Twisted Sister

Twisted Sister looked like a pileup outside a cosmetics counter and played like a truck with the brakes cut. The band started in 1972 as an outgrowth of a group called Silver Star, later based itself on Long Island, and went through lineup after lineup before settling in 1982: Dee Snider screaming up front in smeared makeup and a great cloud of teased hair, Jay Jay French and Eddie "Fingers" Ojeda on guitars, Mark "The Animal" Mendoza on bass and A.J. Pero on drums.

Under the Blade and You Can't Stop Rock 'n' Roll built a cult, and then Stay Hungry, in 1984, blew the doors off. "We're Not Gonna Take It" is a stomping, fist-raised sing-along, and "I Wanna Rock" hits even harder; both came with slapstick videos that played like cartoons for the metal set. "We're Not Gonna Take It" was their only Top 40 hit, but it was enough to make the look, androgynous clothes and all, part of the hair metal era's furniture.

Come Out and Play and Love Is for Suckers didn't match it, and they split in 1988. They reunited in 2003, re-recorded Stay Hungry as Still Hungry and cut A Twisted Christmas, then said goodbye after Pero died in 2015. A 2025 reunion stalled when Snider's health forced him out, and Sebastian Bach stepped in.

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