Hot In The Shade is the longest running album in their career clocking in at just under 1 hour. Overall I enjoy the album immensely. Thank the almighty stars above that they got rid of the keyboards. But they basically jumped from one ship to another. This time around, acoustic and unplugged songs were all the rage. So of course, KISS once again tapped into this. But they finally were able to get it right with Forever, their first Top 10 (and last) hit since Beth. The album was back to what they do right, writing and playing rock songs. Deciding to produce the record themselves, both Gene and Paul crafted a solid disc full of songs and got rid of that awful "polished" sound of Crazy Nights, which makes me ill to this day.

This is also the final album with Eric Carr on drums before passing away. It's just ironic that they wait all this time to give him his first song to sing lead vocals on Little Caesar. RIP

Another great song that got plenty of airplay was Hide Your Heart. This song was so good, that even Ace Frehley covered it the same year for his own solo album Trouble Walkin'. But of course their biggest hit on the album was Forever, which was co-written with Michael Bolton, whom Bruce Kulick was a member with in their band Blackjack as the lead guitarist back in the day. Say what you will about Bolton, but when he wants to write a rock song, he can write some pretty impressive stuff. This was the first notable songwriting collaboration with KISS and a high profile singer since Bryan Adams co-wrote songs for Creatures Of The Night.

Fave Songs: Rise To It, Hide Your Heart, Love's A Slap In The Face, Forever, Cadillac Dreams, King of Hearts and Little Caesar

Album cover is ok. Nothing to write home about. But the cover did inspire them to construct a working Sphinx as their main stage piece for their Hot In The Shade Tour.

Fun fact: The video for Rise To It was the only time between 1983-1996 that either Gene or Paul put the KISS make-up back on in full costume. It was cool to see when the video came out.