I don't know how you miss that. I don't understand how a conductor, uh, an orchestra conductor misses that mark. I don't know. I mean, when you when all you gotta do is listen to the studio recording of it, and you've got big horns there, and they're very powerful and they're very dramatic, and then you miss it when you have your opportunity to to bring that song fully live. Because when Kiss would perform it live up to that point, they were playing to a tape, or Peter would sing to a tape, and um generally they wouldn't have the orchestration in the middle. So, anyway, all right. That's my complaint on Beth, but Beth was my number five song. Flame and Youth was number four. Flame and Youth is number four for me, and always liked that song. And when I talked about Bob Ezra and bringing in all kinds of different stuff, this song has you sometimes you have to really listen to it, but it's it's I mean, it sits up there in the mix pretty well. You don't have to, you don't have to really like put your ear to the speaker and tell everyone to shut up, but there is a pipe organ in that song. I think it's great. Um great, great, great. And I just like that song. It's such a shh, it's like such a uh uh that's kind of an anthem right there. You know, flame and youth will set the world on fire. Flamin' youth, our flag is flying higher and higher and higher, you know. Um good song, good song. I like that one a lot. Uh number three is the one that follows up flame and youth, and that's sweet pain. There's it's just it's a different sound, different guitar sound at the beginning of that song. And it's just it's awesome. Gene's vocal performance is great. I just dig the lyrics, my leathers fit tight around me, my whip is always beside me. Yeah. Good stuff, good sweet pain. Number three for me. Uh, the number two song for me off of Destroyer is God of Thunder. And um a lot of people didn't know at the time. Uh that that's that Paul Stanley had written that song and it had a different feel to it. And of course, you know, if you're a big Kiss fan, you got the box set when it came out in like 2000 and um listened to the demo. And it's a it's a I don't want to say a funked up version, but it's a fast version where the version here that Gene sings is just plodding along and it's ominous and it's it's uh demon-esque, you know. Um great version, great song. Gene does a great job with it. Um, I think it was Bob Ezrin that said, no, Paul, that's not for you. This song is not for you. You may have written it, but this song is not for you. Um, I would say, you know, if I was if this was, you know, 30 years ago or well, 30 years ago, I would have been 30. So maybe we have to go back, you know, 48 years to when I was 12. And you asked me what my favorite song in the album was, I probably would have said God of Thunder, because when I first became a KISS fan, Gene was my guy. It was it was all about Gene. Gene was my guy, I dug all of his songs, and uh certainly God of Thunder, one of them, and that's like his trademark. So it didn't matter who wrote that song. God of Thunder is Gene's trademark. That is his song. Um, I'll say though, my favorite version of God of Thunder is off of the um Kiss Alive for the symphony album. Because it's got the full orchestra and all that kind of all that kind of thing. I think Gene does a great job with that one. So that's my favorite version, but this one here, number two, so that only leaves one song left. You guys know what that is, and that's the opening track, Detroit Rock City. What a great song. And what's really cool is coming off of the first three Kiss studio albums, there wasn't a song anything like Detroit Rock City on any of those albums. They were great songs. Those first three albums, you guys know I dig those albums. I dig those albums, but and they were full of the New York attitude, uh, just something different about them. You don't feel as much of that New York attitude on Destroyer, but Detroit Rock City was such a departure from any song that was on the first three studio albums. The um the the the the rhythm of the song, certainly the lyric, the lyrical content. Um it's got two guitar solos in it. And um and the second one's fabulous. Well, I don't know. The first one's it's not really. Really a guitar solo, kind of sort of. There's no lead in it. Um, but definitely the back end um between the um chorus and the last verse of the song. Great, great, great guitar solo. Really, really good. And you can hear those dual guitars those between uh uh Paul and Ace, and it just sounds so good. The song is just so different than any other song that they had at that time. So um it was great to hear it. You hear that, you know, the the all that production at the beginning with uh guy getting in, starting the car, turning the radio on, and of course he turns the radio on, and what's playing? Kiss, you know, come on, rock and roll all night. Um but um the song is supposed to be about a fan, a KISS fan, getting in his car, going to a concert, and dying on the way. Some say it's factual, some say it's fictional, but um yeah, it is what it is, and it's Detroit Rock City, and it's my favorite song off of Kiss Destroyer. So uh, you know what? Like I said, the album was released today, March 15th in 1976. If you haven't had a chance yet, break out your vinyl if you have it. If you've got it on cassette, listen to it on cassette if you've got a cassette player anywhere. If you have it on CD, listen to it, break it out and give this one a listen, and it'll take you right back, especially if you haven't heard heard the entire album in a while. And um, and just yeah, just enjoy it. Just enjoy it because it's a great album, great songs. Of course, it's by a great legendary band. Um, so that's my experience with um Destroyer. That's my experience with it, and like I said, I could have read a whole bunch of notes and reviews and all that kind of thing, but I figured it would be better if this came from the heart, gave you my personal experience with this album and uh how we would just wear this thing out as kids. But uh, great stuff. And I think I'm gonna go enjoy me some Kiss Destroyer as soon as we're done here. So, with that, I'm gonna let you guys go because I don't need to talk any longer on Kiss Destroyer. All right. Besides, maybe you're getting anxious. You're like, hey, come on, hurry up, Ben, shut up. I want to go listen to the album. Um, so with that, I'll remind you that this program is available wherever you get your podcasts. Just search the Ben Maynard program. Boom, it's right there. Go with it, download it, share it with all your people, subscribe to it. Come on, subscribe to it. All right. I need the subscribers, helps me out. Uh, then you can leave a five-star rating. But if you've enjoyed watching this on YouTube, I greatly appreciate it. I need more subscribers here as well. Helps out some kind of algorithm. I don't know. It's way beyond my pay grade. But thanks for doing so. However, you need to subscribe to the channel, hit the notification bell, give me a thumbs up, and leave a comment. Give me your feelings on the album destroyer. And if you want to rank these songs from nine to one, do it. That'd be great. Um, last but not least, follow me on Instagram, simply Ben Maynard program, all one word, or on the TikTok at the Ben Maynard program. So we're done. Enjoy. Give Kiss Destroyer a listen. You are not gonna be sorry. You're gonna absolutely love it. All right. I will see you guys next time. Thanks for being here. This is the Ben Maynard program. Tell a friend.