Whew! Here’s A Little Song For Everybody Out There

Jat Storey

9 years ago

Or,

1537 tries to like KISS, again*

Growing up and getting into metal I always felt I really should like KISS more than I did, I mean who couldn’t love the early LP art, the make-up, fire-eating, platform boots and titles like Lick It Up and ‘Burn Bitch Burn’? but … I could never quite like the music that much, excepting a few choice cuts. I found most of their stuff a bit under-powered, the drum sound on their earlier stuff being particularly awful. I remember Crazy Crazy Nights coming out in ’87 and being a big hit over here, the single reaching #4, I’d hear it but it just seemed so simplistic to me that I shied away from it.

Flash forward 5 years and a drunken conversation in university as ‘Crazy Crazy Nights’ played on a jukebox and my friend Faz saying that he loved it and the best thing about it was that anyone could sing that song. I agreed and leaped straight into action, buying the 12″ picture disc version of Crazy Crazy Nights about 12 years later.

Flash forward another 10 years and I do love ‘Crazy Crazy Nights’ for precisely the reason Faz mentioned. That riff and the beat is basic as hell, the song structure was clearly put together in about 10 minutes and the lyrics written in half that time. But what makes it so simple and universal are the vocals – anyone could sing it, this is possibly the most democratic record in my whole collection. None of this is meant to be remotely disparaging, it is in fact what makes it so good. You don’t have to spend any unnecessary mental processing power listening to this track you just already know it, freeing up your mind to think about the higher things in life, like getting drunk, laid and drunker. It’s a truly great record to listen to whilst getting ready to go out, or whilst doing some pre-drinking – or at least I seem to remember it was.

Sometimes days are so hard to survive,
A million ways to bury you alive
The sun goes down like a bad bad dream
You’re wound up tight, gotta let off steam
They say they can break you again and again
If life is a radio, turn up to ten

It’s not quite ‘Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands’, or ‘Bird On the Wire’, but sometimes you just need to sink your teeth into a burger and fries.

As for the B-sides, ‘No No No’ is a fine up-tempo 80’s rock track, complete with widdly-widdly guitar intro and not enough bass in the production, a proper bit of grit. ‘Heaven’s On Fire’ pretty much uses the exact same beat as ‘Crazy Crazy Nights’, with elements of the sound of my fave KISS album Lick It Up, bolted on – I like it; could I finally be getting KISS-ed? Not quite, I really can’t think of anything nice to write about ‘Tears Are Falling’, at all.

But this disc isn’t just about the music, it’s about the image and KISS being KISS about selling more stuff to us, hence the three B-sides from three earlier 80’s LPs and the advert for the Kiss Exposed video ‘Can you afford to miss it?’. Also doubly hence we have the picture of the band relaxing with 9 bikini clad chicks. Well I say relaxing, the band all look remarkably tense given the situation and the girls definitely have the look that only a gaggle of pneumatic former Homecoming queens who caught the bus to Hollywood from Sticky Gopher, New Mexico to become superstar actresses can really emote, when they have the uncomfortable revelation that being pawed by Gene Simmons today isn’t the first step on the road to stardom, but is in fact what they now have to do to pay for food.

I’m particularly taken with chick in the pink spotty bikini at the front who looks like she’s seen stuff no-one should ever have to see in their lifetime and if Paul doesn’t take his hand off her thigh right now she’ll stab him in the eyeballs with a pen. It’s also worth checking out the chick to the right of Gene, who is very clearly regretting dropping out of her nursing course last year with every fibre of her being. Take it away guys!

These are crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy nights
These are crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy nights