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Alice's Crazy Daydream

ALICE COOPER: "Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits." (Warner Brothers)

Spin off into the endgame, skydivers, with ol' snake-eyes and the gang's Greatest hits, a real hotchpotch hoola of the most deranged rock 'n' roll to ever slice across your head. Step into your last goodbye, cuz the shots are deadly and we're anticipatin' action all the way down the line to Big Al's Garage and Speak-easy (Repairs Daily, Dancing Nightly.)

Remember all those rumours that preceded the band's first visit here, strange tales of electric chairs and chicken heads being bitten off. All carefully constructed outrage, but for a while he had us enthralled.

One of rock's supreme media manipulators, we can see it all now, of course. But it's still true that Alice is a great rock fantasy. Beaming down to Weird City, Vince, are you in control? Course he is. He was just waiting for us to catch up on him. Find the flag and tear it down. All the Alice anthems to teenage frustration are here so hand out the razors and jive across town, "School's Out" and there's no time to lose. We're making it now. Just a long haired rock 'n' roll band from Detroit City, who sure could hit a riff. Even if it's Reed's "Sweet Jane" given a few extra knuckles. Burning along on "I'm Eighteen" - one of the classic singles of this or any time, and the breaking point for Alice in the States. Side one of this album is one of the heaviest aural blitzes you're likely to come across. By "Billion Dollar Babies" Alice was well on his way to his present positions as the World's Most Photographed Man. He still sounded as vicious as ever, with only Iggy sounding as demented. And the band, for all its limitations knew what it was all about. Dunaway was always an ace, no farting about smooch corner, just hit that groove and zoom. Yankee doodle dandy and rock your own rules. Just suspend belief and get in there with the whole crazy daydream. Into that Hollywood myth charted out by Drew Struzan and Bill Garland's superb cover artwork. Dancing nightly in the attic with Donovan Leitch sharing vocals, would you believe? Anything's possible, after all. Was it his body of his muscle of love that turned your head? Jerk off in your own movie and love it to death. That's what he's there for, teendreams for the teenage wasteland.