Connor McGrath
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Released: September 16, 1985
Label: Mercury Records[/alert][/one_third]KISS returned to the studios in the Summer of ’85 for their first album with their fourth guitarist in three years, Bruce Kulick. After his distractions on the previous album, Gene was more focused on the new album, co-producing it with Paul and contributing more to the songwriting process but still thanks to his acting career, he left most of the bass playing duties to Paul and sideman Jean Beauvoir. Kulick took on a bigger role than his predecessor, co-writing three songs on the album. Still with Gene Simmons off acting and trying to jump start his producing career (coaxing bands like Keel and EZO to super-stardom… or not), Paul Stanley was left with the bulk of the songwriting credits. Once again, he used hired guns like Beauvoir and Desmond Child to try and craft the next big single. Even more so than usual for the band (and this is something considering it’s KISS we’re talking about), Stanley was purposely trying to create big, dumb sing along arena rock anthems that could compete with acts like Bon Jovi and Scorpions. Nobody would confuse KISS anthems of the ’70s as great, insightful songwriting but some of their ’80s songs like “Uh! All Night” really scrape the bottom of the barrel. Heck, as Roger Ebert would say, they barely deserved to be compared in the same sentences to barrels.
Asylum was released in September of ’85, an indication of the rushed nature of KISS work during this period. It was initially a success, reaching the Top 20, and going Gold two months after its release. But with the lack of a big hit single, the album quickly tumbled down the charts. What the band lacked in radio exposure, they made up for by filming ridiculous, gaudy music videos that proved to be huge hits with the late night audiences at MTV. Somehow, the unmasked KISS was beginning to look even more ridiculous than the make up clad version. The androgynous pastel outfits worn during this era made SuperKISS look understated.
Paul swinging on the vine like Tarzan kills me every time. Each single/video off this album gets more ridiculous than the last.
KISS in the mid ’80s was working twice as hard for half the acclaim that they had in the ’76 to ’78 heyday. Though the band’s popularity had stabilized after its massive downfall in the early ’80s, things were a lot different than they were during the peak of popularity. Outside of stories about Gene’s latest film or Paul’s fling with Knots Landing star Lisa Hartman, the band received little publicity outside of the obligatory album reviews. During the Asylum tour, the band would have to play five shows a week to break even. Gone were the Learjets and in were the tour buses. The hedonistic “Rock N Roll All Night” ’70s had given way to the workman like, “Get All You Can Take” ’80s. Paul Stanley wasn’t willing to settle for the band being half as popular as they were in 1977. He wanted the band to swing for the fences like they had in the ’70s. Even if it meant having to momentarily halt KISS’ rigorous touring schedule.
Swinging for the Top of the Pops
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Released: September 18, 1987
Label: Mercury Records[/alert][/one_third]After cranking out an album every year in the ’80s, Paul Stanley was ready to have KISS record something truly special. Ten years earlier, they were the most popular band in America but now KISS was thrilled to play to a two-thirds filled arena. While KISS never had to go back on the bar circuit, the late ’80s were lean times. In one of the more humbling moments of the period, they were asked to be the opening act for a European stadium tour headlined by Bon Jovi, a band that had opened up for KISS on the Animalize tour just a few years earlier. Once the leader of the pack in the world of hard rock, KISS had not only fallen behind contemporaries like AC/DC and Aerosmith but were now starting to fall behind younger bands like Bon Jovi, Poison, and Motley Crue.
Paul & Gene wanted to recapture the magic of Love Gun & Destroyer even if it meant having to cut into their rigorous tour schedule. The man that they thought could be an Eddie Kramer or Bob Ezrin of the ’80s was super-producer Ron Nevison. Behind Mutt Lange, Nevison was perhaps the biggest rock producer of the era. He had a track record of being able to produce hit albums for acts who had been written off as hasbeens like Heart and Jefferson Starship. KISS hoped he could replicate that success. Nevison’s production was exactly what Paul was looking for; he crafted, big shiny singalong arena rock anthems. Hardcore KISS fans didn’t take it as a good omen when Paul told the press that he was writing songs for the album on the keyboard instead of on the acoustic guitar as he had for previous KISS albums.
The album’s first single “Crazy, Crazy Nights” confirmed a lot of those fans fears. It was a massively poppy would-be anthem. An attempt to combine “Rock & Roll All Night” with the big sing along pop-metal songs of the era like Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer”. KISS was certain this song would be their calling card to the Top 10… and it was… in the United Kingdom. “Crazy, Crazy Nights” somehow became by far, KISS’ biggest hit in England, going all the way up to #4 on the UK Pop Charts. In the U.S., the song stalled at #65.
Somehow, this song was one of the more album’s “rocking” moments. KISS had a contingency plan if the single failed. If a big “Rock & Roll All Night” update/”Living on a Prayer” ripoff wouldn’t work, KISS would take the route that every rock band in the ’80s did to try and reach the pop charts… record a big power ballad.
Even in their early days, KISS was never the heaviest band but there was nothing remotely edgy about Crazy Nights. Diane Warren has a songwriting credit on the album! The same Diane Warren who wrote wimptastic songs like Starship’s “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now (Theme From Mannequin)”!This was unabashedly their most poppy album since Unmasked. It sounded closer to Journey than Whitesnake. KISS was certain it’d become their biggest hit since the ’70s. Released in September of 1987, almost two years after Asylum, the album was initially a big success, peaking at #18 on the Billboard charts (their highest chart position of the ’80s) and going platinum six months after its release. But once again as had happened with Animalize and Asylum, the album quickly fell off the charts and the tour was a mixed bag with some dates being sold out and some dates drawing only a few thousand people or being canceled altogether.
Interesting to note that the videos for this album were the first since they took off the greasepaint to reference the makeup era. They had taken it off less than five years ago but already KISS seemed a bit nostalgic for the past and who could blame them?
The band was in a state of disarray, firing a lot of their long term employees for making some disastrous financial decisions. While Stanley & Simmons hadn’t had the extravagant drugs and alcohol habits that some of their bandmates had in KISS ’70s heyday, they did have expensive tastes in housing, cars, and clothing and were now starting to realize their fortunes weren’t limitless. They really did need that big comeback hit. And on their next album, they would have to band together again and team up with some old friends and some unusual collaborators to try and get KISS back on top.
Next time on Connor’s KISS Korner: Gene, Paul, Bruce, and Eric close out the ’80s with a little help from their friends and a very unusual new manager. KISS gets Hot in the Shade.
