Alice Cooper - Classic Album Series (1969-1972, 5CD)

×

Alice Cooper - Classic Album Series (1969-1972, 5CD)

Close

×

Alice Cooper - Classic Album Series (1969-1972, 5CD)

Close

Alice Cooper is a West Coast Zappa-sponsored group: two guitars, bass, drums and a vocalist who doubles on harmonica. Echoes of 1967 psychedelia in the oscillators and distorted guitars. Showing here the influence of the Mothers, here the first-wave San Francisco sound, there and almost everywhere the Beatles. But their overall texture and the flow of randomly-selected runs interspersed by electronic gimmicks place them closer to a certain rivulet in that deluge of pre-packaged groups which can be defined as marginal acidrock (references: recent debut albums by Aorta and Touch). Droning fuzz leads overlaid by droning (or is it whining?) Bee Gees vocal harmonies, and ponderous quasi-"baroque" organ wallowings a la Vanilla Fudge. Stereotyped guitar solos, a great many of which seem to derive directly (and not surprisingly) from Ray Davies' great fuzztone explosions on early Kinks hits like "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night." Apocalyptic raveups patented by the Yardbirds. Spoken "poetry" or "trippy" declamations muttered half-comprehensibly over "atonal" guitar gimmicks (dragging the pick across the strings below the bridge, etc.).

I'm not trying to denigrate Alice Cooper's abilities: within the context of their self-imposed limitations, the album is listenable. But there is a way to do these things. I think simplicity and the imaginative use of the cliche are at the essence of rock; but the cliches have to hit you in a certain way, with a certain conviction and energy and timing, to get it on, to spark that certain internal combustion of good feeling and galvanized energies that lifts you out of your seat irresistibly and starts you dancing, balling, just whooping, or whatever — Black Pearl is the most stunning recent realization of this. And it is this that is lacking in Alice Cooper's music. Everything falls where it should, there are none of the gross, ugly, idiotic juxtapositions of the totally incongruous found in much other studio-assembled art-rock. But neither is there any hint of life, spontaneity, joy, rage, or any kind of authentic passion or conviction. As such, Alice Cooper's music is, for this reviewer at any rate, totally dispensable.

www.rollingstone.com

×

Alice Cooper - Classic Album Series (1969-1972, 5CD)

Close

The author of the book Alice Cooper, Steve Demorest, accurately calls this "the great undiscovered" Cooper album. Pretties for You is a difficult record, and Love It to Death is a classic, but this pre-Bob Ezrin album, created with help from Neil Young producer David Briggs, might be the perfect picture of an evolving Alice Cooper Group. "Mr. & Misdemeanor" has Cooper beginning to define his nasty trademark vocal style: "Here's new pretties for you/nobody likes me but we adore you." Cooper became known for writing two-and-a-half- to three-minute catchy tunes with negative themes, augmented by longer pieces toward the end of the recordings. With that in mind, this is almost pre-production for Love It to Death, although the band is more inventive here. "Shoe Salesman" could be Strawberry Alarm Clock, and this clone British pop/punk would've been a nice arena for AC to continue dabbling in, had Ezrin not transformed them into hard rockers. For those not convinced of Cooper's ability to sing after the beautiful adult contemporary songs he composed with Dick Wagner in the late '70s, Easy Action gives evidence that Cooper has more of a voice than he got credit for. "Still No Air" has a sci-fi slant, a slant they could've taken up when the members departed from Cooper and became the Billion Dollar Babies. "Below Your Means" is almost seven minutes of early Who-style musical investigation. There is that great West Coast Jefferson Airplane sound throughout, some hybrid of L.A./U.K. garage rock and psychedelia (this material would fit nicely on a soundtrack for American International Pictures). Side two opens with "Return of the Spiders," with upfront fuzz guitar. Dedicated to Gene Vincent, one wonders if this was influenced by David Bowie or if David Bowie influenced it? Both artists emerged around the same time, with Alice Cooper under Frank Zappa's wing, for better or for worse. Their androgynous personas both covered simultaneously in Rolling Stone magazine. "Laughing at Me" is very similar to Bowie's "Man Who Sold the World." There's the cryogenic "Refrigerator Heaven"; a very British pop "Beautiful Flyaway," which is listed as fifth on the album cover, but is actually the fourth track; and "Lay Down and Die, Goodbye," a seven-minute-and-30-second song which clearly sounds like it belongs on Zappa's record label. That this band could run the gamut from Zappa to Bowie, and perhaps inspired both, makes Easy Action a good study and entertaining record.

www.allmusic.com

×

Alice Cooper - Classic Album Series (1969-1972, 5CD)

Close

Alice Cooper's third album, Love It to Death, can be pinpointed as the release when everything began to come together for the band. Their first couple of albums (Pretties for You and Easy Action) were both largely psychedelic/acid rock affairs and bore little comparison to the band's eventual rip-roaring, teenage-anthem direction. The main reason for the quintet's change was that the eventually legendary producer Bob Ezrin was on board for the first time and helped the Coopers focus their songwriting and sound, while they also perfected their trashy, violent, and theatrical stage show and image. One of the band's most instantly identifiable anthems, "I'm Eighteen," was what made the album a hit, as well as another classic, "Is It My Body." But like Alice Cooper's other albums from the early '70s, it was an incredibly consistent listen from beginning to end. The garage rocker "Caught in a Dream" as well as the ass-kicking "Long Way to Go" and a pair of epics – the Doors-esque "Black Juju" and the eerie "Ballad of Dwight Fry" – showed that Alice was easily in league with other high-energy Detroit bands of the era (MC5, Stooges). Love It to Death was the first of a string of classic releases from the original Alice Cooper group.

www.allmusic.com

×

Alice Cooper - Classic Album Series (1969-1972, 5CD)

Close

Alice Cooper wasted little time following up the breakthrough success of Love It to Death with another album released the same year, Killer. Again, producer Bob Ezrin was on board and helps the group solidify their heavy rock (yet wide-ranging) style even further. The band's stage show dealt with the macabre, and such disturbing tracks as "Dead Babies" and the title track fit in perfectly. Other songs were even more exceptional, such as the perennial barnstorming concert standard "Under My Wheels," the melodic yet gritty "Be My Lover," and the tribute to their fallen friend Jim Morrison, "Desperado." The long and winding "Halo of Flies" correctly hinted that the band would be tackling more complex song structures on future albums, while "You Drive Me Nervous" and "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah" showed that Alice Cooper hadn't completely abandoned their early garage rock direction. With Killer, they became one of the world's top rock bands and concert attractions; it rewarded them as being among the most notorious and misunderstood entertainers, thoroughly despised by grownups.

www.allmusic.com

×

Alice Cooper - Classic Album Series (1969-1972, 5CD)

Close

School's Out catapulted Alice Cooper into the hard rock stratosphere, largely due to its timeless, all-time classic title track. But while the song became Alice's highest-charting single ever (reaching number seven on the U.S. charts) and recalled the brash, three-and-a-half-minute garage rock of yore, the majority of the album signaled a more complex compositional directional for the band. Unlike Cooper's previous releases (Love It to Death, Killer), which contained several instantly identifiable hard rock classics, School's Out appears to be a concept album, and aside from the aforementioned title track anthem, few of the other tracks have ever popped up in concert. That's not to say they weren't still strong and memorable; while such cuts as "Gutter Cat vs. the Jets," "Street Fight," "My Stars," and "Grande Finale" came off like mini-epics with a slightly progressive edge, Alice Cooper still managed to maintain their raw, unrefined punk edges, regardless. Other highlights included the rowdy "Public Animal #9," the mid-paced "Luney Tune," and the sinister, cabaret-esque "Blue Turk."

www.allmusic.com