Alice Cooper - Album By Album

Confession - this isn't the first time I've done this. In fact it isn't even the second. I originally did a history of Alice Cooper's albums way back when I wrote for the short-lived Sinzine website a decade or so ago and then revisited and updated it for my previous blog a couple of years back. Both of them were pretty extensive exercises as you'd expect from a man with as extensive a back catalogue as Alice has and both very nearly sent me a bit doo-lally if I'm honest.

So, possibly because I'm a sucker for punishment but also because the Coop has done a couple of albums since that last feature (one on his own and one with his supergroup the Hollywood Vampires), I've done an Alice albums guide again. Let's be honest, the Dark Lord of Shock Rock is a guy who needs no introduction, a real mainstay of the music scene and the man who can arguably claim to have had a hand in the invention of both punk and goth. But, like an evil version of David Bowie, he's never been a man afraid to try his hand at new stuff musically, starting off as a psychedelic hippie under Frank Zappa's tutelage in the '60s before moving through being a garage shock-rock iconoclast, a supreme rock opera showman, a new wave weirdo, the elder statesman of '80s sleaze rock, an industrial dark lord and all the way back around again. Sometimes he gets it right, sometimes he gets it wrong but it's never less than interesting and it's this that makes looking back at his albums such a fun task. Personally, the guy is one of my heroes and one of the last natural born showmen in rock 'n' roll (especially with Bowie's passing a few years back) and I think I can safely say that I'll continue to roll with him forever.

Here it is then, from the worst to the best, a guide to all thirty of the guy's studio albums (including his two with the Vamps and now updated in March 2021 to include this year's Detroit Stories). I hope you like it. Turn it up loud and if the neighbours complain, to hell with them...

30. Brutal Planet (2000)

It's safe to say that when you've been putting out albums as long as Alice has, you're bound to have dropped a few clangers in your back catalogue. Yet even the worst Coop albums usually have at least one or two redeeming features to make you think "ah well, at least this isn't a total disaster". Except this one. Released as an attempt to jump on the nu-metal bandwagon, the idea at least kinda made sense with the rise of bands such as Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails who cited Alice as an influence. Unfortunately though, Brutal Planet is an absolute joyless drudge of an album, completely lacking the sense of fun and playfulness and, more to the point, the tunes that characterised his best work making it a real chore to listen to. If you want to know the reason why most people with any sort of music sense tend to gently skip over the likes of Limp Bizkit and Korn when it comes to remembering the years around the millennium, the proof you need is here.

29. Pretties For You (1969)

A lot of people think that the Alice Cooper band (as they then were)'s career started with Eighteen and their bad boy Detroit proto-punk years. Not actually true. Before that they were a group of LA-dwelling psychedelic hippies under Frank Zappa's tutelage and even put out two albums in this guise before moving north and discovering the sound that'd break them commercially. Pretties For You was their debut album and sounds...well, exactly like you'd expect a Zappa influenced group in the late '60s to sound - weird, psychedelic and with not a lot in the way of memorable tunes. Reflected is worth a curio listen as Alice and co would later completely re-wire it to become Elected a few years later and give themselves a worldwide hit but overall this really is for Coop completists only.

28. Easy Action (1970)

The second of the Alice Cooper band's albums under Frank Zappa's patronage, this is at least slightly heavier than Pretties For You but it's still a world away from anything that the band would do afterwards and it's pretty clear on listening why they rapidly disowned it upon relocating to Detroit and adopting a much leaner and meaner sound. Like its predecessor, this is really for completists only.

27. Trash (1989)

Trash is probably best known for spawning the international mega-hit Poison but aside from that and the other two singles from it (Bed of Nails and the Joan Jett co-penned House Of Fire), it's pretty dire to be honest. Following on from the return to form that was Raise Your Fist And Yell, Alice decided to go for a second sleaze-rock album in a row and then made the fatal mistake of roping in AOR gloop merchant Desmond Child to produce it. The result is a horribly bloated crock of an album which completely lacks the lean mean menace of its predecessor with the corpulent balladry of Hell Is Living Without You being particularly hard to swallow. Yeuch.

26. Hollywood Vampires (2015)

Was there really any point in this album? Formed by Cooper, Johnny Depp and Aerosmith's Joe Perry as a supergroup, the Hollywood Vampires idea started out from a covers section Alice used to do in his live set but despite an impressive star cast list, none of the versions here really add much to the original and vary in quality from reasonable enough (My Generation and Cold Turkey) to absolutely bloody awful (their ham-fisted blunder through Itchycoo Park really is painful on the ears). There are two decent enough originals here, Raise The Dead and My Dead Drunk Friends, but you can't help but think that Alice would have been better served saving them for one of his own albums.

