Alice+cooper

At a time when many of the forgotten bands of the '70s began to resurface, Alice Cooper released Constrictor in 1986, his first album in three years. The album attempts a fresh start, which made sense, since Cooper suffered physically, creatively, and commercially over the past decade due to changing trends and alcoholism, which left his latest releases void of the energy that had made Killer and Welcome to My Nightmare so popular. For the most part, Cooper succeeded in re-establishing himself – this is arguably some of the best work he put forth in years. Nothing comes close to the songs he recorded in his '70s heyday, but what's here is surprisingly lively and sharp-witted: "Simple Disobedience" is a catchy anthem of rebellion, and "Teenage Frankenstein" is a straightforward, amusingly melodramatic rocker.

Since the original Alice Cooper band was a major catalyst in the creation of punk rock (Cooper's snide lyrics, the band's raw rock, etc.), by the early '80s Cooper decided to re-embrace the genre after such overblown albums as From the Inside distanced him from his roots. The resulting album, 1981's Special Forces, was Cooper's most stripped-down and straightforward since his classic early-'70s work. But without the original Cooper band to back him up and help out with the songwriting, it's an intriguing yet sometimes uneven set. Cooper was heavily into the guns and ammo publication Soldier of Fortune at the time; hence the album title and lyrical subject matter.

Some things never change – the sky is blue, two plus two equals four, the sun rises in the east, and Alice Cooper will make albums where he sneers out spooky lyrics as long as he can draw breath. Cooper hadn't had anything resembling a hit since the mid-'90s, but the man clearly had no desire to retire, and though he was 69 years old when he released Paranormal in 2017, he still sounded admirably spry and hadn't lost his voice or his charisma. Paranormal was released not long after Cooper reunited with surviving members of the original Alice Cooper band for some surprise shows, and the advance word on the album had it that Cooper was going to write and record with them.

By 1982, Alice Cooper's brand of shock rock had been shoved out of the pop-chart spotlight by new trends like punk and new wave. To counteract this decline in popularity, Cooper worked elements of these sounds into his style and also played up the satirical/comedic angle to his music. The result was Zipper Catches Skin: while it's not a success on the level of Billion Dollar Babies or Welcome to My Nightmare, it is surprisingly listenable. The songwriting subjects are some of the most unusual of Cooper's career, which is saying a lot: "Tag, You're It" is a primarily spoken word spoof of slasher films, while "Zorro's Ascent" depicts the world's most famous swordsman facing down death. However, the strangest of these songs is "I'm Alive (That Was the Day My Dead Pet Returned to Save My Life)," which speaks for itself.

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.

With Billion Dollar Babies, Alice Cooper refined the raw grit of their earlier work in favor of a slightly more polished sound (courtesy of super-producer Bob Ezrin), resulting in a mega-hit album that reached the top of the U.S. album charts. Song for song, Billion Dollar Babies is probably the original Alice Cooper group's finest and strongest. Such tracks as "Hello Hooray," the lethal stomp of the title track, the defiant "Elected" (a rewrite of an earlier song, "Reflected"), and the poison-laced pop candy of "No More Mr. Nice Guy" remain among Cooper's greatest achievements. Also included are a pair of perennial concert standards – the disturbing necrophilia ditty "I Love the Dead" and the chilling macabre of "Sick Things" – as well as such strong, lesser-known selections as "Raped and Freezin'," "Unfinished Sweet," and perhaps Cooper's most overlooked gem, "Generation Landslide."

Hey Stoopid is the 19th studio album by rock singer Alice Cooper, released on July 2, 1991. After his smash 1989 hit album Trash, Cooper attempted to continue his success with his follow-up album, which features guest performances from Slash, Ozzy Osbourne, Vinnie Moore, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Nikki Sixx and Mick Mars (both of Mötley Crüe). Hey Stoopid was the last music album to feature bassist Hugh McDonald before he joined Bon Jovi as their unofficial bassist in 1995. According to Cooper assistant Brian Renfield, an alternate cover was originally considered, described by Renfield as being "hardcore with hypo needles, pills…" Notably, the track "Feed My Frankenstein" features famed guitar duo Steve Vai and Joe Satriani playing together, accompanied by Nikki Sixx on Bass. In 2014, "Dangerous Tonight" was featured in the video game Watch_Dogs.

On his 2019 EP Breadcrumbs, shock rock pioneer Alice Cooper paid tribute to his hometown of Detroit, working in a Detroit studio with a host of musicians from the city recording a smattering of covers of Bob Seger, the MC5, Suzy Quatro, the Dirtbombs, and other Motor City favorites. Full-length album Detroit Stories expands on the theme begun with Breadcrumbs, presenting many of the EP's tracks again and fleshing out the record with new originals and covers. Showing up a second time are high-spirited covers of the MC5's "Sister Anne," Seger's "East Side Story," and original tunes "Go Man Go" and "Detroit City 2021" (updated from its title "Detroit City 2020" on the EP).