Alice Cooper: Classic or Dud??

Has there been an Alice Cooper artist poll on here yet?

Top tier: Love it to Death, Killer, Billion Dollar Babies
Second tier: Easy Action, School's Out
Third tier: Muscle of Love, Pretties For You

man, its so peculiar to me that anyone after the fact thinks that this band was at any time "the best rock band in the world," or even particularly good. Neal Smith, Buxton…fuck, all of the four instrumentalists' shit is pretty weak. Grand Funk and this band got the payday and acclaim that I would rather the Stooges and MC5 received. I watch that footage upthread, and I'm forever waiting around for this band to be revealed as the American Sabbath. But I always end up thinking it was correct for him to leave those guys behind, and I don't believe there's any other circumstance where I agree with "you're the star, you're the one with talent, ditch those losers." I'm surely the only ILMnik who thinks KIss is a sesquidillion times better than the Alice Cooper band.

I hope you are! Neal Smith was a great drummer and Dunaway churned out great bassline after great bassline, Glen Buxton was no virtuoso admittedly.

... Michael Bruce, good songwriter.

Yeah, Cooper's rhythm section was truly great and Michael Bruce was largely responsible for a lot of the evergreen Cooper classics that the solo Alice would never dream of leaving out of his live set.

Also, when listening to 'Halo of Flies', the band that I'm hearing doesn't square up with what veronica moser is saying/describing at all.

Ok so you're calling the Cooper band weak instrumentalists then stumping for KISS who were completely horseshit musicians except maybe sober Ace

he do scales

KISS are the single most overrated American hard rock band of all time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uep1pgOUyr0

Listening a really nice 1st press Love It To Death I got for a song rn. Having never really gone post the hits until recently, I'm amazed how garage-y they still were. Perhaps the most Nuggets-ish of all the big early Hard Rock/Metal bands? "Black Juju" could pass for the Chocolate Watchband!

Absolutely! Garage-y while still having a decent degree of musicianship, I think, particularly the rhythm section of Dunaway and Smith. Bob Ezrin really worked wonders in keeping this band focused - apparently, he helped to tighten up 'I'm Eighteen' a great deal for one. I like Welcome to My Nightmare and - much later - DaDa a lot as "solo" Cooper collaborations with Ezrin and Dick Wagner, but I wish the band would have just taken a year off and realised that the theatrics were as much a part of the bands identity as the music.

Bob Ezrin fingerprints are on the mixing board when the classic lineups of Alice Cooper, Kiss and Pink Floyd came apart (at least for the first time).

You mean, Bob "Yoko" Ezrin.

Spotted on FB: Glenn Buxton's 18th birthday. Guy on the left is you-know-who.

https://scontent.fhou1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/64569208_10219751299196630_94425684931248128_o.jpg?_nc_cat=100&_nc_oc=AQmAphh-XUP2NCoMyV0Jss4uPI5suQ8PukDC7kZWw1z9cxwZnKsgAvv0Fk6SGt0ZceE&_nc_ht=scontent.fhou1-1.fna&oh=96b5554d9614883b4da46507f9d0944a&oe=5D96B1BF

Vince?

Vince Before Alice.

looking like a member of Wall of Voodoo

Ha!

Lots of jams imo.

good list

I just checked Wiki and goddamn does Alice Cooper have a lot of albums I never knew about

Coop might be a great candidate for a listening thread actually

listening to Dirty Diamonds from 2003, this is kinda...awesome?

I just checked it out on Youtube (it's a bit spotty w/some "you can't watch this in your country" omissions) and you're right! Rough production that doesn't sound like 256 overdubbed guitars with the treble rolled off and a few really strong tracks.

yeah I mean not like an early 70s record but I was pretty impressed

New single: "Don't Give Up"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__YxWnRACxI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKO6zKPfb8A

The Alice Cooper Band in Diary of A Mad Housewife

oh wow the end of that clip rules

Dennis Dunaway wrote about this in his book. Apparently that's olive oil that Alice is hosing down the crowd with, so that the feathers would stick to their clothes.

Kinda hard to imagine Richard Benjamin as an Alice Cooper fan.

Definitely more of a Leo Sayer guy.

We know Neil Young watched this movie at the time, wonder what he made of that scene?

I think the Cooper group lived in Topanga Canyon at this time, so Neil was probably well aware of their antics.

He tried to persuade Crosby to tear up a pillow onstage.

XP...and David Briggs produced their second album.

Drummer Neal Smith later said of the record producer David Briggs, "David hated our music and us. I recall the term that he used, referring to our music, was 'Psychedelic Shit'. I think Easy Action sounded too dry, more like a TV or radio commercial and he did not help with song arrangement or positive input in any way."

Pretty amazing, the progress they made going from Briggs to Ezrin.

The same year, Briggs worked well with Spirit on Twelve Dreams of Doctor Sardonicus, which was pretty psychedelic, although I'm sure they were more instrumentally competent than the Alice Cooper band at that point.

Just watched that “Super duper Alice Cooper”

The first half was quite interesting, up to the ‘band’ splitting. The descent and recovery of his solo years managed to gloss over all his ‘solo’stuff in favour of pics with Sinatra and Dali and his eventual “nightmare 2” show, but hey..

Alice Cooper on The Snoop Sisters (one of the revolving programs that fell under the NBC Mystery Movie umbrella alongside Columbo and Quincy):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubIQeWtmK9o

The descent and recovery of his solo years managed to gloss over all his ‘solo’stuff in favour of pics with Sinatra and Dali and his eventual “nightmare 2” show, but hey..

It can be a challenge to talk about albums when the artist doesn't remember making them...

I saw him on that Special Forces tour and man, what a wreck he was in those days. At least on the From The Inside tour he had that just-out-of-rehab energy. Just a couple years later he was a virtually unrecognizable wraith.

I've read a few online reviewers who admire those early 80s records (which I haven't heard), is that a defensible position?

I quite liked Flush The Fashion, but had and have no use for Special Forces. I don't think I've ever heard Dada.

Flush The Fashion was easily better than the (3?) studio albums that preceded it - From The Inside, Lace And Whiskey, Goes To Hell.

Classic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJpqK8ZZbaA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDgNNbyoWdk

This changed my life trajectory when I saw it as a nine year old.

Forgot the best one!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz0lXNNkqac

I've read a few online reviewers who admire those early 80s records (which I haven't heard), is that a defensible position?

I like them. DaDa is a weird, dark fuckin' album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7rnFIsoYbM

Yes, Dada's pretty good.

Flush The Fashion is one of my favourite Alice Cooper albums, but Special Forces is weak. Haven't heard Dada actually.

Cooper reportedly has no recollection of recording DaDa, or the preceding albums Special Forces and Zipper Catches Skin, due to substance abuse. Cooper stated "I wrote them, recorded them and toured them and I don't remember much of any of that",[8] though he toured only Special Forces.[9] In 1996 Cooper said that DaDa was the scariest album he ever made,[10] and that he never had any idea what it was about. There was no tour to promote DaDa, and none of its songs have ever been played live.

Dick Wagner and Bob Ezrin really held DaDa together, and they created one hell of a creepy album. As far as theatrical "shock rock" goes, I'd list this LP right up there with Coop's best. "Pass the Gun Around" is particularly unsettling.