25. Flush The Fashion (1980)

The first of Alice's four new wave albums (during which time he was back off the wagon to the extent that he claims to have been too off his face to even remember making them) is also the weakest. The first side in particular sounds more like unfinished demos with Alice desperately scrabbling around to get a foothold on the formula. It does get better as it goes on (Grim Facts, Nuclear Infected and especially Dance Yourself To Death are all decent enough) but all in all this one can be safely skipped. 

24. Constrictor (1986)

Originally placed at the bottom of this list when I first did it, on revisiting Constrictor I'll hold my hands up and admit that it isn't quite as bad as I remembered it being. The main problem is it sounds a lot like an album that's hopelessly stuck halfway between the new wave stylings of Alice's early '80s output and the more metal-oriented albums that came afterwards. It maybe says a lot that the best tracks on here are the heavier ones (opener Teenage Frankenstein being the pick) but a lot of this album is sadly just a bit forgettable. Think of it more as Alice getting back in the swing of things for what came next...

23. Paranormal (2017)

Like a lot of the albums around this part of the list, Paranormal isn't a terrible album, it's just dull. Maybe it was just having to follow up the theatrical tour de force that was Welcome 2 My Nightmare but here, the stripped back approach sounds more like Alice is just phoning it in and there's nothing really memorable that leaps out at you and, combined with the two disappointing Hollywood Vampires albums either side of it, a lot of us were worrying that the fire really had gone out this time. Luckily, as the next album proved, it was just a false alarm... 

22. Hey Stoopid (1991)

Hey Stoopid, the third of Alice's sleaze rock albums, is at least better than the blundering Trash but it still sounds over-produced and lacklustre compared to most of the rest of his output as epitomised by the cringy "just say no!" lyrics of the title track and lead-off single. There's the odd good moment here such as the swaggering Love's A Loaded Gun and a scuzzy cover of Zodiac Mindwarp's Feed My Frankenstein but all in all, this is pretty much the sound of Alice phoning it in for the most part.

21. Dragontown (2001)

Similar to Hey Stoopid, Dragontown sees Alice following up a poor album (the plodding Brutal Planet in this case) with more of the same but done slightly better. In other words, this is still badly hobbled by its sluggish industrial/nu-metal sound but unlike its predecessor we at least get the odd glimpse of the Alice of old occasionally rising out of the guitar swamp for air with the likes of the sarcastic Fantasy Man and the Beatles-y It’s Much Too Late adding a bit of much-needed light to the shade. But it still says a lot that nearly twenty years on, the Coop has shown no inclination to try going down this musical route again...

20. Muscle Of Love (1974)

So your band’s just become arguably the biggest group in the world, notching up a pair of number one albums on both sides of the Atlantic with their gleefully OTT shock-rock sound. What, then, do you do next? If you answered “put out an album of middling garage rock which sounds nothing like your previous output” then well done, you’ve guessed why Muscle of Love is so far down this list. With the thrills and showmanship of the band’s previous albums largely absent and the tunes (apart from lead-off single Teenage Lament ‘74 and the group’s Bond theme that wasn’t Man With The Golden Gun) largely on the mediocre side as well, this may not have been the worst album Alice has ever done but it’s certainly up there as the most disappointing. The group would split soon afterwards with Alice himself going solo and the others becoming the Billion Dollar Babies. Alice reintroduced the shock rock on his next album and continued having hits. BDB didn’t and, erm, didn’t. You do the maths...

19. Rise (2019)

The second Hollywood Vampires album sees them thankfully attempting to introduce some original tunes into the set although the results are somewhat mixed to put it mildly (the swaggering Welcome to Bushwackers is the pick of the bunch here) leaving an album that has its moments but struggles for coherency a lot of the time. Worth a listen if you’re curious but hardly essential.

18. Da Da (1983)

Well if you’re looking for the flat out weirdest album in Alice’s back catalogue then Da Da is very much it. Recorded at the height of his early ‘80s blackout years and with him on the verge of being dropped from his record label, it’s decidedly “out there” with pretty much every idea being chucked into the melting pot no matter how half-baked. Nevertheless, there’s at least some engaging moments within the madness such as the sinister Former Lee Warmer which harks back to Welcome To My Nightmare, the brilliantly sarcastic single I Love America and the ominous closer Pass The Gun Around. Hit and miss then but if you’re into the more unhinged end of Alice’s catalogue then Da Da is worth a listen.

