I Was Made for Lovin' You by KISS

I Was Made for Lovin' You is a 1979 single by KISS, written by Paul Stanley with Desmond Child and producer Vini Poncia. It opened the album Dynasty. The single reached No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit No. 1 in Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium and New Zealand. It went gold in the US that August.

The song came out of a period when KISS was one of the biggest live acts in America. Disco was the biggest sound on the radio. Stanley has said he set out on purpose to show how easily a disco hit could be made. He had noticed that a lot of the dance records he heard ran at about 126 beats per minute. He went home, set a drum machine to that tempo and started building a song on top of it. The finished record's key and BPM are listed on its Song IQ page.

A popular version of the story holds that the band made a bet with producers about how fast a disco hit could be written. That story has never been confirmed. Child has said he and Stanley wrote the verses together in about an hour at SIR Studios in New York. Stanley and Poncia finished the chorus after Child left. Poncia has described the chorus as a piece of craft in the old Brill Building style. Stanley has said the melody owes something to the Four Tops song Standing in the Shadows of Love. He has called the scene the song was aimed at, the Studio 54 era of New York nightlife, a musical whorehouse.

It was the first song KISS wrote with Child. It was also Child's first hit as a songwriter. He went on to write or co-write songs for Bon Jovi, Aerosmith and many others. He has said this record made it acceptable for rock bands to bring in professional writers.

The recording was done in 1979 at Electric Lady Studios and the Record Plant in New York. It was the last track finished for Dynasty. Poncia produced it and also played synthesizer and sang backing vocals. Stanley sang lead and played rhythm guitar. Ace Frehley played the guitar solo. Gene Simmons played bass, despite rumors that he had sat it out. Session drummer Anton Fig played drums on the song and on most of the album in place of Peter Criss. Poncia did not think Criss was in shape to play. Criss still appeared on the cover and in the music video. John Goodhue filmed the video on June 20, 1979, at the Savannah Civic Center in Georgia.

Dynasty came out on Casablanca Records on May 23, 1979. The single followed that month. Billboard called it catchy and more melodic than the band's earlier work. David Fricke of Rolling Stone wrote that longtime fans would not like the band's turn toward disco or its new partnership with Poncia and Child. The song reached No. 2 in Australia, West Germany and Switzerland and topped the Dutch year-end chart for 1979. It became the band's second gold single in America. In the UK it stalled at No. 50.

The single was climbing the charts in the summer of 1979, the same summer as Disco Demolition Night in Chicago. A crowd at a White Sox doubleheader blew up a pile of disco records that night and stormed the field. A curator of an exhibit about that night has suggested the KISS song may have fed the anger, as a sign that even a hard rock band had gone disco.

Most of the band dislikes the song. Simmons has called it his least favorite KISS song and has said he still hates it. He admits that fans dance to it. Frehley and Criss have also said they dislike it. Stanley has said he is not especially fond of it either. Child has said it hurt to hear the band talk the song down. It has stayed in the KISS live set for decades. It remains one of the best known songs in the catalog.

Many artists have covered it. Lynda Carter sang it on her 1980 TV special Encore!. The Puerto Rican group Menudo recorded a Spanish version, Fui Hecho Para Amarte, in 1981. German dance act Scooter released a cover in 1998. Paulina Rubio recorded one for her 2002 album Border Girl. Oliver Heldens reworked it in 2022 with vocals from Nile Rodgers. Australian singer Ricki-Lee Coulter put out her own version in 2024. Yungblud recorded one that year for the film The Fall Guy. Stanley praised the Yungblud version in public.

The original has turned up on screen as well. Homer blasts it in The Simpsons episode Pray Anything. A line from it is sung in the Elephant Love Medley in Moulin Rouge!. It has also soundtracked ads for Canon and Costa Coffee.