Hard Rock

[the captain]

I associate hard rock music with my adolescence, at which time it wasn’t an art I enjoyed, but a friend. A best friend. Hard rock music was my best friend. We were friends well suited to one another, it catering to frustrated, disaffected but idealistic, mostly white would-be men, and me being one of those.

A cousin inspired me in terms of hard rock music. My parents were old enough to have a record collection entirely predating and circumventing hard rock, and my older siblings had gravitated either toward ‘80s pop or , in rebellion against that, ‘60s classics. But my cousin—a rock and metal fan several years older—seemed to appreciate the years-younger disciple following Him through Galilee, and so baptized me appropriately. By the time I was eight or nine, He’d given me Stay Hungry, Metal Health, and Shout at the Devil.

From there I was able to work forward and backward, both to the likes of Whitesnake, Poison, and GnR, and to KISS, Queen, and Zeppelin. I started playing guitar and gravitated immediately to the attainable power chords and pentatonic scales of then-current pop metal. Paper routes and fast food funded my taste’s expansion throughout back catalogues and incremental exploration toward blues and classic rock, jazz, and guitar heroics. Pop worked its way back from my pre-rock recollection to dominate my aging, less aggressive psyche.

The best friendships exist outside of time entirely. A month is a year is a decade. Twice I’ve spent a decade apart from someone who was among my best friends when we were five years old. At both reconnections, we were best friends: that’s the value of real friendship. Every surrounding circumstance is incidental, coincidental, peripheral. The constant is an intangible connection.

Hard rock and metal don’t seem to have a huge following here, which makes sense considering the lighter fare of the board’s inspiration. But I know there are those here with heavier leanings, either historical or current (if not both).

I can’t imagine why this wouldn’t be a fine place to set down your recollections of this or that album; of the club or arena show that kicked your ass; or or the particular aggression best expressed through [song or album]. What is metal? What is rock? Rawk? What makes it good, bad, or indifferent? For those about to (discuss the) rock, we salute you.

[Lonely Summer]

Actually, it seems to me that, aside from the Beach Boys and Beatles, a lot of the members here lean more towards hard rock.

[KDS]

I'm a huge fan of hard rock / heavy metal.

The first concert I ever saw was Aerosmith. 

The best concert I ever saw was Iron Maiden. 

I took my father to see Judas Priest perform their British Steel album in its entirety in 2009. 

Two of my best friends took me to see Kix for my bachelor party.

I used to work at a rock station and got to meet members of Rush, Metallica, and the legendary Alice Cooper. 

[JK]

I used to work at a rock station and got to meet members of Rush, Metallica, and the legendary Alice Cooper. 

Wow! I have been easing my way into hard rock/metal in recent years. It is a much larger and more varied area than I ever suspected!

Speaking of Metallica, Master of Puppets is one heck of a perfect album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6LA7v1PApU

[KDS]

I used to work at a rock station and got to meet members of Rush, Metallica, and the legendary Alice Cooper. 

Wow! I have been easing my way into hard rock/metal in recent years. It is a much larger and more varied area than I ever suspected!

Speaking of Metallica, Master of Puppets is one heck of a perfect album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6LA7v1PApU

I'm kinda the opposite.  I grew up during the height of hair metal in the 80s.  When that fizzled out, I gravitated towards other classic hard rock artists like Deep Purple, Rainbow, Queen, Black Sabbath, Priest, Maiden, BOC, Van Halen, The Who etc etc. 

In my late 20s / early 30s, I gained more appreciation for stuff like Ricky Nelson, Beach Boys / Brian Wilson, Billy Joel, Jimmy Buffett, etc. 

[the captain]

My general trend was like yours, KDS, except I really left most of the hard rock behind during those years. It's only in the past few that I've begun reclaiming that part of my musical upbringing.

John k -you're right about Master. I'm not a big Metallica fan, but that album has always stood out for me as a masterpiece of the genre.

[KDS]

My general trend was like yours, KDS, except I really left most of the hard rock behind during those years. It's only in the past few that I've begun reclaiming that part of my musical upbringing.

