Played It To Death

Not so scary on the links

Alice Cooper was never even close to the top of my list of favourite music artists, but there was a period when I did appreciate his theatrical hard rock a bit. Probably during high school or thereabouts. My overall lukewarm attitude toward Alice had nothing to do with his image, which I rather liked.... it was more about his style of music and its inconsistency. Once upon a time I owned his Greatest Hits, that early collection with the cover image of his band looking like 1940's gangsters. A handful of those songs appealed to me, but since the rest of it didn't grab me much, the album lay unused most of the time.

I've always been partial to songs like Billion Dollar Babies, Elected, No More Mr. Nice Guy, all from that hits package, plus a later song, Clones, from the 1980 album Flush the Fashion. I had the Clones single, and though the B-side, Model Citizen, wasn't bad, a pretty standard Alice rocker, Clones was a weird and catchy track that I loved.... the song seemed to pre-date industrial or techno metal, splicing a bit of Gary Numan's electro sound (synths and robotic rhythms) with choppy, gritty guitars. 

The first time I ever heard Alice was at a friend's place back in about grade six or seven. We ventured into his older brother's bedroom where we rifled through his record collection, looking at album covers and playing the odd song. I still recall the records that I saw that day so long ago: Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, Rush's 2112, The Eagles' Hotel California, something by the BeeGee's, Black Sabbath's Volume 4, and Alice Cooper's Welcome to My Nightmare. Yeah, that was my intro to Alice, a bit of the Nightmare's weirdness. I have no idea what song we listened to, but the album cover stuck in my head with its bright colours and Alice in tux and top hat. Hmmm. That didn't really jive with his dark, angry, and ghastly image.

Without going into great detail, for this info is readily available through any old internet search, it is said that Alice Cooper (born Vincent Furnier) took his stage name from a 17th century witch. Or Betty Cooper's mother from Archie Comics. Take your pick.

It was in 1980 that I bought my first Alice disc, the 45-rpm single I mentioned before. And like I said, I nearly wore out the A-side, Clones. But the record is still in good shape, resting in my collection.

Ye olde vinyl 45-rpm record