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Billion Dollar Babies Re-issue Review

Alice Cooper
'Billion Dollar Babies - Deluxe Re-issue'
(Rhino - advance CD)
4 / 5

Fans of the Coopmeister are gonna love this expanded version of his 1973 masterpiece, 'Billion Dollar Babies'. Although the new double­CD edition doesn't come complete with the fake billion dollar bills that famously accompanied the original, it does include some 14-bonus tracks. Most of these are culled from Alice's '73 tour, many duplicating the studio versions yet offering some interesting comparisons.

Following hot on the heels of 'School's Out', 'Billion Dollar Babies' quickly topped the US chart and won the band (yes, Alice Cooper was still a band at that point!) a Grammy nomination for its original mock snakeskin sleeve. Alice Cooper's infamy had spread to the point that a British MP tried to get their infamous, multi-million dollar stage show banned from the country, suggesting they were "peddling the culture of the concentration camp."

Alice, though, remained unmoved. As he explained: "The whole idea behind the album is to exploit the idea that everyone has sick perversions. But they've got to be American perversions; we're very nationalistic, you know."

'Billion Dollar Babies' contained several of Cooper's very best songs, including 'Hello Hooray', 'Elected', the awesomely rhythmic title cut, 'No More Mr Nice Guy', 'Sick Things' and 'I Love The Dead'. Significantly, many remain in his stage set nearly three decades later. But like an iceberg, there was depth beneath the water level. 'Raped and Freezin'', for instance, dared to tackle the controversial subject of reverse sexual harassment, and also managed to kick serious arse in to the bargain. An ode to Halloween, 'Unfinished Sweet' is another unsung classic, providing the instrumentalists with an ideal platform from which to show off. But although much of the album was rooted in fiction of the grossest kind, not everything was about horror. Indeed, the run-out to 'Elected' ("everybody has problems, and personally I don't care") seemed to sum up the social conscience not just of Alice, but of just about every modern day politician.

It's also worth pointing out how impressive a unit the Alice Cooper band actually were. Besides co-writing much of the material, guitarist Michael Bruce drummer and Neal Smith provided some vital performances. Producer Bob Ezrin's keyboards really added to the pomp of 'Elected', and how strange it is to hear Donovan doubling up Alice's vocals on the title cut.

The bulk of the second disc was recorded in Houston, Texas, and offers live takes of everything from the 'Billion...' album except 'Generation Landslide' and 'Mary Ann'. However, it does make up for that by including 'I'm Eighteen', 'My Stars' and 'Dead Babies'. The quality of the live material is crystal clear too. In addition, there are also a couple of outtakes from the album 'Coal Black Model T' and a version of 'Slick Black Cadillac' that only appeared on an NME flexi disc.

In the light of 1999's lovingly compiled 'The Life & Crimes Of...' this represents yet more sterling work from those troopers at Rhino.