Songoftheday 2/4/17 - I gotta tell you what I'm feelin' inside, I could lie to myself but it's true...
from the album Hot In The Shade (1989)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #8 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 11
Today's song of the day comes from the glam-metal band Kiss, who had incredible fame in the 70s, and by the next decade was still selling tons of records, but was being passed on by mainstream radio. They had two singles that came within striking distance of the top-40, "Shandi" in 1980 (when they dabbled in a disco sound) and "Heaven's On Fire" in 1984. But they did continue to pepper the pop chart with minor hits while going gold and platinum (500K and 1M) with their albums. They even reached the top-5 in Britain with the title track from their Crazy Nights album. In 1989 they released their fifteenth studio effort Hot In The Shade. It was the fifth album since they removed the face make-up and outlandish clothes they were famous for. The first single from the set, the pop/metal "Hide Your Heart", sounding like a Bon Jovi outtake, hit #22 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart, while going to #66 on the pop Hot 100. But the second single would see them pull the ace-in-the-hole power-ballad move that got mainstream radio a-swooning. "Forever", written by lead singer Paul Stanley with soft-rock king Michael Bolton, pushed all the prom-night buttons and gave the band their biggest hit since "Beth" in 1976 (their sole top-10 hit at that time)...
"Forever" became Kiss' second and final top-ten pop hit (and top-40, for that matter) in April of 1990. The single also climbed to #17 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart. Internationally, the song reached the top-40 in Canada (#18) and Australia (#38), and was a minor hit in the UK at #65. A third single from Hot In The Shade, "Rise To It", went to #40 rock and #81 pop.
In 1991, after fighting a battle with cancer, drummer Eric Carr suffered a hemorrhage and died, leaving the band to enlist their third drummer in Eric Singer for their next album Revenge. While the lead track "God Gave Rock N' Roll To You II" scored them a top ten single in the UK (#4) and Germany (#9), it missed the pop list in America altogether (the record peaked at #21 rock). But as the 90s progressed, their standing as rock veterans and a live act started to overshadow their "pop radio" presence. Their last record with guitarist, Bruce Kulick, ended up getting pushed off, even after a top ten rock hit with the grunge-like "Jungle" (#8). For a while the original lineup of Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley, and Peter Criss (back in makeup) reunited for a massive tour and the album Psycho Circus, which sent its title track to #1 on the rock radio chart in America in 1998. It didn't last long, and Criss and Frehley were ditched yet again with Singer and Tommy Thayer (who played on Hot In The Shade) brought back. Their most recent radio success was in 2012 with "Hell or Hallelujah" (#36 Mainstream Rock) from their Monster album.
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Here's Kiss live on tour with the song...
...and lastly, from their symphonic show in 2003...
Up tomorrow: Soulful white boy is privileged.
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