Stay Hungry

No amount of makeup was going to make these Long Islanders look anything but grotesque, so they leaned into the horror movie shtick. They’d been kicking around tri-state bars in various forms since the early 70s. By their third album they were famished. “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and “I Wanna Rock” (and the accompanying videos) made them megastars, Tipper Gore made Dee Snider a First Amendment hero, and vicious deeper cuts like “Burn in Hell” and “The Beast” allowed them to headline legit metal fests in their reunion years. Not bad for some silly merry fellows (that’s what SMF means, right?).