Yes, KISS' "Crazy Nights" Still Sucks!

I love KISS, but I absolutely despise the 1987 album "Crazy Nights," which caused me to go AWOL from the KISS Army for several years after its release.

KISS, "Crazy Nights"

(Mercury Records, 1987) / 11 Tracks, 42:58

KISS has been one of my favorite bands for more years than I care to mention. I've seen them live many times, I've met most of the band members in person, and I own an embarrassingly large collection of KISS memorabilia for a man of my advanced age.

Yet for many years, there was one -- ONE -- piece of KISStory that I absolutely refused to allow into my house. My otherwise complete KISS CD collection was missing one album.

You might assume that missing album would be one of KISS' well-known flops like Carnival of Souls: The Final Sessions or Music From "The Elder"... but no, that honor belonged to Crazy Nights, the band's half-assed attempt to jump on Bon Jovi's ultra-polished, pop-metal/AOR bandwagon.

Released in 1987, Crazy Nights hit the Billboard top 20 in the U.S. and was awarded Platinum status (representing one million copies sold), so by all accounts it was a success. As a KISS fanboy, I should have been happy for them.

Yet, I abso-fucking-lutely despised this record. In my book, Bon Jovi has always been THE ENEMY, and as far as I was concerned, KISS had no business trying to ride their coat tails.

For many years, I assumed that everyone felt the same way about Crazy Nights that I did. Imagine my surprise when I learned that there are people in some corners of KISS fandom, who love Crazy Nights and consider it one of their best albums. Seriously? To those people, all I can say is...

Over the years, that Crazy Nights sized hole in my collection of KISS studio albums began to wear away at my O.C.D. There were many times I considered buying the disc just for the sake of finishing my discography, but then I would give the album a quick listen on YouTube and say "never mind."

Earlier this year, however, my collector's O.C.D. finally won out over my common sense. I was scrounging through the new arrivals at my favorite second-hand record store and came across a used copy of Crazy Nights. I hemmed and hawed about it for a few minutes, before finally deciding, "Oh, what the hell..." and adding it to my stack of purchases.

(This was the CD collecting equivalent of Hell freezing over.)

I took the disc home, gave it several spins merely to justify the purchase, and promptly shelved it. My opinion of Crazy Nights hasn't changed one iota. It's still an utterly dreadful, cringe worthy listen.

Don't get me wrong: deep down, I'd always known that KISS were trend chasers. When disco was hot, they gave us "I Was Made for Lovin' You." When new wave hit, we got Unmasked. When heavy metal came back into vogue, there was Creatures of the Night and Lick It Up. On Crazy Nights, however, they sound like a bunch of old guys playing "catch-up," arriving too late to a party that they weren't even invited to.

Crazy Nights represented KISS at their absolute wimpiest. The hard rockin', fire breathing bad-asses of yesteryear were completely neutered by producer Ron Nevison, who had just resuscitated Heart's career by turning them into a slick AOR hit machine. Paul Stanley obviously hoped Nevison would work similar magic for KISS. Gene supposedly wasn't as enamored with the idea of working with Nevison, but since he was too busy with his various side hustles (acting in movies and producing and managing other acts) Paul ended up getting his way.

The title anthem that kicks off the record is about as good as it gets on this album. It's not a great song by any means, but it's better than most of the ultra-polished, poop that follows. "I'll Fight Hell to Hold You" has some nice guitar shredding from Bruce Kulick, but the irritating chorus sinks the song pretty quickly. "Bang Bang You" is just as silly as its title implies, and while "No No No" features more impressive Kulick guitar work, Gene Simmons sounds like he's phoning the lead vocals in from the set of whatever B-Movie he was working on at the time.

"When Your Walls Come Down" almost overcomes the uber-slick production, and then we come to the main source of my decades-long, seething hatred for Crazy Nights - the godawful power ballad "Reason to Live," which features Kulick on keyboards (!) and sounds like a dollar store knock-off of Heart's "Alone."

I have nothing against a well-done ballad, but if I were to compile a list of the most soulless, cookie cutter corporate crap rock power ballads of the '80s, "Reason to Live" would take the top spot.

Gene sleepwalks through "Good Girl Gone Bad" and the sappy "Turn on the Night" sounds like the end-credit theme to an '80s teen film starring Corey Feldman and/or Haim.

Crazy Nights comes to a merciful close with Gene's "Thief in the Night," which may sound familiar to some because it originally appeared on Plasmatics front woman Wendy O. Williams' 1984 solo debut, W.O.W. (which Gene produced and played on). Wendy's version had more bite to it, but at least this rendition saves the back half of the album from total crap-dom.

Obviously I'll never be a big fan of this album. I can usually find something to like about most of KISS' albums (even the ones that other fans hate!), but the uber-slick production and sub-par material on C.N. has always left me cold. The follow up album, 1989's Hot in the Shade, wasn't much better, but at least the acoustic ballad "Forever" on that one sounded more genuine than "Reason to Live" (and provided KISS with a commercial hit that they desperately needed at the time).

The one band member who comes out of Crazy Nights with the most dignity is Bruce Kulick, whose guitar work energizes even the weakest tracks. I wish that Paul & Gene had given him better material to lay his shreds upon!

Due to my distaste for pop-KISS, I declared myself AWOL from the KISS Army during this period of their career. When their harder edge returned on 1992's Revenge, I came back to the fold, and the rest is history, as they say.

As for Crazy Nights, it will probably rot on my CD shelf untouched for the rest of my life, but at least I can say my KISS collection is finally complete!