KISS Against Their Own Reflection: Music From the Elder, the Album That Could Have Destroyed Reality
In 1980, KISS was trapped. Their sound had become more commercial. Popularity continued to grow in parts of the world, but in the United States the general public already saw them as rock dinosaurs. Trapped in their own spectacle, with a formula that no longer surprised anyone. Their previous albums, Dynasty and Unmasked, sold well in Europe as pop music. Few still regarded them as strident rock. In the early seventies KISS had emerged from territory close to glam rock, the same visual and theatrical universe inhabited by Lou Reed and David Bowie. While those two launched themselves into ever more dangerous and experimental territories, KISS seemed to be walking in the opposite direction. Bowie had built one of the most fascinating transformations in the history of rock with his Berlin trilogy: Low, Heroes and Lodger. Lou Reed had gone deeper into an increasingly risky exploration, especially from Street Hassle onward. Both had understood that rock did not have to remain a prison...
