"Rock This Town" is the second single by American

rockabilly Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music. It dates back to the early 1950s in the United States, especially the Southern United States, South. As a genre, it blends the sound of Western music (North America), Western musi ...

band

Stray Cats Stray Cats are an American rockabilly band formed in 1979 by guitarist and vocalist Brian Setzer, double bassist Lee Rocker, and drummer Slim Jim Phantom in the Long Island town of Massapequa, New York. The group had numerous hit singles in ...

, released January 30, 1981 by

Arista Records Arista Records ( ) is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the American division of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. The label was previously a division of Bertelsmann Music G ...

in the U.K., where it peaked at No. 9 on the Singles Chart. It was taken from the band's 1981 debut album, ''

''. Its first US release, by EMI America, was on the June 1982 album '' Built for Speed''. Released as a single on August 31, 1982, it debuted on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 for the week of September 18, 1982, and peaked at No. 9. "Rock This Town" was listed by the

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (RRHOF), also simply referred to as the Rock Hall, is a museum and hall of fame located in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States, on the shore of Lake Erie. The museum documents the history of rock music and the ...

as one of the " 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll". The song has been featured in a variety of media including the video games ''

Guitar Hero II ''Guitar Hero II'' is a 2006 rhythm game developed by Harmonix and published by RedOctane for the PlayStation 2 and Activision for the Xbox 360. It is the sequel to ''Guitar Hero (video game), Guitar Hero'' (2005) and the second installment in t ...

'' and '' Elite Beat Agents'', as well as the

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

based on the 2006

Pixar Pixar (), doing business as Pixar Animation Studios, is an American animation studio based in Emeryville, California, known for its critically and commercially successful computer-animated feature films. Pixar is a subsidiary of Walt Disney ...

film '' Cars''.

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

References

1981 singles 1982 singles Stray Cats songs Songs written by Brian Setzer 1981 songs EMI America Records singles Arista Records singles Music videos directed by Julien Temple {{1980s-rock-song-stub