Song · Twisted Sister
“I Wanna Rock” by Twisted Sister
From the album Stay Hungry (1984)
“I Wanna Rock” by Twisted Sister appears on 39 radio countdowns from 18 stations between 1990 and 2026. It was first released in 1984 on the album Stay Hungry. Its best result is #80 on the WLLZ 500 (2021). In the combined RockLists rankings it is #573 classic rock song of all time.
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"I Wanna Rock" is Dee Snider's song top to bottom, written by him alone for Twisted Sister's 1984 album Stay Hungry, and it's about as subtle as its title: the band pared its stadium sound down to power chords and sloganeering, and that was precisely the point. Tom Werman produced, Jay Jay French and Eddie Ojeda play guitars, Mark Mendoza bass and A.J. Pero drums, and the whole band shouts backup.
The video brought back Mark Metcalf, the actor from the "We're Not Gonna Take It" clip, best known as Neidermeyer in National Lampoon's Animal House. This time he plays a tyrant of a teacher who comes down on a student for doodling the Twisted Sister logo in a textbook, with a tirade that parodies his most famous movie line. VH1 later named it the 17th-greatest hard rock song.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Classic Rock
Hard Rock & Metal
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
Also listed as: (I Wanna) Rock; I Wanna' Rock.
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