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Alice's Cash-In

WHAT'S WITH all this Alice Cooper publicity?

Here we are complaining as ever, about the state of "new music" and the lack of attention given to embryonic groups when, suddenly, you get the chance to cash in on a recent tour and flog a few copies. Alice wasn't worthy of your attention, but those much-flaunted professional ethics went straight out the window.

Cooper will never regain his "star" status; no more will he ever deserve to. For a start, he is no longer convincing. He's a businessman, not a schitzo, and by his separating his stage persona from his public character, he lost Alice's credibility. Vincent Furnier is all that's left, and it's now blatantly apparent that he's only in it for a fast buck.

Furnier summoned Alice to provide an impressive opening to the interview, and then sent him away with equal ease — this alone makes a mockery of his statement that Alice's stage is his cage, within which the beast is the master.

Yet Furnier still has the nerve to blame Cooper for his earlier drug abuses and alcoholism. This is cowardice, he uses the alibi of an alter ego.

Okay we can accept the lies and the hypocrisy — we're all quite used to that. The really irritating thing is that they're lies which serve a worthless end. Alice is already a mere parody of himself. He admitted it when he said that the audience would go spare if they didn't get the snake. He's caught in a very deep rut: Bowie audiences wouldn't riot if there was no guitar blow-job, Genesis no longer play "Supper's Ready".

Furthermore, Furnier is only just realising what the others knew years ago, that Alice Cooper won't sell as many records as a character who can be paraded around the streets. Bowie gained publicity by playing at being Ziggy off stage, and Ferry enjoyed it so much he was absorbed by the persona he created. Let's face it, the idea of Alice chopping up babies in supermarkets just isn't on.

Cooper was always doomed to a relatively short career. The comeback's just a pain — ignore him and perhaps he'll go away. C. J. STEVENS, Hunts Road, Stratford On Avon, Warks.