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The Alice fucking Cooper thread.


Towelie

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I'm not really into his older records, but I like his "newer" stuff. Dragontown and the Eyes of Alice Cooper are my favorites from AC. Brutal Planet has some killer songs (especially the title track) and Welcome 2 My Nightmare had great songs too. It's cool that he's still going. He has been able to keep his voice in shape. I like his lyrics and I appreciate the fact that he doesn't use swear words (I have nothing against swearing, but it sometimes cheapens some songs).

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The Alice Cooper Group is one of the greatest American rock bands IMO.

He is a legend from my state that's for sure.

I might be in the minority here, but I really like his 80's stuff. Not as iconic as his 70's stuff, and slightly cheezy, but I dig it.

I think Flush The Fashion, Special Forces, Zipper Catches Skin all have a great song or two on them, I like Dada and in particular Constrictor and Raise Your Fist a lot too.

Like I mentioned earlier, Pain from Flush The Fashion is one of the best solo songs he's ever done IMO.

I can't deny Trash either- it's full of cheese but it's a fun, rocking record and I adore stuff like Bed Of Nails and Hell is Living Without You.

It's certainly a lot stronger than Hey Stoopid.

I'd take the 80s stuff over the Bob Marlette "industrial" albums like Brutal Planet and Dragontown anyday, The Eyes Of Alice Cooper is probably the worst album he's ever done I reckon.

It still has one great song (Be With You A While)...

Edited by DR DOOM
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I can't deny Trash either- it's full of cheese but it's a fun, rocking record and I adore stuff like Bed Of Nails and Hell is Living Without You.

It's certainly a lot stronger than Hey Stoopid.

Wow, I would say the complete opposite. Trash is one of my least favourite AC records. It's so full of guest stars and professional songwriters that it doesn't even sound much like Alice Cooper. If I want to hear Desmond Child ballads I would put on an Aerosmith or Bon Jovi album.

Whilst Hey Stoopid suffers also a little from this, it sounds far more like an AC record than Trash ever did. Wind-Up Toy >>> Anything on Trash.

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Alice has been my favorite since I was 5 years old in 75. I have an older brother that is also a huge fan so I grew up on Cooper.

A couple of my favorites.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPpMapM8b0g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnJcCBypF00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhqJ2mlcLtw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku52ynj0dVU

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As Dr Doom said, the original Alice Cooper Group is one of the greatest American bands of all time. They are widely known, at least for their hits like I'm Eighteen, School's Out and No More Mr Nice Guy, but they are still criminally underrated. Their run of 4 albums from Love It To Death to Billion Dollar Babies is as good as anyones, and for the early 70s they were doing stuff no one was doing and don't quite get enough credit for it.

Love It To Death is a monster album. They needed Bob Ezrin (their 6th member) and he just brought them to this whole other level. Caught In A Dream, Long Way To Go, Ballad of Dwight fucking Fry, Sun Arise. The whole album rocks. Then they follow that up with Killer, my personal favorite. Under My Wheels (always my favorite Alice song), Be My Lover, Desperado, You Drive Me Nervous, Dead Babies. The album reads like a greatest hits collection. Billion Dollar Babies does too of course. Hello Hooray, Raped And Freezing, Unfinished Sweet, Elected, Generation Landslide. Not a bad song in the bunch and for a while they genuinely couldn't do any wrong.

School's Out is the odd one in the bunch. Its a phenomenal album, but definitely the only one of that group that probably won't hook you on first listen. Alma Mater, Public Animal #9, Luney Tune, and Gutter Cat Vs. The Jets are top notch tracks, but the album just doesn't quite rise to the level of the others so it gets overlooked. Muscle Of Love (the group's finale) is also very good, and took me years to finally listen, but IMO doesn't even match the other 4. Welcome To My Nightmare is incredible all the way through and almost gets a pass as a Group album for me. Its clearly not, but its amazing that he disbanded the group and put out an album that really made you think "maybe he could do this on his own."

