"
I Wanna Rock" is a song from the album
Stay Hungry (
1984This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1984.-Events:*January 21 - "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood reaches number one in the UK singles chart; it spends a total of forty-two weeks in the Top 40....
) by American
heavy metalHeavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in England and the United States...
band
Twisted SisterTwisted Sister is an American heavy metal band from New York City. Their work fuses the shock tactics of Alice Cooper, the rebellious mood of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, and the extravagant image of glam rock bands such as New York Dolls notably for the makeup...
. In 2009 it was named the 17
th VH1 Greatest Hard Rock Songs by
VH1VH1 is an American cable television network based in New York City...
.
The song was also
coveredIn popular music, a cover version, or simply cover, is a new rendition of a previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
by the
pop punkPop punk is a fusion genre that combines elements of punk rock with pop music, to varying degrees. It is typically referred to as a strand of alternative rock that combines power-pop melodies and chord changes with speedy punk tempos and loud guitars...
band Lit on 2001 Twisted Sister
tribute albumA tribute album is a recorded collection of cover versions of songs or instrumental compositions. Its concept may be either various artists making a tribute to a single artist, a single artist making a tribute to various artists, or a single artist making a tribute to another single artist.There...
,
Twisted ForeverTwisted Forever - A Tribute to the Legendary Twisted Sister is a tribute album released in 2001. Participants on the album cite Twisted Sister as an influence...
.
Like the earlier "We're Not Gonna Take It," the video features actor
Mark MetcalfMark Peter Metcalf is an American actor in both television and film.-Life and career:Metcalf attended Westfield High School in Westfield, NJ. He is likely most known to two different generations for two notable roles...
, best known as the sadistic Neidermeyer from the movie
Animal House.
"
I Wanna Rock" is a song from the album
Stay Hungry (
1984This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1984.-Events:*January 21 - "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood reaches number one in the UK singles chart; it spends a total of forty-two weeks in the Top 40....
) by American
heavy metalHeavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in England and the United States...
band
Twisted SisterTwisted Sister is an American heavy metal band from New York City. Their work fuses the shock tactics of Alice Cooper, the rebellious mood of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, and the extravagant image of glam rock bands such as New York Dolls notably for the makeup...
. In 2009 it was named the 17
th VH1 Greatest Hard Rock Songs by
VH1VH1 is an American cable television network based in New York City...
.
The song was also
coveredIn popular music, a cover version, or simply cover, is a new rendition of a previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
by the
pop punkPop punk is a fusion genre that combines elements of punk rock with pop music, to varying degrees. It is typically referred to as a strand of alternative rock that combines power-pop melodies and chord changes with speedy punk tempos and loud guitars...
band Lit on 2001 Twisted Sister
tribute albumA tribute album is a recorded collection of cover versions of songs or instrumental compositions. Its concept may be either various artists making a tribute to a single artist, a single artist making a tribute to various artists, or a single artist making a tribute to another single artist.There...
,
Twisted ForeverTwisted Forever - A Tribute to the Legendary Twisted Sister is a tribute album released in 2001. Participants on the album cite Twisted Sister as an influence...
.
Music video
Like the earlier "We're Not Gonna Take It," the video features actor
Mark MetcalfMark Peter Metcalf is an American actor in both television and film.-Life and career:Metcalf attended Westfield High School in Westfield, NJ. He is likely most known to two different generations for two notable roles...
, best known as the sadistic Neidermeyer from the movie
Animal House. Here, he plays a ferocious teacher who harasses a student for drawing the Twisted Sister logo on a book, shrieking: "What kind of a man desecrates a defenseless textbook?! I've got a good mind to slap your fat face!!" (echoing his line from
Animal House: "What kind of man hits a defenseless animal [a misbehaving horse]? I've got a good mind to smash your fat face in.").
After his attempts to stop his rock-loving students fail, he crawls into the principal's office - only to be confronted by the principal, played by
Stephen FurstStephen Furst is an American actor and film and television director.-Biography:Stephen Furst was born in Norfolk, Virginia. He is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University's theater program. In 1972, Furst's father died from diabetes complications. Years later, Furst was diagnosed with type...
(Flounder from
Animal House). Furst even gets to reprise one of his big lines from the movie: "Oh boy, is this great!" as he squirts water at the mean teacher.
Other appearances in pop culture
The song has been featured in an advertisements for
Avis Rent A Car SystemAvis Rent a Car System, LLC is a car rental company headquartered in Parsippany-Troy Hills Township, New Jersey, United States. Avis, Budget Rent a Car and Budget Truck Rental are all units of Avis Budget Group....
and
Washington MutualWashington Mutual, Inc. , abbreviated to WaMu, was a savings bank holding company and the former owner of Washington Mutual Bank, which was the United States' largest savings and loan association until it became the largest bank failure in U.S...
.
This version was also featured on the
Triple Play 2002Triple Play was a series of computer and video games based on Major League Baseball, published by EA Sports until their replacement by the MVP Baseball in 2003....
videogame soundtrack.
