With Kiss announced their "End of the Road Tour", I started to go through my collection and began reminiscing.

The very first Kiss record I ever bought was, Lick It Up. The album was released in 1983 and was the first record to feature the line up without their trademark makeup.

To this day, I still say Lick It Up is one of my favorite Kiss albums. For me, the album opener and title track, All Hell's Breaking Loose and A Million to One are some of the best songs Rom their non-makeup era.

From my understanding, Lick it up was a make it or break it record. Kiss was trying to recover from the numerous set backs they experienced like the departures of Ace and Peter, the disco influenced album and their ill fated concept album, The Elder. Needless to say, Lick It Up was a hit and not only brought Kiss back to radio and video stations but the album expanded their fan base with the new record buying public.

Lick It Up will always have a special place in my heart. It's the album that seduced me and Ihave been a fan ever since.