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"Detroit Rock City" | ||||
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Single by Kiss | ||||
from the album Destroyer | ||||
A-side | "Beth" | |||
Released | July 28, 1976 [1] | |||
Recorded | 1976 | |||
Studio | Record Plant, New York City | |||
Genre | ||||
Length |
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Label | Casablanca | |||
Songwriter(s) | Paul Stanley, Bob Ezrin | |||
Producer(s) | Bob Ezrin | |||
Kiss singles chronology | ||||
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"Detroit Rock City" is a song by the American hard rock group Kiss, released on their 1976 album Destroyer . The song was written by Paul Stanley and producer Bob Ezrin.
The song is one of the band's most popular and is a classic rock staple. It is also seen as one of the more technical songs musically in the band's canon. The song has been noted for being a duet between guitarists Stanley and Ace Frehley.
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 U.S., so the single was reissued with "Beth" as the A-side and "Detroit Rock City" as the B-side.
While the song briefly references Detroit, the real-life incident which inspired the lyric evidently did not take place there. "I had the basic riff of the song, the 'Get up, get down' part," Stanley recalls, "but I didn't know what the song was about except it was about Detroit. And then I remembered on the previous tour, I think it was in Charlotte, somebody had gotten hit by a car and killed outside the arena. I remember thinking how weird it is that people's lives end so quickly. People can be on their way to something that's really a party and a celebration of being alive and die in the process of doing it. So that became the basis for the lyric." [4]
On Destroyer, 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.
On the original 7" version, the song was heavily edited; the intro was cut and the car crash ending the album version was inserted within the song itself, with the song fading out on the first bridge.
Bassist Gene Simmons wrote a notable bassline that was influenced by R&B music. [5]
During the Rock & Roll Over 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 ranked at number six 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". In 2014, Paste ranked the song number three on their list of the 20 greatest Kiss songs, [6] and in 2019, Louder Sound ranked the song number one on their list of the 40 greatest Kiss songs. [7]
Chart (1976) | Peak position |
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Canada Top Singles ( RPM ) [8] | 99 |
Kiss was an American rock band formed in New York City in 1973 by Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley, and Peter Criss. Known for their face paint and stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid-1970s with shock rock-style live performances which featured fire-breathing, blood-spitting, smoking guitars, shooting rockets, levitating drum kits, and pyrotechnics. The band went through several lineup changes, with Stanley and Simmons remaining the only consistent members. The final lineup consisted of them, Tommy Thayer, and Eric Singer.
George Peter John Criscuola, better known by his stage name Peter Criss, is a retired American musician, best known as a co-founder, original drummer, and an occasional vocalist of the hard rock band Kiss. Criss established the Catman character for his Kiss persona. In 2014, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Kiss.
Paul Daniel "Ace" Frehley is an American musician who was the original lead guitarist, occasional lead vocalist and founding member of the rock band Kiss. He invented the persona of The Spaceman and played with the group from its inception in 1973 until his departure in 1982. After leaving Kiss, Frehley formed his own band named Frehley's Comet and released two albums with the group. He subsequently embarked on a solo career, which was put on hold when he rejoined Kiss in 1996 for a highly successful reunion tour.
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Anthemic hard rocker, B-side of "Beth," and later as the subject of a movie which Marshall Mathers undoubtedly snuck into for free.
Simmons wrote a bassline for the song that was influenced by R&B music — a bassline which he said was very different from most of his work. Simmons compared the bassline to Issac Hayes' "Theme from Shaft" and Curtis Mayfield's "Freddie's Dead (Theme From 'Superfly')."