Twisted Sister, The Video Years

POSTED: Thursday, December 27, 2007, 3:40 AM

Filed Under: DVD | Music

Merry Twist-mas!

"What do you want to do with your life?" There is only one acceptable answer to that question: “I Wanna Rock!” If you really mean it, that response will be accentuated by power chords so wicked they transform you into Dee Snider and propel overbearing authority figures through ceilings, windows, walls, and basketball hoops. Twisted Sister: The Video Years (not to be confused with the Theme Park years) collects all that anti-authoritarian footage from the big-haired, androgynously named hard rock band’s heyday. That “Hell Yeah!!!” you hear is the voice of your inner 5th grader rejoicing. The seven videos compiled on this disc are widely available on YouTube, so it’s live footage, guest spots (Bobcat Goldthwait!), and interviews with the band members (all filmed separately) that make this anthology compelling. Secrets are revealed (Dee Snider’s makeup took over an hour to apply before each show) and the band talk candidly about painting themselves into a corner with gimmicky videos that made them popular, but which ultimately destroyed their credibility. Most of this was covered in a Behind the Music episode, but it never hurts to apologize again for that torturous cover of “Leader of the Pack.” Revisiting “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and its companion piece, “I Wanna Rock” (both starring the incomparable Mark Metcalf) today, it is jarring that these videos with their slap-stick violence were once considered so dangerous and subversive that Snider was called to Capitol Hill to defend his (and our) right to free expression against the draconian Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC). Sadly, the disc leaves out Twisted Sister’s classic lip syncing cameo of “Burn in Hell” from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. Thankfully, The Video Years ends before this holiday turkey.

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