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It's time to give Alice Cooper some love.
Beginning with the album Love It To Death, the original Alice Cooper band had a short, but phenomenal run as the biggest rock and roll act in the world in the early seventies, with a string of albums that also included Killer, Schools Out, and Billion Dollar Babies.
During this time, Alice Cooper also revolutionized the idea of rock and roll as theatre — paving the way for bands from KISS to Marilyn Manson and beyond. Their elaborate stage shows revolved around the twisted, mascaraed Alice — a unisexual character straight out of your worst slasher film nightmare, who ultimately paid for his crimes with onstage executions that included the electric chair, beheadings and hangings. Alice Cooper were universally reviled by parents, politicians, and the religious right as a result of these shows. Naturally, the fans loved them all the more for it.
After the breakup of the original band, Alice himself enjoyed sporadic success as a solo artist with albums like Welcome To My Nightmare — but things were never quite the same again.
Many feel its high time the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame rightfully recognized the band who paved the way for KISS and others like them. You'll find bloggers talking about Michael Bruce, Neal Smith, Dennis Dunaway, the late Glenn Buxton, and of course Alice Cooper himself, at sites like 4metal.