17. Lace And Whiskey (1977)

After getting his career back on track with Welcome To My Nightmare, it’s maybe not a surprise that Alice decided to continue with the concept album theme for his next couple of releases. Unfortunately with his reliance on booze and drugs worsening, it’s also probably not a surprise that the law of diminishing returns was kicking in a bit by the time of Lace and Whiskey. It does have its moments such as the swaggering riff on opener It’s Hot Tonight, the punchy Road Rats and the creepy camp of King Of The Silver Screen but there’s also a lot of filler here in the form of sub-par ballads like You And Me and the pointless excursion into disco that is No More Love At Your Convenience (which is down there as one of the Coop’s worst singles). The good bits are still worth a spin but this is definitely a bit of a mixed bag.

16. Along Came A Spider (2008)

Similar to Paranormal a decade later, Along Came A Spider isn’t a bad album, it just lacks a killer punch. A concept album of sorts about an arachnid-obsessed serial killer, it’s workmanlike and serviceable but just kind of lacks the standout tunes that the albums either side of it have although the storming Vengeance Is Mine featuring Slash on guitar comes close. Decent enough in other words but Alice has done much better in this area.

15. Alice Cooper Goes To Hell (1976)

...Goes To Hell seems to forever be panned as a poor man’s Welcome To My Nightmare. And, let’s be honest, that’s pretty much what it is. But I’d argue it’s nowhere near the disaster it’s sometimes painted as - the storming riff of the title track is good stuff and I Never Cry is one of the most brutally honest Coop ballads there is and actually, in my opinion, far superior to its equivalent number on its predecessor Only Women Bleed. Ultimately it’s let down a bit by the same filler issues (and ill-advised disco numbers for that matter) that dogged its follow-up Lace And Whiskey. But really, this isn’t actually too bad and is definitely worth investigating once you’ve checked out the obvious choices in Alice’s back catalogue.

14. Special Forces (1981)

Alice’s gonzo new wave period is often written off as being completely worthless but in amongst the blackout insanity he did actually produce two endearingly weird but listenable albums. Special Forces actually earned him some moderate chart success in Europe (although it bombed back in the US) and the snarling likes of Vicious Rumours and Who Do You Think We Are? are good stuff while Prettiest Cop On The Block and You’re A Movie see him upping the camp to brilliantly ridiculous levels. Even his drum machine led cover of Love’s Seven And Seven Is works way better than it has any right to. This is definitely not the Alice you’re used to but Special Forces is definitely a bit of an under appreciated album and well worth a look for the curious.

13. Dirty Diamonds (2005)

Essentially a straight continuation of its predecessor, the commercial and critical rebirth that was The Eyes Of Alice Cooper, Dirty Diamonds is another good example of Alice playing to his strengths by taking the garage rock/shock rock formula of his best ‘70s work and giving it a 21st century nip and tuck. Yeah, there’s the odd filler track here but the good points far outweigh the bad with the swaggering Woman of Mass Distraction and the camp country & western of The Saga of Jesse Jane being particular high points. Definitely well worth a look.

12. Zipper Catches Skin (1982)

Clocking in at a mere 31 minutes and recorded in a snowstorm of cocaine abuse, Zipper Catches Skin somehow still manages to (in the eyes of this reviewer at least) be one of the great hidden gems in Alice’s back catalogue. With Alice largely ditching the electronica of Flush The Fashion and Special Forces, this is more reminiscent of a power-pop take on the classic Coop garage rock sound with the riffed up Zorro’s Ascent getting things off to a good start. Yes, Alice has his tongue firmly wedged in his cheek for most of this album (there’s a song called I Like Girls on here for feck’s sake) but somehow the whole "ripping up the rulebook just ‘cos we can" approach works and the likes of I Better Be Good, Remarkably Insincere, No Baloney Homosapiens (an ode to extra terrestrials obviously) and the sinister slasher film tribute Tag, You’re It are actually pretty damn good. And really, how can you honestly dislike any album with a song called I’m Alive (That Was The Day My Dead Pet Returned To Save My Life)?

