Alice Cooper Goes to Hell, which dropped in our unsuspecting laps in the summer of our nation’s bicentennial, is, dare I say, nobody’s favorite Alice Cooper (solo) album. Well, it’s possible that it may be someone’s favorite Cooper solo record, but I don’t know too many people who actually prefer solo Alice to the Band’s catalogue. Me, I prefer them too but I think this one is actually pretty good and somewhat overlooked as Alice Cooper records go.
Alice Cooper, née Vincent Damon Furnier, the minister’s son from Arizona, had launched his solo career in early 1975, during a hiatus that the band that shared his stage name of Alice Cooper had embarked on the year before; while the other members were dealing with various issues including burnout and their own would-be solo projects, Alice and the band’s management decided to put their money where their mouthpiece was and encouraged Vince to do his own album, which turned out to be the popular Welcome to My Nightmare; from that point on it was if Michael Bruce, Dennis Dunaway, Neal Smith, and Glen Buxton were only sidemen, quickly forgotten as Alice did his own record with estranged producer Bob Ezrin (he had words with the guys during the early sessions for Muscle of Love and walked out, which is why he didn’t produce that record) and session guys Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter (who, in all fairness, contributed a lot to the classic Cooper Band albums) on guitar, Prakash John on bass, and Pentti (Whitey) Glan on drums. The resulting tour was a success, and the solo career of Alice Cooper was off and running. Therefore, in 1976, it was incumbent to follow up Nightmare, and desiring to continue his run of theatrical presentations with a theme, he conceived Alice Cooper Goes to Hell, in which his Nightmare persona Steven finds himself in Hades, meeting Satan, and trying to show that he’s not such a bad guy after all, trying to play off of the still-prevailing notion that the by-then golf-playing and celebrity-hobnobbing Cooper was a deranged pervert, thereby getting to leave Hell and go back to his old life. As concepts go, there have been worse ones. Of course, you can’t have a stage musical without songs, so Cooper reassembled the Wagner/Hunter duo, and rounded up a host of other musos including king session bassist Tony Levin, who would be in King Crimson at the start of the next decade. Cooper wrote almost every song with Wagner and Bob Ezrin. Let’s go song by song, shall we?
Go To Hell. No, not you, dear reader, this is track number one. Featuring a loping riff by the Hunter/Wagner duo (much akin to their efforts in service of Lou Reed on the 1973 Rock and Roll Animal album), Steven/Alice faces his accusers, who sing in group chorus:
“For criminal acts and violence on the stage/For being a brat Refusing to act your age/For all of the decent citizens you've enraged/You can go to Hell!”
Which, I’m sure, was Alice’s idea of a “Who, me?” fun-poking statement about the general reaction to his stage persona several years earlier, the pre-Hollywood Squares Alice anyway. But we all got the joke, and it’s actually a pretty catchy and mildly amusing song, with some nice metal riffs from Steve and Dick. I am reminded of the old Disney Pluto cartoon in which the poor pooch dreams he goes to hell and has to face a jury of vengeful cats. In fact, as much as Alice watched and drew inspiration from television, it wouldn’t surprise me at all of it was the impetus for this whole thing.
You Gotta Dance. Disco was a happening thing in 1976; while we were still a year away from the genre-defining Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, the likes of Donna Summer, KC and the Sunshine Band, The Bee Gees of course, and the Hues Corporation were all over the charts and the club scene was in full swing. To give Cooper his due, I’m sure he thought throwing the fans a curveball (since he had had success doing the same thing with “Only Women Bleed” on Nightmare) in the form of a disco song would be a fun thing to do, as well as show that he was comfortable in a number of different musical styles- and while it wasn’t in the same league as KC or the Bee Gees, damned if he doesn’t almost pull it off. “Dance” is a catchy track, kinda danceable, very Broadway musical-esque with its orchestral strings a la Ezrin, and it keeps with the concept by giving us a “Satan’s Alley” kind of scenario way before Stayin’ Alive.
