Jun 272011
It’s 1982. This video appears on French television, as part of a French TV special starring Alice Cooper. Shouldn’t his act have expired about 12 days after he hit paydirt with “School’s Out”? How did Alice Cooper manage to stay in circulation to any degree? How does he manage to hold onto his current Elder Statesman of Hard Rock status? Most importantly, is this song even remotely decent? I’m confused. Maybe I’ve been in Paris for too many days.
How did Alice survive? Simple, by becoming both a cartoon caricature and a “personality”. He’s odd and spooky without being genuinely dangerous or threatening. As far as I’m concerned, Billion Dollar Babies is his last great album. Then he went Hollywood. However, sensing that his old image was played out by 1980, he took a real chance, ditched the old trappings, and went for a New Wave-ish tack with Flush the Fashion, which is not a bad album at all. That didn’t work so after a few years, he wiped away the tears, put the makeup back on, and went back to the old game for good.
By the way, the clip is “Under My Wheels”, which is a pretty great song from Killer, arguably Alice’s best album. It was released in 1971. “School’s Out” came out the following year.
To me he has no strengths. Mediocre hard rock that hasn’t been hard for 40 years. He’s neither scary nor spooky unless you still sleep with a nightlight. Why does he persist as a personality. Are we that starved for them. I have no beef with the guy, mind you.
I remember thinking “Elected” and “I’m 18” wera decent songs. “How You Gonna See Me Now” reminded of The Beach Boys when I was a kid. But I’m no big fan — although tonyola brought a smile to my face with the mention of Flush The Fashion, which a buddy of mine had.
His well-known love of golf probably hurts his standing here in The Hall.
A total aside — the only rock star’s house I have ever seen is Alice’s house in Scottsdale. A friend of mine is his neighbor — he was having a big party the night I went by it. Rock on!
If your rock stays hard for more than four hours….
I have no answers. The incarnation I find most perplexing is the “sensitive balladeer” of “You and Me” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cuj0Ur44qig
“I Never Cry” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbGM3zGb918&feature=related
or “Only Women Bleed” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYtmvZDRAOU&feature=related
Right place at the right time.
He was the first to take that theatrical b-movie horror shtick to the masses. In doing so, he created an indelible image and that’s the path to immortality. Just ask the heirs to the James Dean or Che Guevara estates.
Musically, I don’t really stray past the greatest hits but I like him well enough. His greatest hits is the first album that I ever spent my own money on. If I didn’t like him in grade school, I’m sure I would have no interest in him today but he gets grandfathered in for me so I get why you might have trouble wrapping your head around it.
I like Under My Wheels although I’m not sure what’s going on with those zombie military officers in that video (or whatever they’re supposed to be). Here’s the original band doing it and I think it makes more sense in this context as part of the inevitable hangover after the intoxicating sea change that was the 60’s.
http://youtu.be/6Z7I022m5GI
And here’s another one of his that I like: No More Mr Nice Guy. This riff wouldn’t be out of place on a KISS record. It’s simplistic and kind of obvious and I don’t mean that in a bad way. Not sure what he’s doing with that rubber house fly though.
http://youtu.be/xYKjGvVSTGA
What often gets overlooked in all the buzz about Alice’s image was just how great his original band was. Beginning with Love It To Death they were really strong and tight with lots of muscular and inventive playing. He ditched them after Muscle of Love and never had a true band as good since then.
My favorite Alice Cooper, ahem, shift was when he was suddenly the rock-n-roll golfer. Anyone remember that? A few years back it was all about Alice on the golf course with an argyle vest and shit. Like the he’s sooo crazy he plays golf. He got another 15 minutes out of that.
Never got him.
Alice Cooper is a live act. I don’t think anyone cares about his records past 1975 but he does the monster make-up, straight jacket show and cuts his own head off. That’s worth $25 to some people.
I saw his show in 1988 (won tickets on a radio show contest) and had a good time watching the performance, but it was not really about the music (and he did a greatest hits show)
I get a lot of flack but I think Alice Cooper’s best stuff is the first two records that get panned all the time (Pretties For You and Easy Action. In fact Elected is a crappy rewrite of Reflected from the first album). They were clearly influenced by Syd era Floyd and I guess Alice Cooper the band then.
After that the stuff with the original band is all Bob Ezrin production and that work can be best compiled into a decent Best Of package. After the original band was done, I can’t think of any moments that hold my interest. I guess the live show in it’s prime was probably a fun gig.
While I personally think Love It To Death and Killer are Alice’s peak, those two early albums are better than most people think. As I said elsewhere, Alice’s original band was really strong – good enough to even skirt prog-rock territory on some of the longer songs.
What I’ve heard/downloaded of those first two albums is more interesting to me, too, petesecrutz.