Welcome to another “Album by Album Challenge.” For those that are new here, the “Album by Album Challenge” is where I take a band’s entire discography and listen to every album in order of release from front to back. With my unforgiving and well-aged ear, I call it how I hear it. In some cases, I find that what I once thought was good is actually pretty crappy and sometimes crap manages to age into something pretty kick ass. And in some cases, face melting is still just good ol’ face melting.
This time around I have one of my most epic challenges to date: ALICE COOPER! For this challenge, it was so fucking long I had to split it up into 4 parts just so it wouldn’t be so fucking long all at once. I split them up into The Alice Cooper Band, Alice Cooper Solo, The Nightmare Returns, and Alice 2k (2000 > Present). This was one of the toughest ones to date because of the length but I’ll be honest and say that I learned a hell of a lot about the man, his bands, his triumphs, his comebacks, and his failures. All in all, it’s Alice Fucking Cooper! I hope you all enjoy Part 1: The Alice Cooper Band!
Pretties For You
Release Date: June, 1969
The Good: Titanic Overture, 10 Minutes Before the Worm, Sing Low, Sweet Cheerio, Today Mueller, Living, Fields of Regret, No Longer Umpire, Levity Ball, B.B. On Mars, Reflected, Apple Bush, Earwigs to Eternity, Changing Arranging
The Bad:
The Indifferent:
As huge of an Alice Cooper fan as I am, I can honestly say that I hadn’t heard this album in well over 20 years in its entirety. I remember as a kid I thought it fucking sucked but now at 41 I have to say that this album is absolutely fucking brilliant. While it may not be the Alice Cooper sound in general that the world came to know them for (yes, I said THEM), it totally encapsulates what this band was all about and really documents such a unique start for this legendary act.
Musically I love how much ground this album covers. The Beatles’ influence on them is very much obvious on songs like, “Today Mueller” and “Living” and even on “Sing Low, Sweet Cheerio” I can hear some Allman Brothers Band in there (think Whippin’ Post and you’ll know what I mean). The album is chock full of psychedelic and even at times progressive jams. This definitely sets the pace for where Alice Cooper would go as a band and this really is a pretty fucking magical album. I need to spin this one more often that’s for sure.
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Easy Action
Release Date: March, 1970
The Good: Mr. & Misdemeanor, Shoe Salesman, Still No Air (jets), Below Your Means, Return of the Spiders, Laughing at Me, Refrigerator Heaven, Beautiful Flyaway, Lay Down And Die – Goodbye,
The Bad:
The Indifferent:
With Easy Action, I’m starting to hear Alice Cooper steadily morphing into the band that the world would be more familiar with. This album is a lot less “Zappa” like than the first one and this one has the band playing and writing with a lot more focus. “Mr. & Misdemeanor” opens and has to be one of my favorite AC songs. I never really listened to this album in full so this time around was a really awesome experience. I loved how “Still No Air” was so weird and psychedelic and even had elements and lyrics of what would later become “Gutter Cats vs. The Jets” on the Schools Out album. “Below Your Means” has the band jamming at Captain Beyond like heights and “Return of the Spiders” is just a fucking epic facemelt that I can totally see being a huge influence on Hanoi Rocks.
The album closes out with “Lay Down and Die, Goodbye” which just sounds like a fucking acid trip if you could hear one. Easy Action is really a pretty spectacular fucking album and you can totally hear that these fuckers were really making art. It’s like 5 kids got left alone in the art closet with all the tools of the trade at their disposal. I would even go as far as to call it orchestrated chaos. This album was the mushy clay starting to take form but what it was about to turn into we would eventually see over the next few albums.
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Love It To Death
Release Date: February, 1971
The Good: Caught in a Dream, I’m Eighteen, Long Way to Go, Black Ju Ju, Is It My Body, Hallowed Be My Name, Second Coming, Ballad of Dwight Fry, Sun Arise
The Bad:
The Indifferent:
What a fucking awesome record. Right out of the gates, THIS is the Alice Cooper that we would all come to know and love. The band sounds so connected and “Caught in a Dream” is one of those songs that I just can’t believe wasn’t a huge hit. What a great song and a great way to open up the album. This is where some of the most iconic Alice Cooper songs were born. “I’m Eighteen”, “Is It My Body”, “Ballad of Dwight Fry.” Even though I’ve heard these songs a zillion times, they never sound old, dated, or unexciting. These songs are still every bit as great as they were the first time I ever heard them.
While the “hits” are fantastic, to me, it’s the deeper cuts that really stand strong. “Black Ju Ju” is such an awesome and dark tune that really sets the tone of just what this band was all about and what they would be about for a good while after this. “Hallowed By My Name”, much like “Black Ju Ju” just sounds like the Alice Cooper band that we would all come to love and it also solidifies the sound that they would carry forward with. This is just such great songwriting, great production, and an amazing performance. What a terribly underrated band but this is the album that put them on the map and rightfully so. What a classic.
