Alice Cooper
 Long
before there was an Iron Maiden or a Marilyn Manson, rebellious kids
around the world thrilled to the macabre antics of Alice Cooper.
Simply put, this pioneering rocker wrote the book on shock-rock by
combining the creepy imagery of classic horror movies with a
thunderous, energetic hard rock sound.
He also brought this sonic spectacle to life in visual form with a
theatrical stage show that threw every kind of visceral horror
imaginable at the audience. In the process, he created a new set of
rules for how to scare people with rock and roll music.
Alice Cooper was born Vincent Furnier in February 1948. The son of
a minister, he dreamed of being as famous as The Beatles and formed a
band called The Earwigs with some fellow students in the mid-1960's.
They grew from a garage band into a full-on psychedelic outfit known
as Alice Cooper (a name that they reportedly got while playing with a
Ouija board).
They were discovered by Frank Zappa and recorded two albums -
Pretties For You and Easy Action for Zappa's record label.
Both mixed hard-rock elements with a freeform psychedelic sound and
strange, comic lyrics.
In 1971, the group produced Love It To Death, the album that
would define the Alice Cooper style. This album played up their
hard-rock edge and also sharpened the satirical bite of their lyrics
as the group tackled subject matter like teenage confusion (I'm
Eighteen) and mental illness (The Ballad of Dwight Frye).
The album was a success and gave the group its first hit single with
I'm Eighteen.
The band toured exhaustively behind the album, developing an
elaborate theatrical stage show that incorporated snakes, a guillotine
and a fake electric chair used to execute Alice at the end of the
show. Alice also developed a habit of wearing thick, harlequin-like
eye makeup that soon became his trademark. Alice Cooper continued to
knock 'em dead with their next album, Killer. This opus
developed their sound as they divided their time between good-time
rockers like Be My Lover and theatrical epics like Halo Of
Flies.
 They
also began to tackle social issues like child abuse (Dead Babies)
and the death penalty (Killer). In 1972, Alice Cooper scored
their big breakthrough with the album Schools Out. The title
song, a raucous rock tune with tongue-in-cheek anti-school lyrics,
became a Number 1 hit and an anthem of youthful rebellion. The album also
paid tribute to West Side Story, an element worked into the
stage show by a mock knife-fight during Gutter Cat Vs. The Jets.
Alice Cooper reached its peak as a group in 1973 with Billion
Dollar Babies, a glam-rock classic that was their biggest hit. It
featured two big hit singles in Elected, a rocking send-up of
politics, and No More Mr. Nice Guy. It also featured a pair of
elaborate horror-rock epics in Sick Things and I Love The
Dead. The group followed this hit album with an equally successful
world tour. During the tour, they paused briefly to record the final
Alice Cooper group album, Muscle of Love. This LP produced a
big hit in Teenage Lament 74, a power ballad about the hassles
of teenage life, featuring Liza Minnelli on backing vocals.
By 1975, the original Alice Cooper group had split up. Furnier
decided to continue on as a solo artist using the Alice Cooper name
and released the album Welcome To My Nightmare. This
horror-rock opus was built around Alice working his way through a
nightmare. Though it boasted plenty of full-throttle rockers like
Cold Ethyl and Department Of Youth, it earned its biggest
hit with Only Woman Bleed, a surprisingly poignant ballad that
dealt with the subject of spousal abuse. Welcome To My Nightmare
was also transformed into a successful television special that
featured horror icon Vincent Price (who had narrated Black Widow
on the album). The TV spectacle brought the album to life in
music-video form, thus anticipating the rise of MTV.
Alice Cooper continued in his theatrical-rock style with albums
like Alice Cooper Goes To Hell, which had Alice battling Satan
for his soul, and Lace and Whiskey, in which Alice reinvented
himself as a tough-guy detective. He also continued to score hits with
ballads like I Never Cry and You And Me.
After Lace and Whiskey, Alice Cooper went into
rehab to deal with alcoholism. When he got out, he used the experience
to create what many critics consider to be one of his finest albums,
From The Inside. The title track was a scorching rocker
that vividly painted his decline into alcoholism, while songs like
Jackknife Johnny told the tragic tales of the other
patients. It also featured a hit in the confessional ballad How
You Gonna See Me Now.
As the 1980's began, Alice Cooper embraced New Wave on albums like
Flush The Fashion and Special Forces.
He retired from the music scene for a while in the mid-1980's to deal
with an alcohol problem, but soon bounced back with Constrictor
in 1986. This album was a return to the old-fashioned shock rock
tactics and even included a tribute to the Friday the
13th film series in The Man Behind The
Mask. He continued to record and scored a major hit in 1989
with Trash, an album that featured contributions from the
members of Bon Jovi and Aerosmith. It also contained a hit power
ballad in Poison.
As the 1990's began, Alice Cooper rocked out on albums like Hey
Stoopid and The Last Temptation, the
latter of which inspired a comic book penned by famous fantasy author
Neil Gaiman. In between music projects, Cooper also took a little time
out to open a sports-themed restaurant in Phoenix, Arizona called
Cooperstown. Cooper continued to tour on a regular basis, releasing
the live album A Fistful Of Alice in 1997, which featured
guests like Sammy Hagar and Slash of Guns 'n'
Roses.
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