Best album by the ORIGINAL Alice Cooper Band

My personal favorite has always been "Killer"...didn't care for the first one at all, "Pretties For You." Other than that, I like all of them, but as an album, it's "Killer."



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although I do find the sheer fuckedupness of "Pretties for You" and "Easy Action" oddly appealing

I'm actually listening to "Easy Action" right now...songs like "Below Your Means" had a sort of "Alice Cooper Meets Quicksilver Messenger Service" vibe, while "Return Of The Spiders" was...well, it WAS. Love the album, but the "definitive Alice Cooper" sound, to me, was everything between "Love It To Death" and "Billion Dollar Babies." The final album, "Muscle Of Love," always seemed like a last gasp to me (and if you want to believe the urban legends, Alice had already brought in the Lou Reed "Rock & Roll Animal" session guys...Hunter, Wagner, etc...around the time of Billion Dollar Babies, and "Muscle" wasn't really a full band effort at all.

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a couple of hundred bucks, it is a wonderful and informative read.
I'm still kicking myself for never retrieving my copy lent to a teenage buddy. Decades ago. :)

I gave away my vintage copy of Electric Warrior by T Rex, two weeks later Marc Bolan dies and the album becomes a sought after collectors item.

do that entire album live before it had been released, and they were incredible live. Homecoming 'dance" in the gym at Knox College in Illinois in 1970. ( 40 years this fall...WHAT? That's impossible...). The show started in darkness with just what sounded like a hammer striking the microphone. When the lights came on it became Sun Arise. Details of the night were just a teensy bit fuzzy, but I do remember what a tight, dynamic band they were, and how blown away we all were by how good they were...Had the same thing happened with Killer, I might've voted for that , but that was the only time I ever saw Alice Cooper, but love it to Death was a seamless, groundbreaking album( and in retrospect, not necessarily in a totally positive way; it didhelp usher in the concept of rock as theater, which subsequently spawned many acts that eschewed musical quality for "shocking" theatrics) .

I assume it was the twin SG with Bigsby attack from Buxton and Bruce

being a singer/wind player who can't play so much as a single chord on a guitar, about the only level of detail I can describe even to this day is whether it was hollow or solid body and what color it was. Didn't know jack shit about amps back then either ( and know only slightly more than jack shit now) Also, this was ,as I said , almost 40 years ago ( I still can't quite believe that...that would mean I'm , uh, OLD .....NOOOOOO) . On top of all that, as I alluded to, my friends and I were very, very, stoned ( even by 1970 college kid standards), and I do remember the next day feeling like it had sort of been a dream. BTW, Alice was one of four bands, and it was an extremely odd combination...Chase ( the actually very good Chicago/BS&T imitators), SRC and Frigid Pink. But as good as the others were, Alice blew 'em all away.

...for me, it's like "Her Majesty" on "Abbey Road." They get bonus points for OPENING with the CLOSING song...

...and yeah, I hold the Alice Cooper (original band) legacy to the band itself. I don't applaud the legion of "theatrical rock" wannabes who sprung up in the wake of the band's success any more than I applaud the hundreds of "shredders" who sprung up in the wake of Van Halen. It all adds up to too many people who aren't half as good (or groundbreaking) as the original.

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The legendary Rolf Harris:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwtnBm8glPE&feature=related


And Alice

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IuUoZTNkLo&feature=related

Because of "Halo of Flies".

killer. billion dollar babies made me go "eh" and move on...

i love ballad of dwight frye and dead babies!

on edit: i forgot about schools out. I liked that one but don't remember it like I do killer and love it to death.

...I was one of those people. It was too slick, nothing really dug its hooks in like "Ballad of Dwight Frye" or "Halo of Flies."

The band was at an all-time commercial peak, but that "thing" that Love It To Death and Killer had existed only on those albums.

There were individual songs on School's Out, Billion Dollar Babies and Muscle OF Love that had merit, but nothing on an "album" basis to stand toe-to-toe with Love It To Death and Killer.

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But my favorite AC song is Hello Hooray from BDB.

On a related note why isn't AC in the Rock Hall of Fame? I know it's just a crap honor but geeze, even Abba is in.