Kiss's 1979 single I Was Made For Lovin' You is enjoying an unlikely second life as a modern dance floor banger after Dutch DJ and producer Oliver Heldens remade the song with Chic guitarist and disco legend Nile Rodgers.
The new version of I Was Made For Lovin' You retains no elements from the original apart from a re-recorded version of the chorus, and features Rodgers' guitar alongside vocals from the House Gospel Choir, a London collective who perform live covers of house and garage music anthems. It's something that Heldens has been working on for some time.
“When I made the very funk and disco inspired bassline for this track in 2015, I knew it was one of my best basslines since Gecko [a UK number one hit in 2014], and I just had to send it to one of my all-time heroes Nile Rodgers," the DJ tells The Music Essentials (opens in new tab). "He also loved it and he blessed the track with his signature jamming electric funk guitars, which was a dream come true for me!
"Finding the right vocal for this track has been a real journey though, I’ve done over a dozen of toplines on it with several singers/songwriters, but in the end the hook of Kiss's iconic hit I Was Made For Lovin’ You turned out to be a match made in heaven. And with the extraordinary House Gospel Choir on board, they managed to make it sound even more heavenly! This song has been such a vibe in my sets!"
In the two videos bellow, you can compare Heldens' studio recording with a "live" version filmed at the Ullta Music Festival in Miami earlier this yet, an event attended by 165,000 dance music fans.
Kiss guitarist Paul Stanley originally wrote I Was Made For Lovin' You – which regarded by many as a "sell-out" when it was released – with songwriter Desmond Child, who'd go on to co-write huge hits like Bon Jovi's You Give Love a Bad Name and Livin' on a Prayer", Aerosmith's Dude (Looks Like a Lady) and Crazy, and Alice Cooper's Poison.
Stanley told Classic Rock, "At the time, I think we had maybe lost some of our rock edge and were a bit more concerned about getting peer acceptance, and that’s always a poisoned idea, because you should never forsake the people who love you for ones who don’t. It was written at a time when I was hanging out at [infamous NYC nightclub] Studio 54, and I was thinking ‘Gee, I could write one of these songs.’
"All the songs at Studio 54 seemed to be about ‘tonight’ – about having a good time in the present rather than thinking about the future – and so I went home, set the drum machine to 126 beats per minute, and got to work."
