Twisted Sister-Love is for suckers

Spitfire
1987/2011

This was the Twisted Sister album that really wasn't a Twisted Sister album. Yes, confusing I know and the whole back story didn't come out until well after this album was released late in the summer of 1987. This album was originally set to be a solo album for Dee Snider. He brought in outside people to help him record it including Reb Beach and Kip Winger plus drummer Joey Franco programmed the drum machine for the album rather than playing drums. However when it came time to release the album Atlantic records felt it would sell better with the Twisted Sister name on it so Dee had to get the band members to agree and so they are listed as "Twisted Sister are" and their names even though none of them except Dee actually played on the album. On their short tour Joey Franco was their drummer as he replaced AJ Pero who had quit in 1986 to re-join his old comrades in Cities. No matter who the players are this is a very uneven album. I originally had this on cassette and remembering thinking that side one was promising was side two was weak bubblegum rock. My opinion hasn't changed much over the last album 25 years since it's release. Three of the first five tracks (including the title track) are real solid bruners while the other two are more melodic, but quite decent. Tracks 6-9 show the real decline as they are all pop-rock pulp not far off from Bon Jovi or some of the lighter tracks that KISS were doing at the same time. Closer "Yeah Right" might be the only alright song in the second half. It's total cornball for the lyrics and I actually think that it may be as much good as it is that it's not as bad as the four previous tracks. The best thing about this re-issue and the previous re-issue is that it includes four bonus tracks. All four for whatever reason didn't make the final cut for "Love is for suckers". None are fantastic, but all of them are likable and Dee seems very comfortable with them. If these four tracks had been put in the 6-9 spots on this album then I would have given it say a C+ instead of the C-/D+ that I would have to give the finished album. Kind of an odd album that frequently gets forgotten altogether when talking about Twisted Sister and the above story is large part of that, but there are several fine songs on here and the bonus tracks are worth hearing.