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Metal Shop
He's B-a-a-a-c-k
(Metal Shop, 1989-11-00)
He lounges in his suite at New York's fancy Regency hotel. He looks good: handsome, hard, lean and 41. He has videos on the box with no sound. He's thumbing through Metalshop. Trash, his 20th LP, contains none of the horror storysongs he's famous for. Instead, it's about sex. Who is this man named Alice and why is he, all of a sudden, singing about sex? He's thought of as a legend by those in the know. For the uninitiated, a quick lesson is in order. In the early '70s, a shock-rock'n'roll band named Alice Cooper recorded a string of classic hardrock albums with the intent, according to its scary lead singer of the same name, of "driving the stake throught the heart of the peace and love generation." Records like Love It To Death, Killer, School's Out, Muscle Of Love and Billion Dollar Babies set the standards. Tours of that era featured gross splatter effects designed not only to enhance the music but to shock the viewer. They succeeded. In spades. Hit singles like "I'm 18," "Elected," "School's Out" and "No More Mr. Nice Guy filled the airwaves. ...