Long before he welcomed us to his nightmare, went to hell or came to us from the inside, Alice Cooper was inventing horror hard rock with the band – the classic lineup featuring Glenn Buxton and Michael Bruce on guitars, Dennis Dunaway on bass and Neal Smith on drums – from which he took his name. It was this lineup that made the first seven Alice Cooper albums, including classic long-players like Killer, Love It To Death and Billion Dollar Babies, and songs that Alice still performs like "Sick Things", "I Love The Dead", "Dead Babies" and "The Ballad of Dwight Fry".
Let's take a look back at those spooky classic albums from the Prince of Darkness!
Pretties For You
Recorded in in 1969 for Frank Zappa's Straight label. The band, which had been initially called The Spiders and then Nazz, had moved from Arizona in 1967 to work the LA club scene. Clearly influenced by Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, Pretties For You didn't produce any hits, but the single "Reflected" was later rewritten as "Elected", which became a big hit for them in 1973. Around this time the band appeared playing live in a party scene in the appropriately named movie Diary of a Mad Housewife.
Easy Action
Their sophomore album from 1970. Still no hits, and not really recognisable as the band that would soon smash the charts, but the likes of "Return of the Spiders" – later covered (like quite a few early Alice tunes actually) by the Melvins - and "Mr and Misdemeanor" were getting close.
Love It To Death
The breakthrough, from early 1971, and the first Alice record produced by Bob Ezrin (who was later described by Alice as "our George Martin"). A more direct and harder sound, influenced, as was their 1970 move from LA to Michigan, by the Stooges and the MC5, Love It To Death featured the breakthrough smash hit "I'm Eighteen" (which Nick Cave performed live in the early days of his first band The Boys Next Door) as well as classic tracks like "Is It My Body" (later covered by Sonic Youth, as was "Hallowed Be Thy Name" off the same album), "Black Juju", and the mercurial "Ballad of Dwight Fry" (later covered by Radio Birdman), which was inspired by the actor who plays the bug-eating, asylum-ridden character Renfield in the original 1931 Dracula featuring Bela Lugosi.
Killer
Another hard rocking classic, from late 1971, Killer featured the Stonesy "Be My Lover" (later covered by the Beasts of Bourbon), the hard-charging "Under My Wheels" (later re-recorded by Cooper with Guns N'Roses for the The Decline of Western Civilisation Part II: The Metal Years soundtrack in 1988), the shrieking "You Drive Me Nervous", and definitive horror-rock classics "Killer" (complete with hanging scene in the live clip here!), "Dead Babies" and "Halo of Flies".
School's Out
The band were now really hitting their stride as a purveyor of strong and commercial hard rock, but their constant touring was perhaps having an effect on their writing. Following the previous two albums, School's Out is definitely light on material wise, although the album's title track is a ripper and became their biggest hit single to date, reaching #2 in the US when released in May 1972. "Public Animal #9" is another good one. "Luney Tune" was later covered by Rowland S. Howard and his post-Birthday Party band These Immortal Souls.
Billion Dollar Babies
Something of a return to form – Billion Dollar Babies includes "No More Mister Nice Guy" (later covered by Megadeath), "I Love The Dead", "Sick Things", "Elected", the excellent title track and more – and an album which is still very well represented in Alice's live set. The album was the band's first #1 in both the US and the UK.
Muscle Of Love
Their first album without Bob Ezrin producing since he helped the band achieve chart success with Love It To Death, Muscle of Love was also the final album by the original group, who, having recorded seven albums in four years and toured relentlessly, were dead on their feet. Indeed Glenn Buxton was having deeper troubles and did not appear on the album – Lou Reed guitarist Dick Wagner (formally of popular Detroit band The Frost) was one of several players who filled in. With the album failing to reach the heights of its predecessor, the group decided to take a break. At which point Alice moved to L.A. and legally changed his name to his stage name. Reuniting with Ezrin and hanging on to Wagner for what would be the first Alice Cooper solo album, Welcome To My Nightmare, Alice became a solo sensation. Which meant there was no going back and the original band was no more. While nothing from Muscle of Love has featured in Alice's set for years, one notable highlight is "The Man with The Golden Gun", written for the James Bond film of the same name (the second to feature Roger Moore) but submitted too late. One helpful YouTuber has given us an idea of how it would have worked in the film.
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