Favorite "City" Songs #9 - "Detroit Rock City"

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Hang on to your seats! No, seriously. This four-segment countdown consists of my favorite songs with the words "Town," "City," "State," and "Country" in the title, and this is the "City" portion. We are at #9: "Detroit Rock City" by KISS. People love them, people hate them. People make fun of them, people defend them to the death. Whatever your particular point of view, there's no denying the impact KISS has had on rock music since they formed in New York City in 1973. Particularly with their influential 1976 single, "Detroit Rock City," the lead track from their album of the same year, Destroyer (their best song AND their best album. Go ahead. Tell me I'm wrong.) Written by Paul Stanley and producer Bob Ezrin, "Detroit Rock City" is actually about an incident that happened in Charlotte, North Carolina, when a fan was hit and killed by a car outside of the arena where KISS was playing. The tune is wildly popular, it's title being used as the title for a 1999 movie. The Detroit Red Wings hockey team plays the song before the opening faceoff, and the Detroit Tigers baseball team has been known to play it as the team takes the field. And yet, as a single, it didn't perform very well. In fact, radio stations jumped all over the B-Side, "Beth," to the point that Casablanca Records hastily re-issued "Beth" as a single with "Detroit Rock City" as the B-Side. Still, it lives on as a classic piece of rock and roll. As it should. (Info verified by Wikipedia)