Album Guide

"Billion Dollar Babies" is the latest album by the rock group ALICE COOPER Alice Cooper (vocals & harmonica), Mike Bruce (rhythm guitar & keyboards), Glen Buxton (lead guitar), Neal Smith (percussion), and Dennis Dunaway (bass).

In Alice's own words, "'Billion Dollar Babies' is a reflection of just what the album title implies, that the group's current success has afforded us the freedom and environment, to the extent of overindulgence in many fashions, to put together a total representation of ourselves as being the by-product of the affluent society from which we've come."

Production began on "Billion Dollar Babies" in mid October of 1972 with Bob Ezrin joining the group and their 16 track mobile unit at the Cooper estate in Greenwich, Connecticut. At this early stage Alice Cooper had an abundance of material but no real theme for the album. Basic tracks were laid down and recording in Greenwich went on until the first week in November when things were interrupted by the European invasion/tour which established the Coopers as the number one rock attraction throughout England, France, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland. It was on this tour that the whole "Billion Dollar Baby" concept came into being and that was due largely to the high level of respect Europe had for Alice Cooper as well as the lifestyle that the group have begun to maintain. Everything was first class for Alice Cooper, and for the first time in their career they saw all around them the visible proof of the seven hard years of belief in what they were doing all of sudden paying off, not only monetarily but respectfully as well.

At the end of the tour the group returned to England and began recording at Morgan Sound Studios, in London. lt was during the Morgan Sound session that the highly publicized super session evolved in which over one hour's worth of material was recorded with Rik Grech on bass guitar, Keith Moon on drums, Marc Bolan on lead guitar, and Donovan, Harry Nilsson and Alice doing vocals. Out of these sessions the only song fit into the concept of the album was "Billion Dollar Babies," a song using all of the members of Alice Cooper with Donovan and Alice trading lead vocals. The rest of the material from this super session, according to Alice, was a lot of fun and if they ever do a rock comedy album it will be used, but it is doubtful at this stage. The group spent two weeks at Morgan Sound Studio and then returned to the U.S. where the finishing touches were added to "Billion Dollar Babies" at the Record Plant in N.Y. City.

Side 1 of "Billion Dollar Babies" opens with the only cut on the album that was not written by the group, and it's the first single from the album entitled "Hello Hooray". The single was introduced to Alice Cooper by their producer Bob Ezrin, and they immediately picked up on it because of its Broadway feel. The song was written by Canadian singer and songwriter named Rolf Kempf and Alice's version on the album runs 4 minutes and 14 seconds in length. Alice 's personal reason for liking the record was because it was done in a ballad fashion and is a powerful as well as unique song on this album.

The second cut on side 1 is called "Raped and Freezin' ". This somg is basically a 3 minute and 15 second Tennessee Williams story about a guy hitchhiking that gets picked up by a woman. The poor kid gets raped and is let out of the car naked to the world in Chihuahua, Mexico.

"Elected" is the next song, and this top 20 hit is nothing more than Alice living out his fantasy of running for President.

"Billion Dollar Babies" is a 3 minute, 39 second sexual exploitation song and according to Alice, is a further adventure of the character that Alice has portrayed in all of their previous albums. This song is that character confessing some of his sexual fantasies.

"Unfinished Sweet'' is a 6 minute 17 second story of a person going to the dentist and the changes that that person goes through while being done in by the dentist including a drilling sequence, a tooth pulling sequence and a dream sequence due to the over abundance of gas the person has received.

Side II opens with a 3 minute 5 second rocker called ''No More Mr. Nice Guy" a story of a nice young rock star that has been verbally killed by the press. His personality changes because of what all the bad press has done to him.

"Generation Landslide" is a 4 minute 31 second Alice Cooper song of America and American things. The song is a decadent statement of America today as seen through the eyes of the character on all Alice's albums.

"Sick Things" is a 4 minute 18 second Bela Lugosi tune mainly referring to mass audiences taking on one individual personality and that personality becoming far more perverse than any performer could attempt to be.

"Mary Ann" is a 2 minute 19 second tune which shows a very melodic side of the Coopers.

"I Love The Dead" is a 5 minute 8 second song about Necrophilia, plain and simple, and is the final cut on the album. An interesting note about this song as well as all the others on the album is that Alice wrote the lyrics within one hour of recording the song. He said that by doing this he was able to keep the album as fresh and current as it could possibly be, and it was to him quite an interesting way of doing things.