971. Twisted Sister / Stay Hungry. 1984. 5/5

Every single person who grew up in my generation of the 1980’s, those that spent those middle years in high school and witness the birth of MTV as a phenomenon, were exposed to the wonderful film clips for those two hard rock anthems, “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and “I Wanna Rock” by Twisted Sister. Some of the in-jokes of the videos may have passed over the head of those thank didn’t also see National Lampoon’s Animal House, but they were memorable all the same. Many of those people will have gone out and bought the album on the strength of those videos, and those that did will not doubt discover, just as I did, that there was much more to the band and the album Stay Hungry than just the outfits and humour that are the initial perspective.

The title track “Stay Hungry” is, in my opinion, one of the greatest opening tracks on an album of all time. It grabs you from the start, the pounding drums and rhythm line, with Dee immediately grabbing you with his recruiting call, announcing the lines of the song in a demand that you sing along with gusto. It’s a fantastic song, an anthem in every sense of the word, and for me is still the outstanding song of Twisted Sister’s career. Whenever I made a mixed tape, or now whenever I make a playlist, this song is almost always a part of it. This is followed by the song that got everyone in, “We’re Not Gonna Take It”, that still evokes a chorus of singing whenever it gets played, especially in my house. I loved the video and song when it was released, and my kids still love it today, thirty years later, so it shows how entertaining it is. From here we move in to “Burn in Hell”, where the star of the show is the chorus, with the chanting between the main lines in the background taking centre stage, such as ‘HEAR no evil, don’t you SEE no evil, don’t you LAY no evil down on ME!” Still great after all these years.
The two parts that make up “Horror-Teria (The Beginning)” are terrific for completely different reasons. “Captain Howdy” is the slow, almost chanting track that reeks of doom, the forbidden and gleeful trappings of Captain Howdy himself, which then morphs into the faster paced and harder rock of “Street Justice”, for the vigilantes to take justice into their own hands. You either love or hate this dual barrelled song. I think it’s great, and follows up the hard core start to the album perfectly.
The second side opens up with the second single, the hard core “I Wanna Rock”, which gets the adrenaline running to the right levels once again, another great anthem to sing along to. And while “The Price” can be considered to be a power ballad, it has the right amount of grunt and emotion in it, perfectly sung by Dee, that it doesn’t feel like it is intruding upon the party. I like the sing-along aspects of “Don’t Bring Me Down” as well, all played at a good pace and filled with the right paraphrases. “The Beast” slows itself down in much the same way as “Captain Howdy” does, which just possibly comes at the wrong time of the album for such a change in momentum. It’s a small thing, but by the time we reach this section of the road I am looking for a continuation of the speed, rather than what is effectively just putting the brakes on instead. This is rectified by the closing track “S.M.F.” which charges at you and is then finished abruptly, concluding what is still a terrific forty minutes of hard rock.

Perhaps this album is rooted in the 1980’s, but that is not to say it has dated. In fact, I really think it is as fresh now as it was when it was released. Let the kids laugh at the video clips, then expose them to songs such as “Stay Hungry”, “Burn in Hell”, and “S.M.F.” and I reckon you’ll have them hooked. Perhaps I’m not in the mood to hear all of the songs every day, but the second I hear the opening to “Stay Hungry”, I’m ready to listen until the end. An album for the ages.

Rating:   “Expect no sympathy, there’s none to be had!”  5/5.