Legendary rock band KISS has just joined an elite YouTube club. The group’s music video for “I Was Made for Lovin’ You” has passed one billion views on the streaming website.
The milestone announcement was made on the band’s social media. “The numbers speak for themselves,” reads the post. “This one still dominates. IWMFLY baby!!”
“I Was Made for Lovin’ You” was written by KISS guitarist/singer Paul Stanley, Desmond Child, and Vini Poncia. It originally appeared on the band’s 1979 album Dynasty and was the record’s first single. It reached No. 11 on the U.S. Billboard singles chart and was the band’s second gold single, selling more than a million copies.
Interestingly, in 2017, Stanley said the song’s success was “a double-edged sword, because it became such a massive hit,” according to Blabbermouth. He went on to say that “it was also so contrary and contradictory to what we had done before.”
“The funniest thing is when we do festivals sometimes in Europe, where it’s very much… the bands are quite heavy, well, when we do an encore of ‘I Was Made For Lovin’ You’, you suddenly have all these people with spikes in their eyeballs or bones through their noses singing along,” Stanley added. “So it’s a song that seems to transcend everything — although it went through a period, certainly, of a big backlash against it.”
While Stanley has been torn over the popularity of “I Was Made For Lovin’ You”, his bandmate Gene Simmons has gone on record as saying he doesn’t like the song. Blabbermouth even noted that he once made rude comments about Desmond Child to the press, which he later apologized for.
Gene Simmons was not a fan of “I Was Made For Lovin’ You” and might still not be
During a previous appearance on the Talk Is Jericho podcast, Child opened up about working with Stanley on the song. “I was experimenting then with a drum machine, and the idea of having dance beats with rock had occurred to me,” he recalled. “So I kind of hoodwinked him into this idea of four-on-the-floor dance beat with these heavy guitars. Gene [Simmons, KISS bassist/vocalist] never bought it — he never liked it, [and] he [still] doesn’t.
The disco-esque vibe of the track did not grab some of the band’s longtime fans. Even though it ended up being quite beloved by pretty much everyone else. Ultimately, Child says that things worked out, and he and Simmons have since reconciled. “After all these years, he’s been an amazing friend and supporter and, actually, mentor,” Child confessed.
The post Kiss Joins Elite YouTube Club As ‘I Was Made For Lovin’ You’ Video Passes One Billion Views appeared first on VICE.
