Alice Cooper

ALICE COOPER, Welcome To My Nightmare, Atlantic SD18130 It's solo this time around the enormously popular Alice after going over a year without a new album (save the excellent Greatest Hits Collection). And this time out he's taking extra precautions to put his act in the proper showbiz context, and starting a 2 month, 60 city Alice Cooper Show Welcome to My Nightmare tour on April 1. Then on April 18, you'll go behind the scenes for a prime time, nationwide Welcome to My Nightmare: The Making of a Record Album television special. Pretty swift, huh?

So here you have the soundtrack album for a live movie and tv show. The theme is Alice's nightmare and he says "that leaves us lots of leeway to go from Busby Berkeley to Bela Lugosi." That says a lot about this record. You'll probably have heard Cooper tunes with the same basic lyrical content as these before, maybe the music, too. Once artists find a successful format, they tend to stick to it. But there are a few surprises, notably the lovely ballad-like Only Women Bleed. The lyrics seem to be quite a departure from the Coop's normal style, but I think not. You'll have to hear it for yourself, though. And we can't overlook this band, not with longtime Ann Arbor Detroit favorite Johnny "Bee" Badanjek (Detroit Wheels, DETROIT, Edgar Winter Group, Rockets) drumming a few cuts with guitarists Steve Hunter (DETROIT) and Dick Wagner (Frost) also in good form here. It's almost the same band that was so highly acclaimed for Lou Reed's live Rock & Roll Animal LP. Steve and Dick have tore it up around this area for a long time and are finally getting some recognition (in fact, oíd Lou has released another live album with them to capitalize on the Cooper tour). The single of the album has to be Cold Ethyl, a raunchy, metallic rocker where Steve and Dick really cut loose. It clocks in at 2:51 and ya can't beat that.

No reason to try and convince you either way on this one. Either you like (might I chance, "understand"?) Alice's antics or you don't. Borderline cases will decide after the tour and tv show. My bet's that Cooper takes this one, hands down.