11. The Eyes Of Alice Cooper (2003)

After his unsuccessful (both critically and commercially) foray into industrial metal on Brutal Planet and Dragontown, Alice saw the rise of a new wave of garage rock as a good and timely excuse to go back to basics and get on with doing what he does best. Sounding like a bridge between the garage rock of classic Coop and his better efforts from the ‘80s and ‘90s like Raise Your Fist And Yell and The Last Temptation, The Eyes Of Alice Cooper is a lean fat-free scorcher of an album with the swaggering Detroit City and Man of the Year and the sly dig at processed rock of The Song That Didn’t Rhyme all being highlights. It deservedly gave Alice the shot in the arm that he needed and set him up nicely as a respected elder rock statesman.

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10. Detroit Stories (2021)

A welcome return to form for the Coop after the disappointment of Paranormal and the two Hollywood Vampires albums, Detroit Stories sees him calling up his pals from the old days and cooking up a storming collection of old skool Motor City garage rock with the likes of Go Man Go, Hail Mary, Shut Up And Rock and Social Debris capturing the classic sound of those imperial phase early '70s albums and giving them a bit of a 21st century nip and tuck while the glam rock opera of Our Love Will Change The World and the fist-in-the-air Hanging By A Thread show a bit of variety to keep things interesting as well. Proof that Alice very much still has his mojo working in his seventh (!) decade as a recording artist - you can read our review here.

9. Welcome 2 My Nightmare (2012)

Alice is often at his best when he strikes out to do something ambitious and Welcome 2 My Nightmare, while not quite as good as the ‘70s original, is still his best 21st century album. Similar to the first Nightmare album, it’s a schizophrenic grab bag of styles with everything but the kitchen sink thrown in (actually, that probably is in there somewhere) but the key is that it all holds well together as a whole making it a fun and enjoyable listen with something for everyone and plenty of sly references to Alice’s past. Add to that an impressive cast list (including Rob Zombie and, somewhat bizarrely, Ke$ha who turns up do an unexpectedly good duet with Alice on What Baby Wants) and even the four surviving members of the original Alice Cooper band reuniting on a few tracks and you’ve got a slam dunk here which veers from frenetic riffed-up rock (Runaway Train) through Stonesy sleaze (I'll Bite Your Face Off) to pure music hall theatricality (Last Man On Earth). Great stuff.

8. School's Out (1972)

Alice’s first concept album is really based around the immortal title track which hit number one on both sides of the Atlantic. But it’s far from a one trick pony with the sinister Luney Tune and the rabid Public Animal #9 being other highlights. Maybe not quite as good as the three albums around it (Love It To Death, Killer and Billion Dollar Babies), but it’s still a classic well worth listening to.

7. Welcome To My Nightmare (1975)

Alice’s first album as a solo artist, Welcome To My Nightmare is an utterly unhinged concept album that only just holds together. Yet given Alice’s explanation that the whole point of nightmares is that they usually don’t make any sense, somehow makes it all add up. Musically it’s all over the place from the driving hard rock of Black Widow and Cold Ethyl to the theatrical stylings of the title track and Some Folks and the AOR balladry of Only Women Bleed but it’s never anything less than an enjoyable and often unsettling listen.

6. From The Inside (1978)

After the car crash that was the tour to support the Lace And Whiskey album in 1977, Alice checked himself into rehab. In the end, the process was fairly quick and painless and within a couple of weeks he'd managed to kick his long-term booze problem. However, he opted to stay checked into the clinic for a couple of weeks afterwards as he found the behaviour and back stories of the inmates fascinating and upon checking out, decided to do a concept album (taking a few liberties with the actuality naturally) about the experience. Hooking up with Bernie Taupin, who was on a break from working with the increasingly unreliable Elton John at the time, From The Inside turned out to be Alice's strongest album since Welcome To My Nightmare with the songs fitting well into a cohesive narrative. There's some absolute crackers in here such as the swaggering Wish I Was Born In Beverly Hills, the ominous Quiet Room and the heart stopping ballad How You Gonna See Me Now? It would also be the last appearance of the old mascara-clad Alice for a good few years as the subsequent tour would see him fall off the wagon again with a vengeance and usher in his more experimental new wave era.

