Animalize by Kiss

Animalize, Kiss's twelfth studio album, landed on Mercury on September 13, 1984, with the band still in their barefaced era a year after Lick It Up had shown the world their faces. Paul Stanley produced, and it's a lean, flashy, hair-tossing affair, all glam-metal strut and shiny choruses built for the MTV age. Eric Carr keeps the drums pounding and Gene Simmons thumps the bass, but the headline is the lead guitar slot: Mark St. John, who had replaced Vinnie Vincent that April, makes his one and only appearance on a Kiss album here, and he fills the gaps with flurries of notes.

"Heaven's on Fire" is the one everyone remembers, a shameless rock-and-roll come-on with a chorus you could hear from the cheap seats.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.