John k -you're right about Master. I'm not a big Metallica fan, but that album has always stood out for me as a masterpiece of the genre.

There are some hard rock / metal bands that I liked when I was 20/21 that don't really appeal to me anymore.  But, I think that's because these bands came out during a very mediocre time for hard rock / metal.  So, they sounded good by comparison.  Two that come to mind are Drowning Pool and Godsmack. 

But, other than that, I still love the genre.  I also like mixing and matching between listening to heavier and lighter acts. 

Heck, in about a two week period in 2012, I saw The Beach Boys, then Dennis DeYoung of Styx, then Iron Maiden with Alice Cooper opening.  All were great shows. 

[Michael Edward Osbourne]

Most of my favorite music fits into the "hard rock" category, which confuses certain friends when I tell them that the Beach Boys are my favorite group. But I love music that's both heavy and light. When I look at the majority of my records I see lots of heavy psych, old punk and early heavy metal. But there's plenty of Association, Cowsills, doo wop and Monkees too, so....

[KDS]

A lot of the hard rock / heavy metal bands I'm into also do a good job at mixing light and shade, sometimes within the same song. 

Sabbath, Priest, Purple, Zeppelin, Queen, Maiden, The Who, Rainbow, etc. 

[JK]

Looking through the metal topic on my other board I bumped into this tasty morsel by Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1cdW-ba8Yw 

[Ovi]

70s Aerosmith is the first band I really loved.

[Sheriff John Stone]

Great topic...I first started buying albums in 1971 and all of them were hard rock. All of them. I used to ride my bike to the local magazine store, and while guys were lined up in the back of the store gazing at Playboy, I was in the middle feverishly paging through Creem and Circus. I would read the album reviews and see these great advertisements and look at the wild photos, and wanted to be a part of that scene. So, after literally saving my pennies, I would then go to the record store and buy the albums based on what I read in the magazines. At that time, FM radio was just coming into fruition and they weren't playing the bands that I was reading about in Creem and Circus. The artists/records I was buying and listening to in that time frame of 1971-74 included The Doors, Blue Oyster Cult, KISS, Slade, Led Zeppelin, Mott The Hoople, Montrose, early Queen, and somehow Sparks slipped in there. It was such a thrill discovering those artists and records. Nobody at my school was listening to this stuff; I really don't know if they thought I was cool or weird. I had a best friend who had a real stereo system and I'd go over to his house and we'd have these "listening sessions" where we'd spend hours just listening to album after album. I know it sounds strange but my buddy and I were actually DEDICATED to hard rock. I loved the sound of the electric guitar, was a little picky about the lead vocalists (Noddy Holder and Robert Plant had to grow on me), but mostly I could live vicariously in those records. If I couldn't actually be a part of that scene, I could imagine it through the music. I don't think that period/era (the early 1970's) gets the credit it deserves for the hard rock music it produced.

I made a serious stop-and-detour when my older sister purchased Endless Summer in late 1974. I got hooked on The Beach Boys big time, and most of my money and listening time was devoted to the vast back catalog of The Beach Boys. And that was quite a back catalog! I was able to "hang in there" with my hard rock purchases (I was now old enough to get a job), and I welcomed the emerging punk rock music. I was still reading rock publications and now getting into groups like The New York Dolls, The Ramones, The Dictators, Sex Pistols, The Stranglers, and Aerosmith. I welcomed this hard rock as my response to the emerging disco music. Again, this stuff wasn't being played on FM radio stations in my small town. Nobody I knew was listening to this stuff, but again, I kind of liked being different, almost like I was discovering this hard rock music that hardly anybody knew existed.

By 1980-81, my interest and devotion to hard rock started to wane a bit. I was now ten years older, and expanding my musical horizons. Bob Dylan became huge with me (with another vast back catalog to purchase); believe it or not I got into Frank Sinatra and John Denver (because of a girlfriend), and I finally got around to purchasing The Beatles' albums. However, many of the hard rock groups I liked had either peaked, were on their last legs, or were gone. MTV was starting to get very big, and in the early days I watched it frequently. I liked some of the cool groups played on MTV, but I didn't invest in their albums; the videos sufficed.

