Alice Cooper

Last summer I wrote about Alice Cooper in the context of his cheesy album, Alice Cooper Goes to Hell. This spring he was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and that got me thinking about him again, so I purchased a greatest hits collection, titled Monsters and Mascara. On a drive to Connecticut last week I listened to it several times, and relived the arc of the man's career.

Cooper, though primarily a stage act, made some damn good rock and roll records, and they're all here. "I'm Eighteen" is one of the better of the early teen angst records, and the anthemic "School's Out" is just about perfect, even the line "We can't even think of a word that rhymes."

The album is well represented by songs from his strongest album, Billion Dollar Babies, with "Hello Hurray," "Elected," (a still trenchant commentary on American politics) "No More Mr. Nice Guy," "Generation Landslide," and the title song, where Cooper is ably joined by Donovan. "We got dancing nightly in the attic, while the moon is rising in the sky. If I'm too rough, tell me, I'm so scared your little head will come off in my hands." Ah, how brilliant that seemed in the 1970s.

Cooper, flush with some mainstream success, still made horror-themed albums after that, including Welcome to My Nightmare and Alice Cooper Goes to Hell, but his singles were now ballads. "Only Women Bleed," a pretty good song about domestic abuse, and "I Never Cry." But when these songs both made the top 40 he went and made the dreadful "You and Me," in which he sings from the point of view of an average blue collar guy who's content to stay home and watch movies and eat popcorn with his woman. Cooper was a lot of things, but not an average Joe.

It' s hard to recall how much of a freak show he was when he was in his heyday. Billion Dollar Babies had a song called "I Love the Dead," which was blatantly about necrophilia. I remember my mother hearing it and being thoroughly disgusted. She didn't make me get rid of the record, though, bless her heart. There are still performers, like Lady Gaga, who make the performance the thing, and the music secondary, but Cooper really did make some good records. I think about him with great fondness, and welcome his election to the Hall.