Alice Cooper: Classic or Dud??

Supposedly he's streaming his new album on Myspace.

Bob Greene?

He's just that good!

Pretties... & Easy Action sooo classik.

I love "Easy Action" but "PFY" is not very good

wrong. it is very good. so there.

troof.

I only have Killer and Love It To Death but they are awesome

Updating my Coopalog now on CD. Hell, I don't even remember what LPs I still have down in the basement.

ohh yuh just in case anyone cares i think pretties and easy action were recently reissued as nice price type cds. which is great cause the cds were like $25 otherwise.

Sigh. I keep saying I'm gonna try to get into Alice and it just never seems to happen.

Did you ever hear Teenage Lament 74?? I can't see anyone disliking that song. It was sent by God. And Satan.

the new thing is up on his myspace...not too bad so far!

at least this first one seems more like 70s type shit instead of metal, i hear saxophones! clapping!

you mean the first song? (sorry, can't stream myspace at work.)

That first album on New West was really terrible. Is this basically the followup to that?

Thing is even Alice knows he's been a joke for decades. Remember when he had the steroid-gobblin' body-builder who was supposed to look like a commando on guitar? He's been missing for at least fifteen years. Where did he go?

Time to resurrect this fanzine review from one of the Mick Box threads:

ALICE COOPER Flush The Fashion
AC doesn’t get enough credit for his chameleonic exploits. Then again, while Bowie was ripping off the hip uptown vanguard of Lou Reed and Neu!, Alice was fixated on the tricks of Meatloaf and Croft Superstars. He had his ear to the rail at the turn of the 80’s, however, when Devo and Tubeway Army came marching into his life. He quickly assembled a supporting cast of Italian-American session men, adopted a new militant transvestite chic for the stage, and took an armful of his electro-new wave lp’s down to the lab. What we get is an inebriated but spirited hodgepodge of approximations that today he doesn’t recall recording. Alice showcases his knack for timeless throwaway rhymes that sporadically appear to lead to some notion of sense, before abandoning course into the ninny non-sequential rants of an eighty-pound blackout alcoholic. But he’s got a lot on his mind, and wastes no time railing against cyborgs, gay bars and nuclear contamination, while ruminating on the virtues of police brutality and exceeding recommended dosages of aspirin. Many topics touched on by Gary Numan himself, though Alice curiously paws at them with a washed-up drunken whimsy. In fact, the degree to which his synth pop is so off-the-mark and decidedly un-bleak, makes this lp is a bit of an anomaly. And I wouldn’t doubt if future generations judge him more reverently for this madcap stab at de-evolution than his famously snarky rock anthems to high school and fucking dead people. Clocking in at a lean 30 minutes, this tour de force of garage-damaged Casio-core is a shoe-in sensation for your next dance party. (Also recommended if you can track it down: the Paris-only TV special which features Alice lip-synching these tunes in such exotic locales as subways, alleys, and junkyards, all one-shot videos with a total production value of thirty bucks or so)

On that latter note:

'Clones (We're All)' from Paris

But perhaps even better:

'Clones (We're All)' from Pink Lady and Jeff

From comments on the latter:

barriobajaj (2 weeks ago)

Is it just me or is Alice Cooper aping Gary Neuman?

chunkino (2 weeks ago)

Why do you think the song is called "Clones."

---

Chunkino was wise.

That's a fantastic fanzine review, Gorge. Thanks for posting it.

Actually, if you could find a bunch of people writing reviews like that for a real magazine devoted to reissues in 2008, I'd buy a two year subscription.

Ha! Yeah me too!

sigh...I really miss the days when Alice tried...

on a creepy note, I recently dug up my old concert program from the Special Forces tour, and it's uncanny how much AC resembled Vera from the old Alice sit-com in those days...dingy broad!

hmmm now i wanna go buy flush the fashion

nice try:

And I wouldn’t doubt if future generations judge him more reverently for this madcap stab at de-evolution than his famously snarky rock anthems to high school and fucking dead people.

hmmm now i wanna go buy flush the fashion

That's pushing well past the boundary. Maybe 25-50 cents for used vinyl, tops.

Thing is even Alice knows he's been a joke for decades. Remember when he had the steroid-gobblin' body-builder who was supposed to look like a commando on guitar? He's been missing for at least fifteen years. Where did he go?

http://metalinquisition.blogspot.com/2008/07/kane-roberts-renaissance-man.html

Gorge has falsely accused me on another thread of "not getting" Alice Cooper. Libel!

