"Detroit Rock City" | ||||
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Single by Kiss | ||||
from the album Destroyer | ||||
B-side | "Beth" | |||
Released | July 28, 1976 | |||
Format | 7" | |||
Recorded |
Record Plant Studios, New York City: 1976 |
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Genre | Hard rock | |||
Length | 5:17 (album version) 2:58 (single version) 3:35 (Double Platinum version) |
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Label | Casablanca | |||
Writer(s) |
Paul Stanley Bob Ezrin |
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Producer(s) | Bob Ezrin | |||
Kiss singles chronology | ||||
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"Detroit Rock City" is a song by the American hard rock group Kiss featured on their 1976 album, Destroyer. The song was written by Paul Stanley and Bob Ezrin and is about a real Kiss fan who was killed in a car accident on his way to a Kiss concert.
The song, recorded and released as a single in 1976, was the third single from Kiss's album Destroyer and was planned to be their last in support of the album. As a single, it did poorly in sales and radio play (other than in Detroit), and failed to chart in the U.S. even though it would prove to be a fan favorite. It came as a surprise that the B-side "Beth", a ballad written and sung by drummer Peter Criss, wound up catching on in different markets in the United States, so the single was reissued with "Beth" as the A-side and "Detroit Rock City" as the B-side.
On the Destroyer album, the song segues into "King of the Night Time World", via the sounds of a car crash. The songs were played together on the Destroyer tour.
During the Love Gun/Alive II tour, Stanley changed the lyric, "I know I'm gonna die, why?" to "I know I'm gonna die, and I don't care!" The song was #6 on VH1's 40 Greatest Metal Songs and is featured on the album Heavy Metal – The First 20 Years. "Detroit Rock City" was based on an earlier song that Kiss performed only in concert called "Acrobat".