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The Kings Are Here

album by The Kings

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionOct 6, 2025
Entity authorityQ39071130 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Kings Are Here is the debut Canadian album by the Kings, released in 1980 and certified Platinum in 2021. Its first two tracks, "This Beat Goes On" and "Switchin' to Glide", are usually played together and reached number 59 on the RPM singles chart in Canada.

The album was reissued on CD for the first time in 1999 with five bonus tracks as The Kings Are Here and More.

Background

The Kings Are Here was produced by Bob Ezrin, who had just completed working on Pink Floyd's The Wall. Taking some time off, Ezrin was back home in Toronto and stopped by the Soundstage studio, where he had worked with Alice Cooper and others. There he encountered the Kings recording a self-funded album and, liking what he heard, agreed to mix the tracks "This Beat Goes On" and "Switchin' to Glide". However, realizing that he was not satisfied with the recordings, Ezrin took the tapes to Elektra Records in Los Angeles and secured the band a deal with the label. Ezrin then made the Kings re-rehearse and re-arrange the songs for a month before they re-recorded the album, with some songs having been re-written.

The album went Gold in Canada and peaked at number 74 on Billboard's Top 200 in October 1980, spending 26 weeks on the chart. The single "Switchin' to Glide"/"This Beat Goes On" reached number 43 on Billboard's Hot 100.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “The Kings Are Here” as album by The Kings. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Kings, Here and album.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1980, 2021, 1999—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1980-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Kings, Here and album providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “The Kings Are Here”, the useful work is to connect “album by The Kings” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 6, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q39071130. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1980, 2021 and 1999.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Kings Are Here”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Kings Are Here primary sources, The Kings Are Here archive and Kings research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Kings Are Here”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “The Kings Are Here” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.