Song:I Wanna Rock
Song:The Best of the Atlantic Years
Most music fans should remember Twisted Sister from the videos for I Wanna Rock and We're Not Gonna Take It that played constantly on MTV. They never had a big radio hit. When guitarist John "Jay Jay French" Segall formed what became Twisted Sister in 1972, they were the New Jersey version of the New York Dolls. So they were a glam rock band. This changed when Danny "Dee" Snider became the new lead singer in 1976. Snider preferred a more hard rock direction and he wrote songs. Twisted Sister played locally and they tried to get a record deal. They signed with the British label Secret Records. By this time the lineup was Snider, Segall, Eddie "Fingers" Ojeda on guitar, Mark "The Animal" Mendoza on bass and A.J. Pero on drums. They released an EP and the 1982 album Under The Blade and then Secret closed. But part of the deal was an appearance on the British TV show The Tube. Atlantic Records saw them and signed them. Their 1983 Atlantic debut album You Can't Stop Rock 'n' Roll did well enough that Atlantic thought Twisted Sister could do really well. They brought in veteran hard rock producer Tom Werman for the 1984 album Stay Hungry. We're Not Gonna Take It and I Wanna Rock were the single. The videos featured Mark Metcalf from the 1978 film Animal House playing a screaming authority figure who gets clobbered. Kids loved that when it played on MTV. Stay Hungry was certified 3XPlatinum without a big hit single. This showed how important MTV had become. The 1985 album Come Out and Play didn't do nearly as well. Snider recorded a solo album but Atlantic would only release Love Is for Suckers as a Twisted Sister album. They split up in 1988. This CD has all their Atlantic hits. Twisted Sister reformed occasionally. And after the 2015 death of A.J. Pero, they did a retirement tour in 2016. Here's the video for I Wanna Rock by Twisted Sister.
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