On the Shelf 65: Alice Cooper
Sep. 27th, 2011 08:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedsitter23Alice Cooper is out with Welcome 2 My Nightmare. If you haven't followed Cooper very closely, he's still prolific as ever (probably more than you realize - 8 albums since 1994). Like that other Detroit madman, Cooper seems to be stuck between two spots- slickly produced commercial albums that appear to be aiming for one last Top 40 single a la "Poison" or "Hey Stoopid" and under-the-radar back-to-basics stripped down records that aim to recapture the glory days (The best of these being 2005's Dirty Diamonds).
Welcome 2 splits the difference. It has a very ambitious bent- one, being a sequel to arguably Alice's last great album Welcome to My Nightmare and two, by bringing back some of the most well known names of Alice's past - Dick Wagner, Steve Hunter, Dennis Dunaway, Neil Smith, and producer Bob Ezrin.
Maybe because of this, the album's a mixed bag. I would have liked to see (to quote Jim Rome) an 'A' or an 'F' on this effort. Instead it's not an instant classic or a throwaway, instead a low B.
The headline has been the Ke$ha collaboration, and why I don't have a problem with whatever it takes to get Alice back in the mainstream- that collaboration 'What Baby Wants' is one of the low points.
This also feels like the most Manson-ish of Alice's records (not that he isn't entitled to that) and that is likely in part to the backing of Marilyn's ex-guitarist John 5.
My favorite tracks are opener "I Am Made Of You" which has a lot going against it (audiotune, lyrics by Desmond Child), but is a classic Alice epic, and "Last Man on Earth" which is classic Alice (think "Some Folks") but also has an unmistakable Tom Waits vibe to it.
You can find samples of every song in the video below with some Alice commentary on top of it.
Forced to decide. I'm going to give this a thumbs up. The hits make up for the misses ("Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever" and "Ghouls Gone Wild" are great titles, but terrible songs) and it's a definite step up from 2008's Along Came a Spider.
Welcome 2 splits the difference. It has a very ambitious bent- one, being a sequel to arguably Alice's last great album Welcome to My Nightmare and two, by bringing back some of the most well known names of Alice's past - Dick Wagner, Steve Hunter, Dennis Dunaway, Neil Smith, and producer Bob Ezrin.
Maybe because of this, the album's a mixed bag. I would have liked to see (to quote Jim Rome) an 'A' or an 'F' on this effort. Instead it's not an instant classic or a throwaway, instead a low B.
The headline has been the Ke$ha collaboration, and why I don't have a problem with whatever it takes to get Alice back in the mainstream- that collaboration 'What Baby Wants' is one of the low points.
This also feels like the most Manson-ish of Alice's records (not that he isn't entitled to that) and that is likely in part to the backing of Marilyn's ex-guitarist John 5.
My favorite tracks are opener "I Am Made Of You" which has a lot going against it (audiotune, lyrics by Desmond Child), but is a classic Alice epic, and "Last Man on Earth" which is classic Alice (think "Some Folks") but also has an unmistakable Tom Waits vibe to it.
You can find samples of every song in the video below with some Alice commentary on top of it.
Forced to decide. I'm going to give this a thumbs up. The hits make up for the misses ("Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever" and "Ghouls Gone Wild" are great titles, but terrible songs) and it's a definite step up from 2008's Along Came a Spider.