Finally, in the mid-1980's to the early 1990's, MTV played all of these "hair bands", and hard rock was everywhere. I should've loved that music, or at least liked it, but it never hit home. I mean, some of those "hair band" and metal band guitarists were obviously very talented, the singers were definitely putting out, and the subject matter of the songs, while a little more graphic and sexual, was similar to the previous decade, I don't know...I guess what I saying is that I don't why I didn't/don't appreciate that era. It had the energy, passion, and the electric guitar! It must be an age thing, a generational thing. I sometimes wonder if I would've embraced the "hair bands" if I was sixteen years old at the time of their popularity.

Today, I watch That Metal Show on VH1 Classic. I try to catch up on what I missed; it can be educational, although I don't listen to metal. I occasionally listen to my old hard rock favorites. I usually don't listen to the original albums in full; I've made custom compilation CD's of my favorite songs. But, yeah, I'll still get into Blue Oyster Cult, early KISS, Slade, and The New York Dolls. I just purchased a special 40th Anniversary Edition of The Dictators' Go Girl Crazy, autographed by Andy Shernoff. I guess you can say it is partly reminiscing, but I STILL absolutely genuinely enjoy that hard rock music from the 1970's! Occasionally.

[Douchepool]

I've been on a Slade binge of late. Amazing sh*t.

[JK]

This wonderful din (care of U.S. band Earth) comes under the heading of Drone Metal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls1OYn_xGzM 

[KDS]

70s Aerosmith is the first band I really loved.

Aerosmith was never better than they were in the 1970s IMO.  I like a lot of the material from their "Comeback" Era.  But I think they started going through the motions after the Get a Grip album in 1993.

Steven Tyler seems more concerned with being a TV or country star these days. 

[Ovi]

70s Aerosmith is the first band I really loved.

Aerosmith was never better than they were in the 1970s IMO.  I like a lot of the material from their "Comeback" Era.  But I think they started going through the motions after the Get a Grip album in 1993.

Steven Tyler seems more concerned with being a TV or country star these days. 

I hate pretty much everything post-Done with Mirrors. They're just one of those bands that lost it when they decided to get clean and go safe musically.

[KDS]

70s Aerosmith is the first band I really loved.

Aerosmith was never better than they were in the 1970s IMO.  I like a lot of the material from their "Comeback" Era.  But I think they started going through the motions after the Get a Grip album in 1993.

Steven Tyler seems more concerned with being a TV or country star these days. 

I hate pretty much everything post-Done with Mirrors. They're just one of those bands that lost it when they decided to get clean and go safe musically.

I liked some of Permanent Vacation.  Love the Pump album.  And I like Get a Grip.  But, I'm also a fan of the safe late 80s hard rock. 

Their cover of Baby Please Don't Go off their 2004 Honkin on Bobo covers albums is really good.  Sounds like it could've been of Night at the Ruts. 

[the captain]

I had some recollection of writing about one of my absolute cornerstone hard rock albums and bands, and after a quick search, I found that I'd posted it early last year in Bubbly Waves's 1980s Appreciation Thread: http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,19590.msg495172.html. But it fits here, so below is a pasted repost of my Jan. 22, 2015, Twisted Sister writing.
...................


Nobody here, or anywhere else for that matter, needs me to list out albums from the '80s that hit everyone's best of all time. We all have access to those lists. Maybe that is what Bubbly wants--that or at least recommendations. I'm not sure I want to give a recommendation. Instead I reminisced a little bit about that decade and how I thought about music then. Of what I loved at the time, barely of any of it remains in high esteem (by me, I mean). Graceland and Prince's stuff are probably the only things that were beloved then and now. Other things, like Waits's stuff, I came to well after the fact.

