My daughter is a sophomore in high school. Her high school marching band played a medley of songs from the movie \u201cRock Of Ages\u201d at halftime of the football games during the football season that ended in early November. Each week, I suffered through the announcer stating that Twisted Sister was a \u2018one-hit wonder\u2019 immediately preceding the marching band playing \u201cWe\u2019re Not Going To Take It.\u201d Each week, I would say aloud to anyone that was listening with a sigh, \u201cThey\u2019re not a one-hit wonder.\u201d It became a joke as we sat with the same group of people each week. <\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I tell that story so that you understand Twisted Sister has always been dismissed as a one-hit wonder. That\u2019s an injustice in our world. People that say that have been swept up into the mainstream media and VH1 Classic shows that only talk about their infamous battle with the PMRC about their songs \u201cUnder The Blade\u201d and why their fans were called \u201cSMFs.\u201d I will concede that \u201cWe\u2019re Not Going to Take It\u201d is what made them famous on MTV, but to dismiss the band as a one-hit wonder? How insulting. \u201cI Wanna Rock\u201d was at least a tandem single that gets played around here at least as often as \u201cWe\u2019re Not Going to Take It.\u201d Also, the video for that song had heavy MTV rotation. It\u2019s also criminal to omit that they covered \u201cLeader Of The Pack\u201d on their Come Out And Play<\/i> release, which also got a lot of video airplay. So, if I\u2019m being waterboarded, I still say they are not a one-hit wonder. You have my permission to correct anyone that says they are just another bland \u201980s hair band.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
With that off my chest, this is a live version of the band\u2019s Christmas song album that released a while back. Being a live album, I think you get a better sense of what Twisted Sister has always been about \u2013 their fans. I have spent time with live bootlegs, and from those recordings and this one, I am convinced that Dee Snider is a straight-up guy. I\u2019ve never met him, but the way he portrays himself in the media, in interviews, on MTV Cribs, and on his reality TV show appeals to me. Even his testimony during the PMRC hearings got my attention. I think he\u2019d be a fun guy to hang around and spend a day with. From the stage, Snider comments about how a guy looks too serious. \u201cDude, lighten up,\u201d he tells the guy.<\/p>\n
Beyond Snider, the entire band sounds like they\u2019ve been playing together for umpteen years. Each time I see Rush in concert, I marvel at how Lee, Peart, and Lifeson don\u2019t even look at each other when they play complicated syncopated musical bursts \u2013 they have that level of comfort that requires no hairy eyeball to cue the next change. I imagine guitarists Jay Jay French and Eddie Ojeda, bassist Mark Mendoza, and drummer A.J. Pero are exactly like that. They demonstrate this when they intersperse non-Christmas songs like \u201cBurn In Hell\u201d (which also allows A.J. Pero to play a vicious drum solo), \u201cYou Can\u2019t Stop Rock And Roll,\u201d and \u201cThe Price\u201d into the mix. Their version of \u201c12 Days Of Christmas\u201d is totally metal, replacing pipers piping and drummers drumming with spandex and an Ozzy statue. Snider makes me smile when he sings that song.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
How do they do with the traditional songs? Well, they\u2019re all played at a more abrupt tempo, but the basic structure remains true to the popular versions you\u2019ve all heard. If that sounds dismissive, it\u2019s not meant to be. There aren\u2019t a lot of twists and turns to change the structure of the songs. \u201cDeck The Halls\u201d is not played super slow and \u201cI\u2019ll Be Home For Christmas\u201d has the same notes, but it sounds like Twisted Sister.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bottom line, though, is that Twisted Sister simply is not for everyone. My 75-year-old mother-in-law was not impressed with the few seconds of a couple of tracks I played for her. She wrinkled her nose and shook her head and said a few choice words when I started their version of \u201cWhite Christmas.\u201d Twisted Sister playing versions of Christmas tunes didn\u2019t float her boat. If you do not like Twisted Sister, I\u2019m not really sure you will be convinced they are worth your time. If you\u2019re looking for a last minute present for your mother-in-law, sorry, I doubt this one is for her!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":31229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6312],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-42921","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-twisted-sister","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42921"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42921"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}