Unfortunately IMO, his catalogue dies from there. There are gems, but most of them aren't great. I love From The Inside, but his other 70s albums are almost half crap and almost cliched by the time they came out. His 80s stuff just is not for me even though I've tried. The experimental early decade and the faux metal late decade. I'm happy he made himself relevant again though. Oddly enough, the one album from the 80s I think is great is Special Forces, arguably his weirdest album ever. I heard it the first time, thought it was the worst piece of shit ever, heard it again about a year later, fucking loved it. Can't really explain why. His albums since haven't really been my style. I like The Eyes Of Alice Cooper and Nightmare 2 was good, not great. There are some great songs sprinkled throughout, but like early GNR, nothing touches that golden period. Alice has never topped it and its hard to find many other bands that have.

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I think Dada is an under rated album. One of my favorites.

I did forget Dada in my rant. That one's not bad. At least half of it is really good. Scarlet And Sheeba, Pass The Gun Around, Former Lee Warmer. And while they seem a bit more generic, No Man's Land and Enough's Enough are pretty good as well.

And from what I've heard of The Last Temptation, that ones decent as well. At least it starts really strong with Sideshow and Lost In America, then tapers off from there.

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Alice is one of the best vocalists out there. He doesn't have the best range or anything, but he has so much character and charisma that it more than makes up for it. That's why it's so difficult to cover their/his songs. Still haven't heard a cover that I'd consider better than average.

School's Out is one of my favourite albums of all time. It's incredibly diverse musically, but still flows together as one cohesive piece. My Stars is an absolute gem of a song.

Other favourites include:

The Last Temptation (by far his best solo album)

From the Inside (his best album, lyrically)

Love It to Death

Killer

Dada

The Eyes of Alice Cooper

Dirty Diamonds

Lace & Whiskey is a dud, but My God is incredible.

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  • 3 months later...

Alice is one of the best vocalists out there. He doesn't have the best range or anything, but he has so much character and charisma that it more than makes up for it. That's why it's so difficult to cover their/his songs. Still haven't heard a cover that I'd consider better than average.

School's Out is one of my favourite albums of all time. It's incredibly diverse musically, but still flows together as one cohesive piece. My Stars is an absolute gem of a song.

Other favourites include:

The Last Temptation (by far his best solo album)

From the Inside (his best album, lyrically)

Love It to Death

Killer

Dada

The Eyes of Alice Cooper

Dirty Diamonds

Lace & Whiskey is a dud, but My God is incredible.

Check out the Humanary Stew tribute album - it's full of excellent renditions of Alice songs, and has more big names than probably any other tribute album I can think of. My personal favorite cover of the bunch:

I wish Alice would stop pretending the 80's never happened. I've seen him 29 times and the only 80's songs I've seen him do live are Clones (We're All), He's Back (The Man Behind The Mask), Poison, and House Of Fire. I'd love to hear him do some more of his 80's stuff, particularly anything from Raise Your Fist And Yell.

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I'm curious to hear what he's going to be doing with the Hollywood Vampires covers. There's no denying he's a great frontman and always has been, even when he was high as hell and looked like he had one foot in a body bag.

As far as 80s Alice, I think it comes down to giving the people what they want and it might not have gone over well on past tours.

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he's opening for motley crue tomorrow night. ryan roxie is doing a free M+G with other members of alice's band. i want to see the raskins (newest member is ronnie simmons from the art, one of the best australian bands, and also features johnny martin from adler) but don't really like alice's stuff except school's out, i'm eighteen, no more mr. nice guy and that song he did with slash, along came a spider.

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he's opening for motley crue tomorrow night. ryan roxie is doing a free M+G with other members of alice's band. i want to see the raskins (newest member is ronnie simmons from the art, one of the best australian bands, and also features johnny martin from adler) but don't really like alice's stuff except school's out, i'm eighteen, no more mr. nice guy and that song he did with slash, along came a spider.

You'll regret it if you miss Alice.

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