But f*** all that. Here's something else. Here's Twisted Sister's Stay Hungry.
...............
In 1980s rural Minnesota, the almost literal witch hunt for satanism in rock music felt like an obsession. For those of us listening to that purportedly satanic rock music, it was terrifying.

A prepubescent, newly fascinated connoisseur of hard rock and metal struggled in a very conservative Christian household. Songs with curse words were to be played quietly--contrary to every instinct--or through headphones. Album covers with scantily clad women had to be kept out of sight. Most of all, anything looking or sounding satanic had to be disavowed entirely. "I listen to hard rock, mom," the kid would say, "but I don't like that satanic stuff."

The problem in the American influenced by Tipper Gore, the Peters Brothers, and television journalists ready to jump on the dream story of teenage suicides inspired by satanic cults--and yes, they seemed insistent these things existed--was that "satanic" meant damn near everything more risqué than Stryper or Petra. Long hair, torn or tight clothes, men in makeup, obviously any religious imagery whatsoever, anything more reasonably categorized as fantasy (e.g., elves, wizards and the like), any sentiment questioning the merits of a Reagan-era American dream: satanic. Or at least under heavy suspicion.

When Pee-Wee's Big Adventure featured a scene that included Twisted Sister filming a video for their "Burn in Hell," I was placed in a very awkward position. Number one, even saying hell outside of the context of church was an issue in my home. One could just as well have said fucking c***. But number two, a song whose refrain threatened that you'd burn in hell, well, that was pure satanism. Simple as that. My mom didn't have to hear anything else. Not "welcome to the abandoned land. Come on in, child, take my hand. Here, there's no work or play. Only one bill to pay. There's just five words to say as you go down, down down."

Just "you're gonna burn in hell," sung by these ugly men garishly dolled up in absurd makeup and feathered or fringed costumes.

I was so f***ed.

See, by this time--1985--I knew Stay Hungry, the 1984 album on which "Burn in Hell" appeared. Like, really well. I owned the cassette several times, wearing it out from overuse. I considered it the greatest album of all time, or at least in a tight competition with Van Halen's 1984. I was 11 years old.

In the same way that KISS would affect me around the same time or soon after, Twisted Sister had the perfect formula for an adolescent boy. These were huge hooks being punched by the cornered, oppressed underdog. And what 11-year-old boy isn't a cornered, oppressed underdog?

"We've got the right to choose it. There ain't no way we'll lose it. This is our life, this is our song … you don't know us, you don't belong. We're not gonna take it. … Oh, you're so condescending. Your goal is never-ending. We don't want nothin'--not a thing--from you."

The guitar solos are familiar to me even today. Right now--right now!--I am listening to "We're Not Gonna Take It" and miming the whammy bar dives, so entirely ingrained into my psyche did they become 30 years ago. The riffs were among the first I ever learned, and they're rock solid examples of hard rock music.

Twisted Sister were not what we've long-since come to know and dismiss as hair metal. This wasn't a band conceived of by the marketing team of a major label, assembled from girlish boys whose parts could be recorded by Rod Morgenstein, Greg Bissonette, Billy Sheenan, Steve Luthaker as long as the "band" wore their tight leather pants with the banana or rolled-up sock inserted just so. Twisted Sister had by this time been working the clubs of New York for 10 years and had released a couple of albums. They weren't apart from the now-hilarious fashions of the day, but they weren't so much in it, either. More gruesome than girly, more monster than manicured.

"Stay Hungry," the leadoff and title track, rocks. Like, really rocks. A.J. Pero and Mark Mendoza drive it hard on drums and bass, respectively, the guitars really just pounding out sustained power chords atop the rushing current of rhythm … at least until the dual-guitar solo. It, and the whole album that follows, is big. Everyone knows the cartoonish mid-tempo anthems, "We're Not Gonna Take It" and "I Wanna Rock." Other songs sped past more akin to "Stay Hungry." There were gothic comics and, yes, a power ballad.

