Article Database

Record Review

SCHOOL'S OUT (Alice Cooper)
Warner Bros. BS 2623

Returning to the teenage punk theme of Love it To Death after a brief fling with killers and Hollywood style desperados, Alice Cooper have come up with their slickest, and undoubtably most commercial, product yet in this new album.

Appealing mainly to a young and rebellious age grouping who're just beginning to feel their oats, the title cut and "Alma Mater," a corny little ditty dealing with leaving school and breaking up the old gang, are pretty much representative of the basic album concept.

Yet, as has been the case with Alice's past achievements, the band also include numbers about going insane and tight white jackets ("Luney Tune"), a jazzy tongue-in-cheek torch song ("Blue Turk") and, coming back to their favorite kind of music, movie musical tracks ("Gutter Cat vs The Jets" and "Grande Finale").

While obviously at their best when rocking fast and furious, the group show they have a way with strings and horns as well on this LP, thanks largely to the efforts of producer Bob Ezrin of Nimbus Nine Productions (who's beginning to prove as valuable to the band as George Martin was to the Beatles and Terry Knight was to Grand Funk).

With each album, the Alice Cooper sound becomes more and more distinct—School's Out is no exception.

(Originally published in Fifth Estate, August 12-25th, 1972)