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Album Reviews: Alice Cooper
******************************************************************
GROANIN MITCHELL'S ROCK AND ROLL BBS
NEWSLETTER
*****************************************************************
Volume 2, Issue 6
September 6, 1990
-------------------------
ALBUM REVIEWS
=================
******************************************************************
Welcome back to the Rock and Roll Newsletter Album
Reviews. If you'd care to look over the reviews for August, I've
zipped 'em up and put them in the IBM Textfiles directory. The
name of the file is ALBUM_2.ZIP. As well you'll find ALBUM_1.ZIP,
which contains the reviews from April to mid July.
As you know, we're posting a current and a classic
album review in this section. Due to circumstances beyond my
control, (long weekend and all that stuff), I couldn't make it
down to my favourite record store to pick up a new release. So
I've put a classic review in for now. I'll put up a current
review in a couple of days, when the stores are open again. My
humble apologies...
Anyway, on with the stuff for this week...
*****************************************************************
CURRENT ALBUM
=================
Coming Soon To A Blank Space Near You!!
******************************************************************
CLASSIC ALBUM
=================
ALICE COOPER
++++++++++++++++++
LOVE IT TO DEATH
++++++++++++++++++++
"Love It To Death" was the second album released by
Alice Cooper. It came out in 1971, following their first release,
"Pretty's For You". It's funny, now Alice is part of the
mainstream, almost an institution in rock and roll music. Well it
wasn't always that way. Back in the bands beginnings, Alice was
thought of as a perverted, almost evil personae. His eerie make-
up, and outrageous costumes presented an image of transvestism.
Of course we know now that this was simply calculated to get the
band attention and recognition.
"Love It To Death" was most certainly the breakthrough
album for the band. Of course the song "Eighteen" was a big
commercial success, but the rest of the L.P. is a good mix of
offbeat songs and powerful, catchy rock melodies. One of the
contributing factors to the bands distinctive sound was the
guitar playing of Michael Monarch. He was a true old fashioned
rhythm guitar player. He played a Gibson SG Standard which gave a
clean tight sound that blended with the vocal melodies well. He
left most of the lead work to Glenn Lipton, who later on in the
groups career burnt out big time on drugs. (familiar story,
eh..). The best example of the style of the band at that time is
a little known song called "Caught In A Dream". It had the
trademark clean but chunky sound, with a catchy almost pop-style
chorus. "Long Way To Go" and "Is It My Body" are probably the
best known tunes, next to "Eighteen".
The off-beat offerings on the album are "Black Juju",
"Second Coming" and "The Ballad Of Dwight Fry". The latter was
particularly memorable for it's repeating tag-line, "I gotta get
out of here. I gotta get out of here". It was about a guy who's
locked up in the loony bin. Typical Alice, you can picture him
singing the part live, with a straight jacket on. Rounding out
the L.P. is a little commercial beauty called "Sun Arise".
I had the pleasure of actually seeing Alice Cooper in
1972, only a few months after "Love It To Death" was released.
They played an outdoor show in Hamilton to an already growing
legion of fans. They sounded exactly like the album, and I can
tell you, Alice himself blew our minds.
Cooper went on to become the "King of Shock Rock", as
they call him, and sold millions of albums worldwide. "Billion
Dollar Babies" and "Killer" propelled him to super-stardom in the
mid 70's. I'll always remember hearing "Love It To Death" for the
first time, looking at the album cover and thinking...I've just
gotta go see these guys play.
One more note for those of you who remember the album
cover, Alice is wearing a black and white speckled cape.
Originally he had his thumb sticking out of the folds down by you
know where. The record company was forced to airbrush his thumb
out, but a certain number of copies were released in the original
form. Wish I could get a hold of one, it'd be worth a pretty
penny now..
Again, that's typical Alice. Anything to get your
attention!!
******************************************************************
There you go for now....Sorry about not including a
current album right now. I'll get one up in the next couple of
days. Again, check out the previous reviews in IBM Textfiles, and
if you feel like writing about anything else, just do so. Send it
to us and we'll put it up. Hendrix took the time to do a review,
why not you, or you, or you over there..
See ya next week...
Rock Star...
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