Nobody needs a track-by-track, but I mention these songs excitedly because I haven't heard them in more than 20 years. Stay Hungry went from the greatest album of all time to one of those albums I used to like in a heartbeat, not so much because of Nirvana--I hated Nirvana--but because when contemporary music chased its northwestern nirvana, I dug into the past and obsessed on the guitar gods of the '60s and '70s, then jazz, then whatever else.

But listening again now, this is a great album. Always was, always will be. I probably won't listen to it again for many more years, if ever, because it has nothing to do with me now. The adolescent anger and frustration wore themselves out a long time ago; I'm not backed into a corner and have nobody and nothing to rebel against.

But for what it is, for who needs it, this is a masterpiece.

[KDS]

I had some recollection of writing about one of my absolute cornerstone hard rock albums and bands, and after a quick search, I found that I'd posted it early last year in Bubbly Waves's 1980s Appreciation Thread: http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,19590.msg495172.html. But it fits here, so below is a pasted repost of my Jan. 22, 2015, Twisted Sister writing.
...................


Nobody here, or anywhere else for that matter, needs me to list out albums from the '80s that hit everyone's best of all time. We all have access to those lists. Maybe that is what Bubbly wants--that or at least recommendations. I'm not sure I want to give a recommendation. Instead I reminisced a little bit about that decade and how I thought about music then. Of what I loved at the time, barely of any of it remains in high esteem (by me, I mean). Graceland and Prince's stuff are probably the only things that were beloved then and now. Other things, like Waits's stuff, I came to well after the fact.

But f*** all that. Here's something else. Here's Twisted Sister's Stay Hungry.
...............
In 1980s rural Minnesota, the almost literal witch hunt for satanism in rock music felt like an obsession. For those of us listening to that purportedly satanic rock music, it was terrifying.

A prepubescent, newly fascinated connoisseur of hard rock and metal struggled in a very conservative Christian household. Songs with curse words were to be played quietly--contrary to every instinct--or through headphones. Album covers with scantily clad women had to be kept out of sight. Most of all, anything looking or sounding satanic had to be disavowed entirely. "I listen to hard rock, mom," the kid would say, "but I don't like that satanic stuff."

The problem in the American influenced by Tipper Gore, the Peters Brothers, and television journalists ready to jump on the dream story of teenage suicides inspired by satanic cults--and yes, they seemed insistent these things existed--was that "satanic" meant damn near everything more risqué than Stryper or Petra. Long hair, torn or tight clothes, men in makeup, obviously any religious imagery whatsoever, anything more reasonably categorized as fantasy (e.g., elves, wizards and the like), any sentiment questioning the merits of a Reagan-era American dream: satanic. Or at least under heavy suspicion.

When Pee-Wee's Big Adventure featured a scene that included Twisted Sister filming a video for their "Burn in Hell," I was placed in a very awkward position. Number one, even saying hell outside of the context of church was an issue in my home. One could just as well have said fucking c***. But number two, a song whose refrain threatened that you'd burn in hell, well, that was pure satanism. Simple as that. My mom didn't have to hear anything else. Not "welcome to the abandoned land. Come on in, child, take my hand. Here, there's no work or play. Only one bill to pay. There's just five words to say as you go down, down down."

Just "you're gonna burn in hell," sung by these ugly men garishly dolled up in absurd makeup and feathered or fringed costumes.

I was so f***ed.

See, by this time--1985--I knew Stay Hungry, the 1984 album on which "Burn in Hell" appeared. Like, really well. I owned the cassette several times, wearing it out from overuse. I considered it the greatest album of all time, or at least in a tight competition with Van Halen's 1984. I was 11 years old.

In the same way that KISS would affect me around the same time or soon after, Twisted Sister had the perfect formula for an adolescent boy. These were huge hooks being punched by the cornered, oppressed underdog. And what 11-year-old boy isn't a cornered, oppressed underdog?

"We've got the right to choose it. There ain't no way we'll lose it. This is our life, this is our song … you don't know us, you don't belong. We're not gonna take it. … Oh, you're so condescending. Your goal is never-ending. We don't want nothin'--not a thing--from you."

