10 Hard Rock Albums With Only One Good Song
3. Music From The Elder - KISS
By the very beginning of the 80's, KISS were on a career downslide after losing some of their audience with their disco hit "I Was Made For Lovin You." While course correcting on the album Unmasked and losing drummer Peter Criss, the band had the ill-advised idea that a concept album was what they needed to bring them back from the brink.
Though many had gotten accustomed to the band's more underwhelming releases, Music From the Elder is a half-baked concept album that ended up driving the band deeper into a hole. Although the story makes almost no sense and is filled with musical fluff, "A World Without Heroes" is actually a fairly well-written tune. With input from the legendary Lou Reed, Gene Simmons' more restrained vocal performance suits the song's theme of defeat pretty well.
On the other hand, having the best song by hard rockers KISS be the ballad triggered many alarm bells for both fans and critics alike. Shortly afterward, guitarist Ace Frehley decided he had had enough and quit, leaving Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley as the sore original members of the band. Though the band would bounce back with Creatures of the Night a few years later, "A World Without Heroes" is the only salvageable from KISS's conceptual fumble.