As I said there, my good friend of ten years GAVE me the damn Mascara & Monsters CD last weekend at his baby shower. He just fucking gave me the CD okay? I have it on my iPod now but have not listened yet. Give me one fucking break.

REPORT BACK.

yes I am fucking reporting back and low and behold if there's any ILXOR who could make me play Alice Cooper it is Alex in NYC

mmm...."Desperado". Isn't it goth? Or glam? Who fucking cares what it is? I love it.

I would like to see Peter Frampton take on Alice Cooper in the ring.

"Under My Wheels" I don't know what to do. My brain is humming with glam. I can prove to you that the Brits can do it better if you give me a chance, but shit.

"She asked me why the singers name was Alice"

No please give me a break this is great stuff. And I still have it on my iPod to enjoy. Be kind to me.

Oh no this is the shit. "No More Mr. Nice Guy" now that's some mighty meaty good rock and roll that could even shame the Brits.

"Only Women Bleed" folks. Goddamnit. This fucking CD smokes. I can't even get over it. Holy shit.

I can prove to you that the Brits can do it better if you give me a chance.

David Bowie already did that. But Alice Cooper's 70s material (Well, up to and including "...Goes To Hell") was great too.

Gorge has falsely accused me on another thread of "not getting" Alice Cooper. Libel!

I take it all back!

Hahahahhaha Thank YOU!!!!!

Libcrypt did you read that you bastard?

mmm...."Desperado". Isn't it goth? Or glam?

It's Jim Morrison, isn't it?

Interviewed the man a week ago. Fun guy, showbiz pro. Told me he has no memory of writing, recording or touring behind Special Forces, Zipper Catches Skin and memories of DaDa are somewhat hazy, but present because producer Roy Thomas Baker was such a taskmaster. Also told a great story about some guy (who looked like "the sheriff of any small town in middle America") coming up to him, and instead of the golf question Alice was expecting, saying to him, "DaDa. I listen to that album every day."

I'm listening through the Cooper oeuvre today (through Welcome To My Nightmare), and digging it a lot. I think they get better over that span, or least: Muscle of Love didn't do anything for me, but Goes to Hell is great: I like the horns in the mix in the later albums.

I still fly the flag for Flush the Fashion.

The sound on "Only Women Bleed" isn't very far from what Dylan seems to have been going for on Street-Legal and Slow Train Coming, esp. "Man Gave Names To All The Animals", both in the bass sound and in the rhythm of the vocals (at least in the verses of "Only Women Bleed").

Maybe its somehow obvious, Only Women Bleed to me always sounded like a half-sister of Lou Reed's Berlin.

bought copies of killers, love it to death, and easy action recently - kind of on a whim, but also in response to the ravings of a close (and very wise) friend who's been a die-hard fan for decades. weird to find that something really and truly brain-snappingly BRILLIANT has been loitering around trying to get your attention your entire goddam life. why was i not made aware at age 13, when i really needed shit like this? i mean, don't know that i like any three sequential records by any band all that much more than these.

and it's not like i'd never heard of alice cooper. i grew up with the hits, with school's out on the muppet show, with eighteen and welcome to my nightmare and even clones. have heard and dug covers by sonic youth, the melvins, and others i respect. but i never took the time to listen closely, to hang around past my initial dismissal of the cheeze factor. and i was wrong. i was so, so tragically wrong. this is some of the best oddball hard rock i've ever heard, up there with BOC (who occasioned a similar revelation a couple years back), the stooges, bowie's glam era, etc.

i'm ashamed to have ignored alice (the band) for so long, but also thrilled to have found something this rewarding just sitting there waiting to be picked up - super clean copies of all three lps cost about $12 total. dunno that it'll last, but for the moment, "halo of flies" is up there with my top 10 songs of the 70s. and "the ballad of dwight fry" isn't far behind.

while i'm at it, i do not get the lack of love for easy action. pretties for you may be a tough sell, but easy action is fantastic. love the combo of developing hard rock muscle and lingering prog-pop ambition. the songs are less immediate, but the variety and creativity make up for it.

hey, check this out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt_yo76AbQ4&feature=related

best part is that i've got another 4 records to go! up through school's out i mean. what i've heard of the later solo stuff i don't dig at all. but who knows? i've clearly got a lot to learn...

and maybe flush the fashion. remember thinking that was pretty hilarious in my youth.

I value everything up to DaDa... but I don't expect anyone to beyond Nightmare...

contenderizer: get thee Billion Dollar Babies next, immediately.