The guitar solos are familiar to me even today. Right now--right now!--I am listening to "We're Not Gonna Take It" and miming the whammy bar dives, so entirely ingrained into my psyche did they become 30 years ago. The riffs were among the first I ever learned, and they're rock solid examples of hard rock music.

Twisted Sister were not what we've long-since come to know and dismiss as hair metal. This wasn't a band conceived of by the marketing team of a major label, assembled from girlish boys whose parts could be recorded by Rod Morgenstein, Greg Bissonette, Billy Sheenan, Steve Luthaker as long as the "band" wore their tight leather pants with the banana or rolled-up sock inserted just so. Twisted Sister had by this time been working the clubs of New York for 10 years and had released a couple of albums. They weren't apart from the now-hilarious fashions of the day, but they weren't so much in it, either. More gruesome than girly, more monster than manicured.

"Stay Hungry," the leadoff and title track, rocks. Like, really rocks. A.J. Pero and Mark Mendoza drive it hard on drums and bass, respectively, the guitars really just pounding out sustained power chords atop the rushing current of rhythm … at least until the dual-guitar solo. It, and the whole album that follows, is big. Everyone knows the cartoonish mid-tempo anthems, "We're Not Gonna Take It" and "I Wanna Rock." Other songs sped past more akin to "Stay Hungry." There were gothic comics and, yes, a power ballad.

Nobody needs a track-by-track, but I mention these songs excitedly because I haven't heard them in more than 20 years. Stay Hungry went from the greatest album of all time to one of those albums I used to like in a heartbeat, not so much because of Nirvana--I hated Nirvana--but because when contemporary music chased its northwestern nirvana, I dug into the past and obsessed on the guitar gods of the '60s and '70s, then jazz, then whatever else.

But listening again now, this is a great album. Always was, always will be. I probably won't listen to it again for many more years, if ever, because it has nothing to do with me now. The adolescent anger and frustration wore themselves out a long time ago; I'm not backed into a corner and have nobody and nothing to rebel against.

But for what it is, for who needs it, this is a masterpiece.

Stay Hungry is an almost perfect hard rock album.  It's a crime that Twisted Sister is thought of as one or two hit wonders. 

[Alex]

I had some recollection of writing about one of my absolute cornerstone hard rock albums and bands, and after a quick search, I found that I'd posted it early last year in Bubbly Waves's 1980s Appreciation Thread: http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,19590.msg495172.html. But it fits here, so below is a pasted repost of my Jan. 22, 2015, Twisted Sister writing.
...................


Nobody here, or anywhere else for that matter, needs me to list out albums from the '80s that hit everyone's best of all time. We all have access to those lists. Maybe that is what Bubbly wants--that or at least recommendations. I'm not sure I want to give a recommendation. Instead I reminisced a little bit about that decade and how I thought about music then. Of what I loved at the time, barely of any of it remains in high esteem (by me, I mean). Graceland and Prince's stuff are probably the only things that were beloved then and now. Other things, like Waits's stuff, I came to well after the fact.

But f*** all that. Here's something else. Here's Twisted Sister's Stay Hungry.
...............
In 1980s rural Minnesota, the almost literal witch hunt for satanism in rock music felt like an obsession. For those of us listening to that purportedly satanic rock music, it was terrifying.

A prepubescent, newly fascinated connoisseur of hard rock and metal struggled in a very conservative Christian household. Songs with curse words were to be played quietly--contrary to every instinct--or through headphones. Album covers with scantily clad women had to be kept out of sight. Most of all, anything looking or sounding satanic had to be disavowed entirely. "I listen to hard rock, mom," the kid would say, "but I don't like that satanic stuff."

The problem in the American influenced by Tipper Gore, the Peters Brothers, and television journalists ready to jump on the dream story of teenage suicides inspired by satanic cults--and yes, they seemed insistent these things existed--was that "satanic" meant damn near everything more risqué than Stryper or Petra. Long hair, torn or tight clothes, men in makeup, obviously any religious imagery whatsoever, anything more reasonably categorized as fantasy (e.g., elves, wizards and the like), any sentiment questioning the merits of a Reagan-era American dream: satanic. Or at least under heavy suspicion.