5. Raise Your Fist And Yell (1987)

After the disappointing Constrictor, Alice decided that what his music needed was more blood and guts and hence began the Alice metal era. Raise Your Fist And Yell is quite honestly head and shoulders above the two disappointing efforts that followed it (Trash and Hey Stoopid) - there's no bloated ballads or over-production here, just lean mean straight-up OTT shock rock designed to terrify the Tipper Gore led PMC brigade who'd been targeting Alice along with his '80s children like Twisted Sister and WASP. The sheer viciousness on show here is even more surprising when you consider that half of Alice's backing band for this one (Kip Winger and Paul Taylor) subsequently wussed out completely by breaking away to form AOR puffball ballad specialists Winger soon afterwards. The killer one-two of Freedom and Lock Me Up (the latter featuring Robert "Freddie Krueger" Englund's voice on the intro) really is the sound of the Alice of old finally making his triumphant return after a decade away. Elsewhere, the snarling Give The Radio Back and Prince Of Darkness were the gleefully provocative Killer/Billion Dollar Babies Alice sound being given a riffed-up '80s makeover, likewise the superbly OTT sicko thrills of Chop Chop Chop and Roses On White Lace which round the album off in style. Yes, it's not big and it's not clever but for sheer no-nonsense knucklehead thrills designed to terrify the living daylights out of Bon Jovi and Stryper fans, Raise Your Fist And Yell takes some beating. It's just a pity that the formula went so badly awry afterwards...

4. The Last Temptation Of Alice Cooper (1994)

With the sleaze rock bandwagon that Alice had hitched a ride on for his previous few albums crashing and burning with the onset of grunge, a change was clearly needed. The Coop's response was to go back to his tried and tested concept album formula and he pulled off a masterstroke by linking up with none other than Neil Gaiman to come up with the backstory of a bored middle American teenager tempted by a mysterious "Showman". Of course, Alice was never going to fully fit in with a dour anti-rockstar movement like grunge but while The Last Temptation owes a couple of minor nods to that movement (not least in the presence of Soundgarden's Chris Cornell who lends his writing skills and backing vocals to the epic Stolen Prayer and the ominous Unholy War), it's got enough personality of its own to stand alone, sounding if anything more like a more guitar heavy '90s update of Alice's mid-'70s output with the driving Sideshow and Lost In America, the Broadway-influenced Bad Place Alone, the ferocious Cleansed By Fire and the oddly affecting Beatles-esque ballad It's Me all being great stuff. Yeah, I'll admit it, I may be a bit biased here as this was the first Alice album I bought but I'd honestly put it right up there with his best as it's probably his most genuinely fully-realised work since his '70s heyday. Seriously, if you've not listened to it yet, go and do so now.

 

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3. Love It To Death (1971)

While debate rages among most Coop fans about the other albums in his catalogue, you'll generally find that most peoples' Top 3 are the same, whatever the order. Love It To Death was the band's third album, released following their departure from Frank Zappa's Straight label and relocating from the Los Angeles sunshine to rainy Detroit. Although there's the odd hark back to their hippy roots such as the creepy cover of Sun Arise, this might as well have been a different band altogether, mixing the sheer chaos of the Stooges with the darkness of the Doors to lethal effect on the likes of Eighteen, Is It My Body?, Caught In A Dream, Hallowed Be My Name and the ultra-twisted Ballad of Dwight Fry. There's a good argument that Love It To Death was a prime influence on both punk and goth and you can certainly see it here. Essential listening.

2. Killer (1971)

Killer does what every good post-breakthrough album should do, taking the best bits of its predecessor Love It To Death (namely the proto-punk attitude and the creepy shock rock sensibilities) and amping them up even further to devastating effect. Kicking in with the frenetic garage rock of Under My Wheels and the crescendo of Be My Lover, the great tunes just keep coming thick and fast on this one from the Morrison-style ghost town lament of Desperado through the straight-baiting You Drive Me Nervous to the truly unsettling closing one-two of Dead Babies and the title track. A great mix of killer tunes and some genuinely unnerving moments, Killer really sees Alice and his band hitting their stride in style.

1. Billion Dollar Babies (1973)

Released just as the band were at their commercial zenith following School's Out, Billion Dollar Babies saw the Alice Cooper band properly pushing the boat out with a real all killer no filler album which followed its predecessor to the top of the charts in both the USA and the UK. There's honestly not a bad track on here from the instantly catchy singles No More Mr Nice Guy and Elected to the genuine weirdness of Sick Things, Unfinished Sweet (about a demon dentist) and the gloriously twisted theatrical closer I Love The Dead (yup, it's about necrophilia before you ask). If you need a place to start with Alice's back catalogue then this is exactly where you should begin. Not just Alice Cooper's best album but one of this writer's favourite albums full stop.