Kiss – “Uh! All Night” – 12″ Promotional Single (1985) – Single Review (The Kiss Review Series)

The band’s 13th studio album called ‘Asylum’ came out on September 16, 1985. It only had one official retail issued single and that was the ballad “Tears Are Falling”. The also released two other promotional singles which were “Who Wants To Be Lonely” and the one we are here to talk about “Uh! All Night”. They actually made videos for all three songs which we filmed in London. The album was certified Gold by November 1985 which means Kiss still had a solid following at this time. The videos on MTV helped even if they were cheesy and drenched in the bold colors and ridiculous outfits that were the rage at the time. Kiss were chasing trends at this point, not setting them anymore.

What we are going to discuss is this Promotional only radio single which I now have in my collection thanks to my Brother, Gary, finding it in the wild at some shop in Georgia. It is housed in a generic Emerald Green Polygram jacket with a jagged looking hole which I think looks pretty cool. Sides A and B are the same song in stereo and the label has the “Promotional Copy: Not For Sale” on the label. One cool thing about it the Vinyl is that if you hold it up to a light source, it has a green translucent color to it (the picture doesn’t quite capture it, but trust me it has a green tint). My copy was well loved by the radio station and still has some stickers on it that I am assuming they put on themselves. The vinyl is clean, no popping and sounds great.

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Kiss – ‘Animalize’ (1984) – Album Review (The Kiss Review Series)

With the success of ‘Lick It Up’, Kiss was back on top…well as close to on top as they were going to get for awhile. They were somewhat relevant again, but things weren’t easy. Vinnie Vincent was officially out of the band by around April 1984 and they needed a guitarist quick as it was time to record a new album. They settled on a guitarists by the name of Mark St. John. He was a proper shredder which was typical of the time thanks in large part to the late, great Eddie Van Halen. Now fully staffed again, they went in to the studio in May and worked through July on the album.

I said “they”, but that was a loose term. This project was really more Paul’s than Gene’s. Gene was out doing movies, trying to produce new rock bands and pretty much anything else that wasn’t Kiss. Paul Stanley ran the shop and actually ended up producing the album. Gene Simmons showed up on occasion to give us a handful of a mediocre songs. But he didn’t play on all the songs.

Continue reading “Kiss – ‘Animalize’ (1984) – Album Review (The Kiss Review Series)”