DETROIT ROCK CITY (SONG)

'"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 (In the intro you can hear a report on a car accident). The song, recorded and released as a single in 1976^[1], was the third single off of 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.^[2] even though it would prove to be a fan favorite. It came as a surprise that the B-side "Beth", a ballad 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.^[3]
During the Love Gun/Alive II tour, Paul changed the lyric, "I know I'm gonna die, why?" to "I know I'm gonna die, and I don't care!" ^[4]
The song was #6 on VH1's 40 Greatest Metal Songs, ^[5] and is featured on the album ''Heavy Metal – The First 20 Years'' which was released on July 25, 2006.^[6]
"Detroit Rock City" was covered by a ska-core band The Mighty Mighty Bosstones on a Kiss tribute album ''. On New Years' Eve 1999, at a concert at the Pontiac Silverdome, Metallica, Kid Rock, Sevendust and Ted Nugent collaborated on a cover.^[7]
The song's title was used for a 1999 motion picture in which a group of teenage Kiss fans travel to Detroit to see the band in 1978.

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See also

Music of Detroit

Notes

1. KISS singles
2. KISS singles chart,
3. Sherman, Dale. ''Black Diamond - The Unauthorized Biography of KISS''. CG Publishing, 1997. ISBN (1-896522-35-1)
4. ''KISSOLOGY: 1974 - 1978, Live in Budokan, Live in Madison Square Garden (Bonus Disc)''
5. ''"VH1 40 Greatest Metal Songs"'', 1-4 May 2006, ''VH1'' Channel, reported by VH1.com; last accessed September 10, 2006.
6. ''Heavy Metal - The First 20 Years'' album info
7. Projects: Metallica & Others