Kiss You All Over


"Kiss You All Over" is a 1978 song performed by American music group Exile, written by Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn. It was included on the band's third album, Mixed Emotions, and featured frontman Jimmy Stokley and guitarist J.P. Pennington on vocals. On the American Top 40 broadcast of May 26, 1979, Casey Kasem reported that Chapman stated his source of inspiration for "Kiss You All Over" was "It's Ecstasy When You Lay Down Next to Me" by Barry White. The song was a number one single in the United States, but proved to be Exile's only big hit in the pop market.
Kiss You All Over is the first Exile song to feature founding member J.P. Pennington on lead vocals.
It held the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks, and Billboard ranked it as the No. 5 song for 1978. The track also reached number one in at least three other countries. In the United Kingdom, the song was released on Mickie Most's RAK Records, and peaked at number 6 on the UK singles chart. The strings are played with a synthesizer on a backing track. In 2010, Billboard ranked the song tenth on its list of "The 50 Sexiest Songs of All Time".
Co-lead vocalist on the number, Stokley parted ways from the band in 1979, due to tensions with producer Mike Chapman. After the success of "Kiss You All Over", soft rock singles from the albums Mixed Emotions and All There Is charted lower in comparison.
The band moved into country music in the 1980s, after their self-written pop singles, despite failing, became hits for other acts such as Alabama and Huey Lewis and The News. The music change worked for Exile, as they would have over ten No. 1 hits on the U.S. country charts.

Personnel

Exile
  • J.P. Pennington - vocals, guitars
  • Jimmy Stokley - vocals
  • Danny Williams - bass, vocals
  • Buzz Cornelison - piano, backup vocals
  • Marlon Hargis - synthesizers, backup vocals
  • Steve Goetzman - drums

Charts

Year-end charts

Chart Position
Australia 39
West Germany 37

Broadway version

Disco band Broadway recorded their version. The single backed with "Love Bandit" was released on Hilltak 7802, and distributed by Atlantic Records. It was also issued in a 12" format. Music magazine called it "The inevitable disco version".
It had a three-week run with the song on the Billboard Hot Soul Singles chart, peaking at No. 92 on December 16, 1978.

No Mercy version

German Eurodance trio No Mercy's 1997 remixed version by Johnny Vicious and Darrin "Spike" Friedman reached number-one on the US Billboard Dance Club Play chart. It also reached number 16 on the UK Singles Chart and number 47 in Australia. The accompanying music video was directed by DoRo Productions.

Critical reception

Larry Flick from Billboard magazine wrote that "there's no denying that No Mercy's eponymous album is several notches above standard dance/pop fare—as evidenced by this Latin-spiced rendition of Exile's '70s-era hit." He noted that "the song's hook thrives within FMP's arrangement of swirling house beats and flamenco guitars." He also added "factor in the act's sweet harmonies". Another Billboard editor, Paul Verna, named it an "giddy rendition". Diana Valois from The Morning Call named "Kiss You All Over" the "second best cut" of the album, describing it as "a full-blown flamenco exotica cover". Pan-European magazine Music & Media constated that "this highly successful trio has given this song a poppy-flamenco treatment that is likely to mean it will chart all over the place once again, something that proves that good songs last a long while." A reviewer from Music Week gave the song a score of four out of five, concluding, "A third huge hit for the boys."

Track listing

CD single
  1. "Kiss You All Over" – 4:31
  2. "Kiss You All Over" – 5:53
  3. "Bonita" – 3:54
  4. "Bonita" – 7:08