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Love It To Death

Alice Cooper--Warner Bros./Straight

A 15 year-old brother I know got caught by his parents "freaking out" on LSD and they sent him to a dull, cramped, dirty part of the University Hospital called the Neuro-Psychological Institute--that's where people who are supposed to be "mentally ill" are kept locked up by a bunch of "doctors" and their creepy "assistants." I was visiting him the other day when one of the sisters came down the hall was playing Alice's latest album real loud so everybody could hear it and alice started shouting like he does at the end of one of the tunes, "I want to get out of here, I want to get out of here, I want to get out of here!" What a scary scene that was.

Alice Cooper's new album is perfect music for all of us who have gone crazy trying to grow up and live in this weird place called Amerika. Alice's band makes you want to shake and dance and have a good time, and shout out loud, too.

It's obvious that since Cooper moved here from Los Angeles with his strange Los Angeles act and his weird Los Angeles sex hangups that the Michigan music scene has had in effect on his band. And the effect has been a good one. At different times the group sound just like the Stooges, the SRC, and the MC5--but even if they're trying to copy just a little the overall effect is righteous. For the first time Alice Cooper rock on consistently and I love to hear it.

(Originally published in the Ann Arbor Sun, April 30th-May 6th, 1971)