Song · Kiss
“God of Thunder” by Kiss
From the album Destroyer (1976)
“God of Thunder” by Kiss appears on 3 radio countdowns from 2 stations between 1990 and 1999. It was first released in 1976 on the album Destroyer. Its best result is #483 on the Z-Rock Top 1001 Songs of All-Time (1990). In the combined RockLists rankings it is #1,048 hard rock song of all time.
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"God of Thunder" is the heavy, lumbering beast lurking on Destroyer, Kiss's 1976 album, and it was never supposed to be Gene Simmons' song. Paul Stanley wrote it and meant to sing it himself, until producer Bob Ezrin talked the band into slowing the tempo and giving the lead vocal to Simmons. Good call: it became his theme song. The track is crammed with sound effects, explosions, clapping, zippers, dubbed-in crowd chatter and screaming kids, with David and Joshua Ezrin credited on extra vocals.
Onstage it turned into Simmons' big moment, spitting blood, taking a bass solo and singing part of it from a platform high above the crowd, and a faster version landed on Alive II. Paste later put it at number 11 among Kiss's 20 greatest songs, and Louder Sound ranked it eighth of 40.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Hard Rock & Metal
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | 483 | Z-Rock | Z-Rock Top 1001 Songs of All-Time (1990) | 1000 |
| 1998 | 741 | KISW | KISW Top 1000 of All Time (1998) | 1000 |
| 1999 | 765 | KISW | KISW Top 1000 of All Time (1999) | 998 |
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