I can get a good idea of why the sinisterly stalking Burning Up With Fever (1978) (1) was not taken into consideration for Destroyer (1976) back in the day.
I mean, if you take into account that the preferred God of Thunder, as the archetype of all so called demon songs, forms an almost insurmountable benchmark and virtually its own closed dimension, you don't necessarily have to be Sherlock Holmes to find a reasonably meaningful answer (2).
But why it was also excluded from the follow-up Rock and Roll Over (1976) is another question, because there is no other demon-esque song on this album.
I never noticed any positioning or questioning of this almost Kiss-atypical circumstance anywhere in fandom, but maybe it was simply because with Rock and Roll Over they wanted to let it go for once with the dark song and it was probably too peculiar for the spirit of the album, and not rock n' rolly enough, because they most probably saw need to focus more on classic, light-hearted dick songs again. And then again, maybe Burning Up With Fever just wasn't lightweight enough (3).
But hey, maybe it's all just a funny coincidence, who knows, besides, this is only supposed to be the, ahem, introduction anyway, just to warm up to the subject matter a bit.
So where did this troublemaker of a Gene song, which finally found an adequate and comfortable home on Gene's '78 solo album, actually originate?
Well, somehow with Jeff Beck and his Rock My Plimsoul (1968), I would say. More or less, because this one has some classic blues in it and also moves rather quietly and smoothly, as if it could do so all night long.
Gene brings in his the rough edges into this groove with his spindly, somewhat awkward monster walk, half gorilla, half Godzilla, coming towards you with equally slow, but in its grotesqueness almost comically irregular steps.
So in my vision Gene basically puts Jeff Beck on as a costume over his Love Gun (1977) outfit, complete with that red Dracula solo cape. You know those full body suits that are printed with something extraordinair and are so thin that you can basically always see exactly what the costumed person is wearing underneath? You know what I mean?
(1) Originally first moved into the Kiss picture as a '75/76 pre-production demo for Destroyer, or something like that.
(2) It probably didn't quite fit into Bob Ezrin's musical concept/vision either.
(3) But as I said, almost Kiss-untypical. On Hotter Than Hell (1974) half the album was dark and gritty, Dressed to Kill (1975) at least had the gloomy-stoic She, Love Gun (1977) later had Almost Human, but what about the debut album? Yep, no Demon song at all. Rock and Roll Over and the self-titled debut are thus the only two Kiss albums of the klassik (and even not so klassik masked) period without a dark and brooding Gene song.
And, oh yes, I do indeed include Naked City from Unmasked (1980), albeit this track contains more Drama than Demon, but still has enough demon power in it to hold its own as such against all the Gene songs post-Lick It Up (1983).
No highlighted inks, but Burning Up With Fever begins directly without that jangling intro:
Burning Up With Fever (1978)
