Kiss – Crazy Nights – 1987
Taking two years off from releasing a studio album for the first time in their 13 year career, (probably due to Gene’s burgeoning film career), Kiss returns with a new album built for the 80s excess. Filled with pandering Pop Metal, crappy cover art and big, bloated sounds that manage to rip off everyone from Def Leppard to Bon Jovi, 1987 Kiss gave us “Crazy Nights”.
You know that song. “Crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy nights!” Anthem pop at it’s most indulgent. And that’s the high point.
1. Crazy Nights Devoid of any reason except to give lunkheads in Fargo, ND something to chant back to the stage. And the dumb faux crowd shouting of Paul Stanley is really poorly conceived.
2. I’ll fight Hell to Hold You – This sounds like second rate John Parr. If you can imagine.
3. Bang Bang You Def Leppard should have sued. Come to think of it, so should the Kiss Army.
4. No No No Eddie Van Halen should have sued. If not for the tapping theft, this could have been a good song. Wait, not really.
5. Hell or High Water You know, I think Gene is the one who comes out sounding the best on this spinner. Surely, it’s faceless and generic but it’s also inoffensive and innocuous. Actually not a bad listen. Or maybe the record is wearing me down.
6. My Way 80s synth keyboards!?!?! WTF? Is this a song that didn’t make it on to the St. Elmo’s Fire soundtrack?? Oh, it’s terrible. You need to hear it to know just how far the glam metal darlings of the 70s have fallen into pander-osity.
7. When Your Walls Come Down I kind of like this song’s chorus and the big blandness of the whole thing. But it does sound like every. other. metal. song. ever. written.
8. Reason to Live Hey, Cheap Trick! You weren’t the only band putting out cheesetastic ballads in the late 80s! Except I don’t think theirs sounded SO much like Foreigner. And John Parr. This is what Aerosmith would sound like a decade later.
9. Good Girl Gone Bad Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…………
10. Turn on the Night What? Diane Warren??????? Paul Stanley co-wrote a song with Diane Warren!?!?!?!? And it’s not a ballad! I think…yes, I’m pretty sure, it’s the only “good” song on the album. (This song, Crazy Nights, Thief in the Night…what’s with all the nocturnal themes, guys?)
11. Thief in the Night – Mindless
Like AC/DC before them, Kiss proves that it’s really freaking hard to pump out relevant records year after year. And the pap that they did churn out is almost unlistenable.
They would take another 2 year break before they foisted something us on the public.
Grade D
ASide: Crazy Nights, Turn on the Night
BlindSide: Hell or High Water,
DownSide: Bang Bang You, My Way
