Samiksha Jaiswal (Editor)

I Wanna Rock

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Released
  
1984

Length
  
3:02

Writer(s)
  
Dee Snider

Format
  
CD single7"12"

Label
  
Atlantic

Genre
  
Heavy metal, glam metal

"I Wanna Rock" is a song written and composed by Dee Snider and performed by his band Twisted Sister. It was released on the 1984 album Stay Hungry. In 2009, it was named the 17th VH1 Greatest Hard Rock Songs by VH1.

Contents

Music video

Like the earlier "We're Not Gonna Take It", the video features actor Mark Metcalf, best known as the sadistic Neidermeyer from the movie National Lampoon's "Animal House" released in 1978. Here, he plays a ferocious teacher who harasses a student for drawing the Twisted Sister logo on his notebook, shrieking: "What kind of a man desecrates a defenseless textbook?!? I've got a good mind to slap your fat face!!" (This echoed his line from National Lampoon's "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!") In conclusion to a rant which begins with that yelled-out question, he shrieks his question from the "We're Not Gonna Take It" video, "WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE???" The student answers with the first line of the song, "I WANNA ROCK!!!" Thereupon he and four of his classmates are instantly "transformed into" (actually replaced by) Twisted Sister's five members. After the vicious teacher's repeated attempts to stop his rock-loving students not only fail but also backfire on him, he crawls into the principal's office, only to be confronted by the principal, played by Stephen Furst, a.k.a. Kent "Flounder" Dorfman from National Lampoon's "Animal House." Furst even gets to reprise one of his big lines from the movie: "Oh boy, is this great!" He delivers it as he sprays water from a seltzer bottle at the mean teacher. (In the homecoming-parade climactic sequence of the actual film, Metcalf's Niedermeyer shot out the seltzer bottle just before Furst's Dorfman could do this last.)

Media appearances

"I Wanna Rock" is subject to numerous media appearances, including:

Video games

  • "I Wanna Rock" was used as the title song for the 2003 game Will Rock.
  • It was used as a soundtrack for 2008's Burnout Paradise, as well as 2002's Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.
  • Twisted Sister re-recorded the entire Stay Hungry album as Still Hungry, released in 2004. The re-recorded version of I Wanna Rock appears as a playable track in Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, whereas the original 1984 version appeared as a playable track on Guitar Hero Smash Hits.
  • The song also appears in the soundtrack of the game Freestyle MetalX.
  • The song is appears in the 2016 video game Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare's Zombie mode - Zombies in Spaceland

    • Other media

  • The song is New York Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira's entry music.
  • Its music video appears in an episode of Beavis and Butt-head.
  • The characters sang along to the song, playing on the radio of the bus, in the 2000 movie Road Trip.
  • 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 film The Rocker.
  • The song was featured on both the Broadway musical Rock of Ages and its subsequent movie adaptation.
  • The song was satirized in the The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.
  • In a 2016 ad for Chopped Junior, the contestants sing a parody version of it.

    • Cover versions

  • Twisted Sister guitarist Jay Jay French made a political song supporting Barack Obama titled "I Want Barack," to the tune of the song.
  • This song is covered by alternative rock band Lit in Twisted Forever, a tribute album to Twisted Sister. This version was later included as a soundtrack for the baseball game Triple Play 2002.
  • American record producer Tom Rothrock, with actor Jim Wise, recorded a version of the song titled "Goofy Goober Rock" for the climax of the 2004 film The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.

    • References

    I Wanna Rock Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA