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Alice — no nice guy, but a winner!

ALICE COOPER — "Billion Dollar Babies" (Warner Bros. K56013) There are a number of reasons why Alice Cooper, group and man, are such a huge worldwide success. One of them is a permanent air of menace about words and music that make you look and listen with the same sort of deadly fascination that makes people want to throw themselves off tall buildings.

I thought that, by now, I'd be immune to shock tactics — but no! Alice was there to pounce on my and I'm sure many others' not-so-secret fear and have a dentist chair sequence there on the album. In "Unfinished Sweet" there is the sound of the dentist's drill worked into the music with accompanying moans. It made me cringe, ruined my Sunday — but you couldn't have dragged me away from that album.

The lyrics contain all sorts of insanity, horror and perversion — even the one love song "Mary­Ann" has, along with that pretty, McCartney-ish melody and studied McCartney delivery, a sting in the tail, as you could put it.

But the lyric sheet is the first for a long time that has made me chortle because Alice is not so much evil-nasty as evil-naughty. Alice again plays up the "baby murderer" reputation he has been dubbed with, singing, with humour, things like: "I'm so scared your little head will come off in my hands."

What makes Alice different from the multitude is that Alice break all the rules in everything. They're probably the first band to come our way for some time who have been able to shock a generation of parents who had come through the height of the Stones era and thought they were unshockable, seen everything. You showed 'em, Alice — and give a new generation something that could belong exclusively to them.

Musically there are so many influences about the album that it would be very easy to dissect it totally. Their exclusiveness is in the inevitable climatic, pounding and ominous sound that is their own plus an ear for melody — "No More Mr. Nice Guy" could have been yet another "A" side single from this album.

The back-up is vast, tight and crisp but there is nothing in the way of musician credits on the sleeve and obviously there is a lot more on there than the stage line-up.

Amazing is the packaging of the album with the outer cover in the shape of a snakeskin wallet embossed with diamonds. Inside are pictures of the band plus an 11 in. x 24 in. billion dollar note. I think the album is a winner: funny if sick lyrics, a value-for-money pounding rock — and destined to widen the generation gap.

TRACKS: Hello Hooray/Raped and Freezin'/Elected/Billion Dollar Babies/Unfinished Sweet/No More Mr. Nice Guy/Generation Landslide/Sick Things/Mary-Ann/I Love The Dead. ****