Alice Cooper

Detuned wrote:

MetalGuy71 wrote:

My Cooper collection is kinda spotty. I'm slowly gathering up most of his 70's output and I have everything post-Last Temptation. I'm pretty much skipping most of the 80's and early 90's stuff. Alice kinda lost his way in the 80's as far as I'm concerned.

I would recommend getting "Raise Your Fist And Yell", that's his most "metal" album of the 80's.

Eh, maybe if I found it cheap. "Metal Alice" is ok, but I prefer "hard rock Alice". I even like his late 60's psychadelia. I have the Life & Crimes box set and I can honeslty say that practically all of his work that I've heard from the early to late 80's just doesn't do anything for me. The early new-wavey stuff is just *yuck* and the later 80's is over-produced slick radio poop. Kane Roberts is laughable.

Not entirely Coop's fault. I think allot of big acts from the 70's lost their way in the 80's. Times changed and they tried to fit in. Sometimes it worked, most times it didn't. Synths, outside writers, slick production, etc. did more harm that good in the long run. Cheap Trick, Ted Nugent and Alice are 3 that come to mind almost immediately. Aerosmith kinda did too, but they were too fucked up to notice.

The same cycle repeated when big 80's bands tried to "grunge it up" as we moved into the 90's. It's all one big circle. You ride out the trends and eventually come back to the way it all began.

I prefer the non-Hair Metal AC myself...

I picked up a copy Thursday of Love It To Death at Walmart for $5 (after regretting my trading off of the one I had before)...

Went to a different Walmart at lunch and found School's Out...

Shawn wrote:

I prefer the non-Hair Metal AC myself...

I picked up a copy Thursday of Love It To Death at Walmart for $5 (after regretting my trading off of the one I had before)...

I love Alice in all forms, but I'm in agreement here. While I don't hate the Desmond Child Pure evil influenced material, for every good song on those theres 3 or 4 that are just bad. The classic era (71-76) is still my favorite, but those early 80's records have alot of good moments on them, they get passed over too much.

I did really like The Eyes Of Alice Cooper...lots of good stuff on there. "The Song That Didn't Rhyme" is killer...

Eyes is a great album altogether...

Snagged Killer off of Ebay...can't wait!

Shawn wrote:

Snagged Killer off of Ebay...can't wait!

One of my favorite Cooper platters and surprising number of classics on that album that still get radio play considering the album is not even 45 minutes long

A lot of old, classic albums like that are short...

Shawn wrote:

A lot of old, classic albums like that are short...

Now you have bloated 80min+ albums where they could have left off half the stuff. You know what this means...... a new topic: Great Classic albums under ?????

chewie wrote:

Shawn wrote:

A lot of old, classic albums like that are short...

Now you have bloated 80min+ albums where they could have left off half the stuff. You know what this means...... a new topic: Great Classic albums under ?????

Yeah, a lot of that happened with the advent of the CD format...you could suddenly fit 74-80 minutes on a single CD and I remember bands saying things like "we're gonna load it down with songs for the fans...it's going to cost them the same amount of money if it's 10 or 15 songs, so we're going to give them more for their money"...which is a nice gesture, but it ended up helping to diminish the effect of an album. What used to be a 30-45 minute listening experience became a 1 hour and 20 minute marathon...

Shawn wrote:

chewie wrote:

Shawn wrote:

A lot of old, classic albums like that are short...

Now you have bloated 80min+ albums where they could have left off half the stuff. You know what this means...... a new topic: Great Classic albums under ?????

Yeah, a lot of that happened with the advent of the CD format...you could suddenly fit 74-80 minutes on a single CD and I remember bands saying things like "we're gonna load it down with songs for the fans...it's going to cost them the same amount of money if it's 10 or 15 songs, so we're going to give them more for their money"...which is a nice gesture, but it ended up helping to diminish the effect of an album. What used to be a 30-45 minute listening experience became a 1 hour and 20 minute marathon...

For a total backfire and shit heap conclusion to said idea, just see: Kiss Hot In The Shade

However, I LOVE Killer, what a perfect album. Halo Of Flies is one of their best tracks

Snagged Billion Dollar Babies at the used store on Friday! Sweet!!

Now I have:

Love It To Death
Killer
School's Out
Billion Dollar Babies
Mascara & Monsters

Saw a copy of Flush The Fashion at the used store yesterday, but it was waterdamaged all to hell...why would they even buy that from someone??

There is quite a selection of Cooper records at Amoeba, when the finances loosen up I'll have to start grabbing some vinyl.

Shawn wrote:

Snagged Billion Dollar Babies at the used store on Friday! Sweet!!

Now I have:

Love It To Death
Killer
School's Out
Billion Dollar Babies
Mascara & Monsters

Did you get the "regular" version of Billion Dollar Babies or the expanded version with all the bonus stuff? I still need that one too and I'm debating which version to get. I'm leaning towards the original, just to keep consistant with my other 70's Alice discs. Allot of times that bonus material (demos and live material) doesn't hold up. It's cool for the first spin or 2, but gets boring to me pretty quick.

If I may interject....the Deluxe Edition of BDB is exactly how you just described it, MG. It has a cool live show, but not something anyone would play very often.

unless you're a nut like me who actually prefers live recordings.

I love the bonus live disc on Billion Dollar Babies, but outside a few little odds and ends, Alice and the boys don't really change the arrangements all to often, and play the songs very much straight forward

They were more jam oriented earlier weren't they?

Shawn D. wrote:

They were more jam oriented earlier weren't they?

Yes they were but at this point the stage show became central to their live show, so really no room to improvise when your vocalist is getting beheaded on a nightly basis

manny wrote:

Shawn D. wrote:

They were more jam oriented earlier weren't they?

Yes they were but at this point the stage show became central to their live show, so really no room to improvise when your vocalist is getting beheaded on a nightly basis

But the Hunter/Wagner duel soloing is always awesome to hear/see. "Devil's Food" from the Welcome To My Nightmare movie is outstanding!

SpectreFate wrote:

manny wrote:

Shawn D. wrote:

They were more jam oriented earlier weren't they?

Yes they were but at this point the stage show became central to their live show, so really no room to improvise when your vocalist is getting beheaded on a nightly basis

But the Hunter/Wagner duel soloing is always awesome to hear/see. "Devil's Food" from the Welcome To My Nightmare movie is outstanding!

Very true, at this time Alice was a solo artist, who was secure enough and smart enough to share the spotlight with these two axe men who gave up a position in Lou Reed's band to play with Alice

The whole "stage set" thing was what changed Pink Floyd as well, they were very jam oriented but soon it became so choreographed that there was no room left for that.

I really need to get some Alice Cooper back in my collection, I only have Welcome To My Nightmare currently.

It's the regular single-disc version...