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Alice Cooper

It's no secret that Mr. Vincent Furnier — a.k.a Alice Cooper — wields a golf club much more enthusiastically than a guitar, but his band is nonetheless responsible for some of the rawest, riffiest, and most righteous licks in rock history. During the classic '70s lineup with guitarists Michael Bruce and the late Glen Buxgton, the punky, cinematic majesty of the guitars was often enough to paint pictures in your head — even if you were completely unaware of the band's theatrical stage shows and glam image. Much of the credit rightfully rests upon Bruce and Buxton's flair for crafting interlocking riffs, but another critical element was producer Bob Ezrin's genius for directing tones and counterpoint melodies to coalesce into an exquisite bombast of strangeness, teen angst, and wonder. While Cooper continued to chart hits and partner with excellent guitarists far beyond the 1968-1974 lifespan of his original group, Bruce/Buxton partnership was truly kissed by angels, and it's this duo's imprint on rock guitarcraft that is charted here.

Inspired

Killer, 1971

Killer is one of those perfect albums that smiles adolescent dread and torment with throbbing groves, snotty and rebellious vocals, poppy songs drenched in self-myth, and layer upon layer of superbly crafted, thematically empathetic guitars. Even today, every song is a delicious soundtrack for fighting, getting drunk, fumbling through love's incomprehensible mysteries, or driving too fast while screaming into the night air — a celebration of the screwed-up teenager in all of us. Whether through Ezrin's influence, their own expanding facility, or, most likely, a combination of both, Bruce and Buxton's guitar tones are diverse, exciting, and impeccably matched to the vibe of the parts being performed (just listen to "Halo of Flies" for a journey through an ever-morphing rainbow of sound). It's a rare treat to hear guitar parts, guitar tones, and performance dynamics so precisely intermeshed, and the result is a 6-string fest of IMAX proportions.

Billion Dollar Babies, 1973

It still takes my breath away to hear the yowling guitars that kick off the title track — a magnificent intro that begins with a siren-like hammer-on, then a harmony overdub, then a tension-breaking bass run, and, finally, all hell breaks loose with an explosion of wah-phrased harmony lines. And this is just one moment in one song on an album that also delivers the exuberant riffs of "Elected," "No More Mr Nice Guy," "Unfinished Sweet," and "Raped and Freezin'." Even the weirder numbers, like "Mary Ann" and "Sick Things," seem to work, because all the guitars (some "ghosted" by session kingpins Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner) are so mean, so scrupulously arranged, and so right.

Required

Love It to Death, 1971

The first album produced by Bob Ezrin, and the first record to unleash the classic "Alice Cooper sound," Death is defined by the still-potent teenage anthem, "I'm Eighteen." Suddenly, the band is uncorking killer riffs — the "I'm Eighteen" intro to two-downstrokes chords and a swift bass run that gives way to a lilting arpeggio is absolutely inspired — and Ezrin's direction of rhythm punches, solos, and dynamics to build mini-crescendos within a song is as thrilling as a ride on Space Mountain with your eyes closed. "Is It My Body" is perhaps the coolest song to debut the luscious Bruce/Buxton juxtaposing of tough descending lines against agro, kickboxer punch chording.

Muscle of Love, 1973

When I bought this beauty back in my high-school days, the cardboard LP cover — emblazoned with "Attention: This Carton Contains One (1) Alice Cooper Muscle of Love" and a faux grease stain of unknown origin — I felt naughty in a very pleasing, I'm-in-on-the-joke kind of way. The boisterous and tantalizingly sexual chordal punches (and lyrics) of the title song, as well as the slinky melodic climaxes during the final chorus sealed the deal like a Las Vegas lap dance. Ezrin's absence on this album denied the band the operatic sensibilities, but the Bruce/Buxton juggernaut simply re-engineered itself to deliver less orchestral shimmer and more hammer of the gods. While far from perfect — Ezrin was certainly pisssed — Muscle delivers an abundance of hard-rock guitar goodies, serving up everything from MC5-style Detroit grittiness to mammoth riffs to wailing textural bombardments. Sadly, it's also the last album by the original Alice Cooper band. The namesake went on to well-deserved super stardom, while Bruce, Buxton, bassist Dennis Dunaway, and drummer Neal Smith floundered by comparison. And yet, it can be quite reasonably debated that the transcendent spark, ingenuity, and cinematic-guitar fury of the Alice Cooper project was forever sealed in its grave after Muscle of Love.

Tired

Pretties for You, 1969

A somewhat late shot at psychedelia — but as transmuted by some nightmarish Broadway revue — Pretties doesn't' presage the masterful and unique guitar histrionics that were to come. Most of the tones closely echo the fuzzy ejaculations other garage and psychedelic bands had already explored, and the lines pull too much DNA from the stoned jamming blasting inside San Francisco ballrooms and Sunset Strip clubs. However, this is an excellent and sadly historic document of a band being allowed to "find" itself with minimal interference from the suits. Dig it or detest it, this is creativity in its messy, unadulterated glory.

chool's Out, 1972

The title track pegs one of the most urgent and identifiable intro licks in rock, but the rest of School's Out take a bit of a detour into the self-consciously prog-dinner-theater mindset of Pretties For You — minus the psychedelic overtones. Although there are some interesting moments, there isn't much here that's not done better on other albums, and, as a whole, the record sounds more like a bad Sensational Alex Harvey Band album than a kick-ass Cooper epic.