Kiss - Crazy Nights

Crazy Nights finds Kiss in full 1987 pop-metal mode, keyboards gleaming and choruses built for the cheap seats.

Their fourteenth studio album saw the band hand the controls to outside producer Ron Nevison after producing their two previous records themselves. The lineup of Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, lead guitarist Bruce Kulick and drummer Eric Carr was firmly locked in by now, and Nevison steered them toward a sleek, radio-ready sound that matched the era's appetite for polished hard rock.

The title track "Crazy Crazy Nights" is a fist-pumping anthem for misfits everywhere, and it became one of the band's biggest UK hits, climbing into the top five. "Reason to Live" is a big, brooding power ballad, its synth wash and Stanley's impassioned vocal pure late-eighties drama, while "Turn On the Night" bursts with bright, sing-along energy. "I'll Fight Hell to Hold You" brings back some of the old snarl and swagger of their earlier records.

Simmons takes a few lead vocals of his own, though the album belongs mostly to Stanley's soaring melodies and Kulick's slick, tasteful solos.

It remains a fan favourite for anyone who loves the glossier side of Kiss, and a perfect time capsule of arena rock at its most unapologetically shiny and hook-obsessed.