In a recent interview with Classic Rock, Paul Stanley of KISS offered an assessment of the band’s discography, identifying two specific albums as their least successful efforts. When asked about his worst album, the rock star listed two:
“There are two: ‘Unmasked’ and ‘Music From The Elder.’ ‘Unmasked’ was tepid and had no balls to it. Actually, the band at that point probably had no balls to it either. ‘The Elder’ was a misguided attempt at impressing people who we shouldn’t have been trying to impress – the critics – while forgetting the people we should impress – the fans.”
Gene Simmons Agrees With Ace Frehley On ‘The Elder’ Criticism
Gene Simmons is also not a fan of the ‘Music From “The Elder”‘ album. He thinks, as Paul Stanley said, that they did it for the wrong purposes. In 2022, Despite the long feud between them , he agreed with Ace Frehley’s criticism of ‘Music From ‘The Elder.’ Speaking to Guitar World, Simmons reflected on the style they chose to make the album, which polarized fans and caused sales to plummet. He acknowledged that Frehley was correct in asserting that KISS should have focused on making a rock record instead of ‘The Elder.’ He said:
“When I look back, despite his demons, in some ways Ace was right. We did need to make a rock record, and he had said that all along. Ace had said that ‘The Elder’ was not the record that Kiss should make, and he was right. But the thing is, we had people around us telling us it was a good idea, and things didn’t go according to plan. We got off track.”
He concluded by stating that, although he was right in his criticism of the album, what Frehley was wrong about was that he left the band at the time.