Stay Hungry (25th Anniversary Edition) - Twisted Sister

Well, Twisted Sister has now released this album several times. There was the original release, the 2004 re-recording, and now this, the 2009 "25th Anniversary" version, not to mention a plain remastering somewhere else along the line (forget when that came out). Since Twisted Sister got back together, they've done nothing else other than re-hash their old material. This is the last straw. They have to record a new album or stop. There's nothing left to re-release.

That said, it does kind of validate to me my remarks on the "Still Hungry" release saying that there was nothing wrong with the original 1984 version of this album. This version is cleaned up, and has some more power that the original version didn't have, yet still being the same as the original, unlike Still Hungry which wasn't a straight re-recording. The music on the original album is still as good as it was in 1984, which was right after I graduated high school - most of my "metal" from that era doesn't hold up as well (Ratt springs to mind). But this does.

This 25th Anniversary Edition has the original album, plus a second disc made up of a bunch of demos and whatnot from the original sessions. Those things are good as a novelty. You listen to 'em once or twice, then generally never again. There is, however one new track for this release, that being a studio track called "30", which looks back on the history of the band - somewhat. That's more evident in the video for the song, which I've embedded below. The 30 track is quite good, and dwarfs the entire Disc 2 in quality. Almost makes me wish they had stuck 30 on Disc 1, and dumped Disc 2.

Stay Hungry is still a really good album. This is probably for Twisted Sister hardcores only, or people who for some reason never bought the original. The second disc is a throw away, IMO, except for the new song, which is pretty good. Makes me wish they'd record a full album of new material something Twisted Sister hasn't done since 1987. It's a long time overdue.

A note though. I got this the day after it came out, and found Disc 1 sounded "flat". It didn't sound improved at all. Found out a few days alter that there was a printing error that affected all of the Disc 1's that went out. There was a message on the Twisted Sister website which game instructions on how to obtain a replacement disc, properly pressed. I had to go through that - so if you buy it, and Disc 1 sounds odd, you might have one of the defective ones. They said they were doing a recall, but I have to think some of the bad ones are still floating around out there.