10 Rock Songs That Artists Didn't Want To Record

In the early days, it didn't feel like KISS were necessarily for the faint of heart. Even though they may be known as virtual cartoon characters onstage these days, the sound of these New York shock rockers in the early days was nothing but balls-to-the-wall heavy metal. So, how do you sell a group like that on doing a ballad with an orchestra?

When compiling material for what would become Destroyer, drummer Peter Criss brought a fragment of a song which would later become Beth. After Bob Ezrin brought the orchestral arrangements to it though, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons were horrified, even laughing at the thought of singing the song. When Peter went to sing it, Paul and Gene had to be thrown out because they were distracting the rest of the recording. Not thinking much of it, the band just threw it on the B-side to Detroit Rock City, where it would presumably fade into obscurity.

Then radios started playing it. After months and months of airplay, Beth quickly became one of the biggest songs KISS had ever made, giving them a whole new audience and polarizing some of the others who preferred the heavy riffs. Despite being viewed as nothing but a joke in the early days, Beth became the blueprint for what would become the power ballad later down the line.