When Pee-Wee's Big Adventure featured a scene that included Twisted Sister filming a video for their "Burn in Hell," I was placed in a very awkward position. Number one, even saying hell outside of the context of church was an issue in my home. One could just as well have said fucking c***. But number two, a song whose refrain threatened that you'd burn in hell, well, that was pure satanism. Simple as that. My mom didn't have to hear anything else. Not "welcome to the abandoned land. Come on in, child, take my hand. Here, there's no work or play. Only one bill to pay. There's just five words to say as you go down, down down."

Just "you're gonna burn in hell," sung by these ugly men garishly dolled up in absurd makeup and feathered or fringed costumes.

I was so f***ed.

See, by this time--1985--I knew Stay Hungry, the 1984 album on which "Burn in Hell" appeared. Like, really well. I owned the cassette several times, wearing it out from overuse. I considered it the greatest album of all time, or at least in a tight competition with Van Halen's 1984. I was 11 years old.

In the same way that KISS would affect me around the same time or soon after, Twisted Sister had the perfect formula for an adolescent boy. These were huge hooks being punched by the cornered, oppressed underdog. And what 11-year-old boy isn't a cornered, oppressed underdog?

"We've got the right to choose it. There ain't no way we'll lose it. This is our life, this is our song … you don't know us, you don't belong. We're not gonna take it. … Oh, you're so condescending. Your goal is never-ending. We don't want nothin'--not a thing--from you."

The guitar solos are familiar to me even today. Right now--right now!--I am listening to "We're Not Gonna Take It" and miming the whammy bar dives, so entirely ingrained into my psyche did they become 30 years ago. The riffs were among the first I ever learned, and they're rock solid examples of hard rock music.

Twisted Sister were not what we've long-since come to know and dismiss as hair metal. This wasn't a band conceived of by the marketing team of a major label, assembled from girlish boys whose parts could be recorded by Rod Morgenstein, Greg Bissonette, Billy Sheenan, Steve Luthaker as long as the "band" wore their tight leather pants with the banana or rolled-up sock inserted just so. Twisted Sister had by this time been working the clubs of New York for 10 years and had released a couple of albums. They weren't apart from the now-hilarious fashions of the day, but they weren't so much in it, either. More gruesome than girly, more monster than manicured.

"Stay Hungry," the leadoff and title track, rocks. Like, really rocks. A.J. Pero and Mark Mendoza drive it hard on drums and bass, respectively, the guitars really just pounding out sustained power chords atop the rushing current of rhythm … at least until the dual-guitar solo. It, and the whole album that follows, is big. Everyone knows the cartoonish mid-tempo anthems, "We're Not Gonna Take It" and "I Wanna Rock." Other songs sped past more akin to "Stay Hungry." There were gothic comics and, yes, a power ballad.

Nobody needs a track-by-track, but I mention these songs excitedly because I haven't heard them in more than 20 years. Stay Hungry went from the greatest album of all time to one of those albums I used to like in a heartbeat, not so much because of Nirvana--I hated Nirvana--but because when contemporary music chased its northwestern nirvana, I dug into the past and obsessed on the guitar gods of the '60s and '70s, then jazz, then whatever else.

But listening again now, this is a great album. Always was, always will be. I probably won't listen to it again for many more years, if ever, because it has nothing to do with me now. The adolescent anger and frustration wore themselves out a long time ago; I'm not backed into a corner and have nobody and nothing to rebel against.

But for what it is, for who needs it, this is a masterpiece.

Stay Hungry is an almost perfect hard rock album.  It's a crime that Twisted Sister is thought of as one or two hit wonders. 

Three hit wonder. Everyone seems to conveniently forget Leader of the Pack.

