Album Guide

What happened to Alice Cooper is the classic story of artists who are not appreciated by their peers but only by isolated communities. But now time travels so fast that in only six years that people have caught up with Alice Cooper.

It started in Phoenix where Alice, Mike Bruce, Dennis Dunaway, Glen Buxton, and Neal Smith went to Cortez High School, then art school together. They all earned letters in track which brought them to the awards banquet with an idea for a "skit" which everybody had to put on that evening. Never having picked up instruments the boys decided to be a rock band, because, well, there's where it was at — there was the Beatles and the Stones. The results were so interesting to put it mildly that they continued to pretend, became a local band and went through name changes, the Spiders and Nazz (a very different Nazz), and in 1965 landed the no. 1 record in Phoenix, "Don't Blow Your Mind".

In 1966 the group moved to Los Angeles changed into Alice Cooper and that's when their real heavy period began. They were always weird, but suddenly Alice started blooming. "Many times Alice is a hundred miles a head of me,” remarks the group's manager. Gimmicks, hype and promotion dissolved into 12 hours a day everyday of practice, work and rehearsal as Alice Cooper began to bring their music together. The theatre, the magic that was Alice Cooper, was always there and after years on the road in every flea-bag forgotten town in the U.S., it all began to payoff, their direction grew stronger and they began to get good. "They had to be incredibly good just to eat,"" remember their manager. "Because wherever they went they were squeezing through the door."

The best theatrical rock 'n' roll since the Stones and under the cover of live snakes, above solutions sizzles some of the most stoned-out hard rock imaginable.

BILLBOARD

Confessing fantasies most people would rather die than reveal, Alice Cooper becomes the scapegoat for everybody's guilts and repressions. People project on him, revile him, ridicule him and some would doubtless like to kill him.

LIFE

When the bright wonderful people were finally treated to Alice's entrance the scene was tumultuous. Cloistered upstairs in a sumptuous Ambassador suite until just the correct moment, Alice trooped through the door of the Venetian Room in tux to "Stairway to the Stars,

HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

My mother doesn't like me listening to your records. I am fifteen and should be able to listen to what I want. I think "Love It To Death" is the greatest album I ever heard. My mother says that you are disgraceful. When are you coming back to Chicago.

15-YEAR-OLD GIRL

Now it's time for Alice Cooper. The people have finally caught up with Alice, and that's why there's an explosion. In the clearing opened by "I'm Eighteen," "Caught In a Dream," "Under My Wheels" and many others, tomorrow promises that much more. Television, movies and video cassettes seem natural for Alice, as the group's incredible stage show, like the earth, turns madly on.