I was a KISS fan when the album came out, a huge one. And of course, the Internet didn't exist yet, so I had no idea that it (or they) sucked - haha. Thank god for the internet, it teaches me time and again what sucks!
As to Kiss, the useless trivia I have in my mind about them would be considered an embarrassment by many. I spent every dollar I could scrape together on KISS LPs as a young one. They were my first concert (Animalize tour - sadly two years after they took off the makeup, but still cool). I remember getting the Elder on cassette, and to be fair about it, Kiss had already fallen from favor with the public, before its release...but I put it in, not really realizing that, and frankly, I didn't see it as such a huge departure from everything else they did, and I loved it. I also probably didn't quite realize that there weren't that many loyal Kiss fans out there anymore. I lived in a small town, and just assumed A LOT of people liked them as muh as me. The whole Kiss idea was practically begging for a concept record. Also, as some might remember, they were actually planning to make a movie about it at one point early after its release. It flopped, so that didn't happen. Information moved slower back then though, and I'm pretty sure that it took me at least a couple of years to realize, "Oh, that ain't gonna happen." haha