[JK]

Twisted Sister were not what we've long-since come to know and dismiss as hair metal. This wasn't a band conceived of by the marketing team of a major label, assembled from girlish boys whose parts could be recorded by Rod Morgenstein, Greg Bissonette, Billy Sheenan, Steve Luthaker as long as the "band" wore their tight leather pants with the banana or rolled-up sock inserted just so. Twisted Sister had by this time been working the clubs of New York for 10 years and had released a couple of albums. They weren't apart from the now-hilarious fashions of the day, but they weren't so much in it, either. More gruesome than girly, more monster than manicured.

"Stay Hungry," the leadoff and title track, rocks. Like, really rocks. A.J. Pero and Mark Mendoza drive it hard on drums and bass, respectively, the guitars really just pounding out sustained power chords atop the rushing current of rhythm … at least until the dual-guitar solo. It, and the whole album that follows, is big. Everyone knows the cartoonish mid-tempo anthems, "We're Not Gonna Take It" and "I Wanna Rock." Other songs sped past more akin to "Stay Hungry." There were gothic comics and, yes, a power ballad.

Nobody needs a track-by-track, but I mention these songs excitedly because I haven't heard them in more than 20 years. Stay Hungry went from the greatest album of all time to one of those albums I used to like in a heartbeat, not so much because of Nirvana--I hated Nirvana--but because when contemporary music chased its northwestern nirvana, I dug into the past and obsessed on the guitar gods of the '60s and '70s, then jazz, then whatever else.

But listening again now, this is a great album. Always was, always will be. I probably won't listen to it again for many more years, if ever, because it has nothing to do with me now. The adolescent anger and frustration wore themselves out a long time ago; I'm not backed into a corner and have nobody and nothing to rebel against.

But for what it is, for who needs it, this is a masterpiece.

Thanks for the tip, cap'n. I've got this lined up for end-and-start-of-day listening.

[the captain]

Steve Vai, Passion and Warfare.

[KDS]

For something a little more modern, I was working at a rock radio station in late 2003 when my boss received an email with a link to a music video from a new band. 

The hard rock climate in 2003 wasn't much to write home about.  Mostly grunge lite courtesy of Nickelback, Puddle of Mudd, and Three Doors Down. 

The music was for "Get Your Hands Off My Woman" by The Darkness.  I couldn't believe my eyes or ears.  Three minutes of blistering hard rock with the guitar chops of AC/DC and Thin Lizzy with the drama of Queen.  And the band were having....fun.  There was no fun in hard rock in 2003.

So, were these guys a parody?  A joke?  We quickly went on their website and viewed videos of I Believe in a Thing Called Love and Growing on Me.  If this was a parody, it was a darn good one. 

It wasn't long before the station contacted the label and got some copies of the album Permission to Land.  I got my copy, and played that from start to finish countless times for about six months.  A solid throwback hard rock album in 2003? 

Then, I saw them live in a dingy little club and knew these guys were for real!!!  As a live group, they kicked the audience's A$$ that night.  Showmanship, fun, costume changes, and guitar solos.  I never thought I'd see a new band with either of those elements again.

The UK ate this guys up, and they were heralded as the second coming.  Here in the State, they had a following, but they left most people scratching their heads. 

They put out a second album (2005's One Way Ticket) before dissolving into drug and personnel issues. 

In 2012, they made a comeback with a fairly mediocre effect called Hot Cakes.

But in 2015, they came storming back with a killer record called The Last of Our Kind. 

I feel that many still don't know what to make of The Darkness 12 years later, but I think they're one of the most solid hard rock acts of the 2000s. 

[Ovi]

Steve Vai, Passion and Warfare.

I really can't stand that type of show-off guitarists.

[Amanda Hart]

I love that first The Darkness album, and the new on is very good too.

I was a senior in high school and that was probably my favorite new album at the time. Hard rock was definitely my preference then. There was good stuff to be found, but you had to dig a little bit because most rock radio was full of pretty bland stuff like you mentioned. I think losing interest in what on the radio was probably what started my deeper digging and real interest in older music like The Beach Boys.