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Metal Hammer
August 1991

Author: Andy Bradshaw

Hey Stoopid

Rating 3/5

Welcome to my nightmare. I naively hoped that Alice would have forgotten about the Child-ish choruses of 'Trash' and gone back to being the nasty Alice we all knew and revered. But of course he wasn't going to turn down the chance of emulating the massive success of 'Trash' was he? Ooooh, nooo...

Looking at the writing credits for most of the material on this album, you can see why 'Hey Stoopid' sounds like a cheap imitation of what Alice should be. On all the songs except 'Dangerous Tonight', three or more writers have been used, all the way up to six on 'Snakebite'. The net result of this is a watered down soup of cliche-ridden American rock music with the added bonus of Alice Cooper's distinctive voice growling over the top. Lest we forget of course, there is the additional incentive for punters to buy the album of having a sprinkling of rock's royalty guesting on various songs: Ozzy Osbourne, Slash, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Vinnie Moore and Mick Mars, Nikki Six (plus a cast of thousands)... Not that you can really tell of course, any individual styles seem to have been drowned beneath a welter of 'hey, hey, hey's and 'woa, woa, woa's'.

Everyone will have heard the title track by now, if you like that then buy the album, because there is plenty more where that came from. I know Alice Cooper is supposed to be tacky but check out this line from 'Feed My Frankenstein': "You don't want to talk/So baby shut up/And let me drink the wine from your fur tea cup."

Oh leave it out! Is that Spinal Tap or what? In amongst the chart-bound dross there are a few good songs and one real Alice Cooper song. 'Hurricane Years' and 'Die For You' are good rockers, but the icing on the cake of the whole album is 'Wind-Up Toy'. This is what Alice does best! Look at this for a lyric: "All my friends live on the floor/Tiny legs and tiny eyes/They're free to crawl under the door/And someday soon so will I."

Alice Cooper has become the acceptable rock. 'Hey Stoopid' gets three instead of two only because of 'Wind-Up Toy'.