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A show man

ALICE COOPER
"The Alice Cooper Show"
(Warner Bros — Dist. WEA)

Alice Cooper is no longer eighteen and he knows what he wants. You have to take it that way. Vincent Furnier is a star, he likes to put on shows, he likes to tell stories, he likes to draw up defensible images in little musical soap operas for his great passion, television. And very slowly, imperceptibly, like a trickle, the words "rock 'n' roll", which register, shrink, and tend to disappear. That's his problem, regretfully. Because he's a really great guy, Alice. He had a sense of rock, and it wasn't feigned. There was a sense of humor, too. The two together gave us the most immediate records and the craziest shows of an era uniquely lacking the obvious and irrational. And if you want to hear traces of this influence, listen to the Sex Pistols and some of their contemporaries. Right. But you can't live on your past, and if the present gets soft, it's better to let it go. Well, this live album comes just in time to establish an elegant middle ground that prolongs our admiration for this old prankster. In this respect, it's very similar to the show we saw two years ago ("Welcome to my Nightmare"). Alice doesn't have the audacity to let us believe that he still puts all that electric innocence into interpreting his classics of yesterday and today; but he does serve them up just right, with a little hindsight. More first degree, but not yet second degree. And for this, he has the ideal support of Steve Hunter, Dick Wagner and the "Rock n' roll animals", who have no equal when it comes to making grandiose, blockbuster productions that never smell of adulteration. It's an undeniable pleasure to listen to them stringing each other along behind an aggressive, sarcastic or vehement Alice. Yes, Alice has succeeded with his live album, an exact reflection of a timely show. From his old tricks, "Under my wheels", "I'm eighteen", "Billion dollar babies", or "School’s out". through his most recent "I never cry", "You and me" or "Wish you were here". Then passing through the pivotal period of "Welcome to my nightmare" with "Devil's food", "The Black widow" or "Only women bleed", which revealed the new tender side of the thriller. Alice remains the master of a super electric number, juggling with the atmospheres, indexing our breath on the rhythm of its electric trapeze. He no longer works without a net, old man, but he knows how to make it invisible. He's a showman.

(Translated from the original French language publication, July 2023)