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Killer
Release Date: November 1971
The Good: Under My Wheels, Be My Lover, Halo of Flies, Desperado, You Drive Me Nervous,Yeah Yeah Yeah, Dead Babies, Killer
The Bad:
The Indifferent:
Man, talk about an album that lives up to its. There isn’t a single bad song on this album and it’s so fucking good that I listened to it twice back to back. Much like with Love it To Death, this one is chock full of hits like “Under My Wheels”, “Be My Lover”, “Dead Babies”, and “Desperado” but the real magic lies in the deep cuts. “Halo of Flies” is a song that for years was so sadly overlooked but I was so glad to see it resurrected in Alice’s live shows this past couple of years. “You Drive Me Nervous” is another song that I can’t believe never got the attention it deserved and the title track is such a strong piece.
“Desperado”, even though a pretty popular song, is such a strong, dark song with it’s almost western undertones to it but it’s the title track that really wins it for me. Leave it to Alice Cooper to close out an album with such a bizarre and somewhat disturbing track. This album is such a fucking goldmine of greatness and as a whole was sadly overlooked by me in the past. I’m so glad I heard this one straight through as this is, as of now, my favorite AC album. This challenge just keeps getting better and better. I’m lovin’ this!
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School’s Out
Release Date: June, 1972
The Good: School’s Out, Looney Tune, Gutter Cats vs. The Jets, Blue Turk, My Stars, Public Animal #9, Alma Mater, Grand Finale
The Bad:
The Indifferent:
From what I can tell this is the first Alice Cooper album to boast some form of a concept. While it’s not a continuous concept, all the songs are tied in somehow with being young, being an outcast, and just the overall strife and trials of being young. I still haven’t figured out just how “Blue Turk” fits into this concept but that song is fucking amazing and again, one of those sadly forgotten songs that is every bit as good as the more known hits of their career. “Gutter Cats vs. The Jets” never gets old and that song is always a treat to see performed live with the “Street Fight” section as well. The highlight of this album for me is “Public Animal #9.” This song has been a favorite of mine since I first bought this album back in the 80’s and much like “Blue Turk” is sadly ignored and somewhat forgotten. I also have to say how I love that “Alma Mater” reminds me of that earlier psychedelic stuff that was more prevalent on their earlier albums.
Schools Out is such a brilliant fucking album and song for song there isn’t a single weak moment on this album. It absolutely blows me away at how much consistently great material this band was capable of churning out up to this point. School’s Out is yet another perfect album from Alice Cooper. The band sounds so good and so tight and the instrumentation shows signs of growing up as well. The horns in “Grand Finale” almost seem to somewhat foreshadow what would be to come on Welcome to My Nightmare. I loved every thing about this album and even more so now than I ever did.
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Billion Dollar Babies
Release Date: February 25, 1973
The Good: Hello Hooray, Raped and Freezin’, Elected, Billion Dollar Babies, Unfinished Sweet, No More Mr. Nice Guy, Generation Landslide, Sick Things, Mary Ann, I Love the Dead,
The Bad:
The Indifferent:
There is just something about this album that sounds like a fucking hit album. This is where it all came together and it’s this album that put Alice Cooper on the map as one of the biggest bands in the fucking world. Everything about this album is perfect. Even the “hits” like “Elected”, “Billion Dollar Babies”, and “No More Mr. Nice Guy” sound every bit as awesome as they ever have. Why do they never get old? Because they’re great, well written songs and a truly great song is one that you never get tired of hearing. While the hits are great, can we just talk about “Generation Landslide”? Holy shit what a fucking song and how “Raped and Freezin’” wasn’t a hit is beyond me. Well, maybe it’s because of the title having “rape” in it.
This also seems to be where we really see “creepy” Alice make an appearance. I mean, “Sick Things”, then “Mary Ann” (way creepy in its own right), and then closing out with their ode to necrophilia “I Love the Dead.” Much like the albums before this one, Billion Dollar Babies never gets old. Every time I listen to this album I find it every bit as good if not better than the first time I ever heard it. What an awesome album and a timeless classic to say the least.
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Muscle of Love
Release Date: November 20, 1973
The Good: Big Apple Dreamin’ (Hippo), Never Been Sold Before, Hard Hearted Alice, Crazy Little Child, Working Up a Sweat, Muscle of Love, Man With The Golden Gun, Teenage Lament ’74, Woman Machine
The Bad:
The Indifferent:
What a fucking brilliant album. This is an album that even back in the day I just kind of ignored. I didn’t pass it up because I was scared or anything but this album just didn’t boast the number of popular songs that their past albums did. I first discovered this album about 15 years ago and has been one of my favorites ever since. This album is so full of great songs and it really shocks me that it didn’t turn out more hits than just the title track. “Big Apple Dreaming” is such a great opener, “Crazy Little Child” with its barroom barrel sound is such a great listen but to me, it’s all about “Teenage Lament ’74.” That is a song that has a timeless message and it’s songs like this one that showed what a brilliant band they could really be.
It’s hard to believe that this is the album that pretty much broke up the classic Alice Cooper Band as we would know it to this point. While this is yet another great album, I can really see that up this point Alice Cooper was really working within their own formula and not straying much from it at all. While this is a great thing as a fan, as an artist you can see that Vinnny Furnier probably wanted to expand a nd grow beyond the means that was possible with this band. With a fine mix of dark humor, rock n’ roll show tunes, Muscle of Love was the end of an era and the beginning of whole knew exciting chapter that would turn Alice Cooper from a band of five into an iconic figure of one.