To Hell With the Devil by Stryper

To Hell with the Devil, Stryper's third studio album, hit shelves on Enigma in October 1986 and blew apart the idea that a Christian band couldn't sell heavy metal: it became the first Christian metal album to go platinum, and nothing in the genre outsold it until P.O.D.'s Satellite in 2001. Michael Sweet sings and plays guitar alongside Oz Fox, with Robert Sweet drumming, and co-producer Stephan Galfas kept sending them back for another take. The bass chair was chaos: by Michael Sweet's account Tim Gaines was out, Matt Hurich didn't work out either, and session man Brad Cobb played on the record before Gaines was asked back for the tour.

It's glam metal with soaring hooks and vocals pitched sky-high, and MTV bit: "Free" and "Honestly" both topped Dial MTV in 1987, and "Honestly" reached No. 23 on the Hot 100. The original sleeve, four long-haired angels hurling the devil into a fiery pit, was later swapped for plain black.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.