Robbed Hit of the Week 12/2/13 - Kiss' "Heaven's On Fire"...

Kiss - "Heaven's On Fire"
from the album Animalize (1984)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #49

This week's "robbed hit" is by the glam hard rock group Kiss, who came together under Pete Stanley and Gene Simmons in the early 70s in New York. Drawing inspiration from theatrical rock acts like Alice Cooper, the band donned mime-style makeup and outrageously over-the-top outfits, Kiss released their self-titled album in 1974. With a re-worked version of Bobby Rydell's 60s hit "Kissin' Time", they made their first minor pop hit in America. With a heavy output, they churned through two more albums with so-so success until they released their Alive! set the following year, which put them over with the American youth, and scored their first top-40 hit with the live version of "Rock and Roll All Nite", which peaked at #12. By this point, the quartet with their makeup-enhanced personas for Simmons and Stanley with guitarist Ace Frehley and drummer Peter Criss became known to almost every teen in the 70s. By the next year, their power-ballad "Beth", sung by Criss, was their first to make the top ten.

Kiss continued to have more hits, but nothing particularly big, as they were much more of an albums-oriented act, drawing the fans (the "Kiss Army") to buy their full-lengths rather than their singles, and their songs were a little to aggressive for pop radio. By the 80s, as new wave and pop were eclipsing hard rock, Kiss tried to shake things up a little, removing their makeup for their Lick It Up album in 1983, and made the top-20 on the rock radio chart with the title track.  The following year, they released Animalize, and the first single from the album, was written by Paul Stanley with "song doctor" Desmond Child. By then, Criss and Frehley were out of the band, replaced by guitarist Mark St. John (who himself had replaced Vinnie Vincent) and drummer Eric Carr...

While "Heaven's On Fire" became their biggest rock radio hit up to that point, reaching #11 on Billboard's chart, the single stalled out at the halfway mark on the pop top 100, as it also did in Britain (#43) and Canada (#46). It would take another six years (and another ballad) to get Kiss back on the top-40 with "Forever". However, St. John would leave during the making of the album due to health issues with his hand, making Bruce Kulick the fourth guitarist for the band.

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...Here's Kiss on the tour for the Animalize album in 1985 (Kulick's in this clip)..

...and here they are on their 1995 MTV Unplugged appearance...

...and again from their 1992 tour (I had to include it for the obvious "work done" on Stanley's face)...

...and lastly from this year...think about it. Paul Stanley is 60.