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Classicks Album Review

ALICE COOPER
Classicks
EPC 480845 2

Surviving the stigma of the deliberately mis-spelt album title, this latest collection brings together the polar opposites of Cooper's career in a mascara-smeared 60-minute special. Surviving drug, alcohol and golf, he kickstarted a somewhat moribund period of his life with Poison, a full-throated rocking roar with a mesmeric melodic hookline, and the equally bumptious singles Hey Stoopid, Feed My Frankenstein and Love's A Loaded Gun. The rest of his later period is signposted by big brash melodies and brainstorming fretboard histrionics dished out leading edge guitar mafiosi of the calibre of Joe Satriani and Steve Vai. Contractual complications dictate that the early songs are represented by live versions of School's Out, Under My Wheels, Only Women Bleed and a titanic No More Mr. Nice Guy. ***