The song is New York Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira's entry music.
The song was heard in the 2000 movie
Road TripRoad Trip is a 2000 comedy film written by Todd Phillips and Scott Armstrong and directed by Phillips. It is about the story of Josh who accidentally sends a video of him and his love interest to his childhood sweetheart Tiffany and has to try to get the video back before Tiffany returns to...
, where the characters sing along to it on a bus while it is on the radio. Mackdawg productions used the song as the intro of their 2001 snowboard movie called "The Resistance", featuring the forum team. It was also heard in the 2008 movie
The RockerThe Rocker is a 2008 comedy starring Rainn Wilson, Josh Gad, Teddy Geiger, Emma Stone, Christina Applegate, Jason Sudeikis, Will Arnett, Fred Armisen and Bradley Cooper...
.
In addition to
Triple Play 2002, "I Wanna Rock" is the title song for the 2003 game
Will RockWill Rock is a first-person shooter released in North America on June 9 and Europe on June 13, 2003. This first game, developed on the Saber 3D engine, by Saber Interactive and published by Ubisoft, did not receive huge media attention, but did polarize reviewers who ran the gamut with scores of...
, and can also be heard in 2008's
Burnout ParadiseBurnout Paradise by Criterion Games is the seventh game in the Burnout video game series. It was released in January 2008 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and on February 5, 2009 on Microsoft Windows. It was also released on the PlayStation Store in September 2008 and via Xbox Live Marketplace's...
.
The song is a playable track on the
PlayStation 2The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony. The PS2 console is the sequel to the original PlayStation console. The successor to the PlayStation, and the predecessor to the PlayStation 3, the PlayStation 2 forms part of the PlayStation series of video game...
video game
Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80sGuitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s is a music video game and the third installment in the popular Guitar Hero series...
as a master track. However, it appears as recorded in the
Stay Hungry remake album,
Still HungryStill Hungry, released in 2004, was a re-recording of the 1984 album Stay Hungry released by heavy metal band Twisted Sister.-Track listing:# "Stay Hungry" – 3:14# "We're Not Gonna Take It" – 4:36# "Burn in Hell" – 5:37...
, thus sounding quite different than the original. Also, strangely enough, this song and
ScandalScandal is a rock band from the 1980s fronted by Patty Smyth. The band scored a hit in the US with the song "The Warrior", which peaked at #7 in 1984...
's "
The Warrior"The Warrior" is a song by pop/rock group Scandal, from the album of the same name. The song went to number one in Canada and number seven in the US, as well as number one on the Mainstream Rock chart in the US, in addition to winning a BMI Airplay Award in 1984.-In Popular Culture:*Björk claims...
"(which was also appears as a master track) are the only ones that end with fade-outs, contrary to the usual ending treatment given to them in other games.
It also feature on the radio station "V-ROCK" on
Grand Theft Auto: Vice CityGrand Theft Auto: Vice City is a sandbox-style action-adventure computer and video game designed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It is the second 3D game in the Grand Theft Auto video game franchise and sixth original title overall...
.
There is a SpongeBob version called "Goofy Goober Rock" in
The SpongeBob SquarePants MovieThe SpongeBob SquarePants Movie is a 2004 animated film based on the Nickelodeon television series SpongeBob SquarePants, released on November 19, 2004. It was produced and distributed in the US by Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies, distributed in the UK and Switzerland by Universal...
. This version is noticeable due to much longer guitar solo (especialy in
OSTOST may refer to:* The alias of electronic musician Chris Douglas* Original SoundTrack, the soundtrack of a movie, TV series, or video game...
version) than one in the original song.
Rapper Negro sampled the song for his song entitled "I Wanna Shock"
Twisted SisterTwisted Sister is an American heavy metal band from New York City. Their work fuses the shock tactics of Alice Cooper, the rebellious mood of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, and the extravagant image of glam rock bands such as New York Dolls notably for the makeup...
guitarist
Jay Jay FrenchJohn French Segall , better known by his stage name Jay Jay French or J.J. French, is a founding member and one of the two guitarists of the American heavy metal band, Twisted Sister....
made a political song supporting
Barack ObamaBarack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office, as well as the first president born in Hawaii...
titled "I Want Barack" that's to the tune of this song.
New Jersey singer-songwriter Christian Beach recorded a bluegrass version of "I Wanna Rock" for "Hair Apparent - The Main Man Records Tribute to Hair Bands," released in 2008.
The song appears once again in the Guitar Hero series, this time in Guitar Hero Smash Hits, which features favourite songs from past Guitar Hero games voted by fans, thus being featured in the game. However, it appears as a master track, and gives the option to play bass, drums, and singing parts similar to
Guitar Hero World TourGuitar Hero World Tour is a music video game developed by Neversoft and published by RedOctane and Activision. It is the fourth main entry in the Guitar Hero series. The game was launched in North America in October 2008 for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360 consoles, and a month...
.