Kiss: Love Gun & Destroyer
Kiss had the best album covers of their career, not to mention tunes in the 70’s, both of which took a huge nosedive by the time the 80’s came around. The covers for Love Gun & Destroyer, both painted by fantasy artist Ken Kelly, were the standouts. Although i’m also a big fan of the cover for Rock And Roll Over, it’s in a complete different and more graphical style.
The apocalyptic and nether-world look of both these covers with the band portrayed as demigods, totally suited the way Kiss were viewed by fans and those who thought they were Knights In Satan’s Service. The more graphic design based 80’s pretty much killed off this style of painted album covers, only really surviving then and today in the world of Metal.
A testament to how skilled Ken Kelly was at his craft, both sketches for the albums are almost identical to the finished covers
Spawn Toys considered the cover of Love Gun so classic that they reproduced in action figure form.
beth:
This cover must’ve been the inspiration for Liono from Thundercats. Same hair!
# 08 Aug 07 at 10:56 pm
Swa:
Destroyer remains a classic album cover - and personally is my fave over Love Gun. Just classic KISS - comic book styling and heroics for a band that would rule the world for a good few years.
# 23 Aug 07 at 2:52 pm
dennis:
this album cover had a huge impact - my babysitter brought this album over to my house to listen to (it was new at the time - for reference) and i remember listening to it, loving the music, and just starring at the cover - my love of girls and monsters all started that night…
# 21 Sep 07 at 9:23 am
nesa:
uuuuuuuuuu cool
cool
# 15 Mar 08 at 1:07 am
mitch:
It always bothered me on the love gun album that the woman in the lower left was never completely painted in
# 10 Apr 08 at 4:37 am