Rocktober Hair Band Song #17: "To Hell With The Devil" by Stryper

With Halloween now only one week away, it's time for the Rocktober songs to have themes of evil, deadliness, Satanism, or the macabre.  But hey, not all rockers bow to Baphomet.  Some, for instance, even worship a sky deity called God, and they're not afraid to admit it.  Stryper was one such band.  In a genre dominated by sin and decadence, Stryper was, in fact, a Christian hair band.  Their stages and album covers contained a bunch of black and yellow (because God loves bees?), bible verse numbers, and Christian imagery, including the upside-down upside down cross you see in so many Christian churches.

On this day in 1986, the band released their third and most successful studio album, To Hell With The Devil, and overtly anti-Satanic album title that sent shockwaves through the largely devil-worshiping metal world.  The album went on to gain double platinum status, on the strength of MTV hits like "Honestly" (which would also be the band's highest-charting song, hitting #23 on the Billboard Hot 100), "Free," and "Calling On You."  But it's the title track that we're going with today, a hard-rocking song about the futile act of telling Lucifer to go back to his eternal home.  "Yeah, maybe I will go back to hell.  And I'm going to torture the shit out of people for the next, oh, I don't know, forever.  Thanks for the suggestion, Stryper."  Get your listening in, Christians, for the remainder of days leading up to All Hallows Eve shall be the devil's.