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Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper Album Review

Alice Cooper: The Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper
(Warner Archives/Rhino)

Unlike some latter-day shock-rockers, the Coop understood the value of a good song, and this four-CD retrospective is packed with 'em, from garagey, pre-AC gems like "Don't Blow Your Mind" to classic teenage wasteland anthems like "School's Out." The first two discs are especially revelatory, tracing the band's metamorphosis from naïve Yardbirds copyists to sicko psychedelicists to the definitively tough, tuneful hard-rock unit they became in the '70s. Hey, kids: Skip those Marilyn Manson tickets and invest in this instead. B+