I’m the Coolest. Continuing the diversity (as well as the Broadway vibe), this one is a soft-shoe shuffle sung by Alice in a low voice, playing the role of Satan and explaining to Steven (and the listener) who he is (as if this is necessary). Wagner/Hunter arrive in the bridge to goose the song along with some metal riffs. Even though it clocks in at 3:58, it seems longer because it kinda drags as it shuffles.
Didn’t We Meet? This one serves as Steven’s reaction to meeting Satan, in which he believes he saw him in a nightmare, which provides some continuity with the previous album and also allows him to poke a little fun at his by-then legendary drinking via the power-chorded refrain, which gooses the song to life: They say that you are the king Of this whole damn thing... So let's drink a few Here's lookin' at you, I swear Didn't we meet in the night in my sleep somewhere? Biggest problem with this one is while that refrain catchy, the rest of the song is saddled with an unremarkable melody. It’s a link in the concept chain, little more.
I Never Cry. As previously mentioned, the Welcome to My Nightmare album would probably have been successful on its own, but its ace in the hole was its changeup single, the ballad “Only Women Bleed”. So it’s hard to blame the Cooper team for going back to that well, which they did, and actually, “Cry” surpassed “Bleed” sales-wise, becoming his first solo gold single until 1989′s “Poison”, even though both “Cry” and “Bleed” peaked at the same position on the Billboard Hot 100, #12. It’s actually a lovely tune, and is aided by the standard Bob Ezrin ballad template, which features echoing cavernous string sections and sweetly sung backing vocals. No children’s choirs for a change. Where this fits in the show/concept, I have no idea, unless it’s meant to suggest a tender moment for Steven as he adjusts to his new situation.
Give the Kid a Break. In which Alice/Steven pleads his case, with a Fifties-sounding doowop-ish melody framing his entreaties to His Infernal Nibs. There’s a group of backing vocals which serves as a sort of Greek chorus, interacting with the singer at several points, puckishly interjecting “Don’t” before the “Give the Kid a Break” chorus, to which Alice responds with pained outrage. Musically, this one is Happy Days-lite all the way, just meant to evoke the mood rather than stand alone. Still, this one is catchy too, and kicks off the second side of the LP in fine form.
Guilty. Tired of pleading his case, Steven now says heck with it- sure, I did bad things, he says, but were they really that bad? “Just tried to have fun, raise hell and then some / I'm a dirt-talkin', beer drinkin', woman chasin' minister's son”, says he, and the winking autobio aspect kicks in, providing the clever in its modest way. Accompanied by the Hunter/Wagner guitar power duo, this one, of all the songs on this record, actually summons the vibe of the old Alice Cooper Band, though in greatly reduced form. The modest winning streak of this album continues.
Wake Me Gently. Another power ballad, but unlike “I Never Cry”, it doesn’t have a melody strong enough to maintain interest. Shimmering acoustic guitar and a hushed vocal by Alice lead straight into the chorus, and the lack of anything really compelling to either makes it pretty much the worst track on the album, useful as a somewhat out-of-place link in the thematic chain, little more.
Wish You Were Here. Not a cover of the Pink Floyd album track from the year previous. By this time, Steven seems to have resigned himself to his fate, or at least has stopped fighting it; in this stomping rocker he addresses a loved one or a buddy or us the listener, or somebody and invites them to share his predicament- “Having a hell of a time, my dear, wish you were here” he sings over the hardest rocking and most bombastic track on the whole album, and the one which works best with the concept, I think. Perhaps Steven is being cynical and wishes all of us who said bad things about him and got him in Hell in the fiirst place could be down there with him. It’s open for interpretation, I suppose.
I’m Always Chasing Rainbows. Wiki saith “…is a popular Vaudeville song. The music is credited to Harry Carroll, but the melody is adapted from Fantaisie-Impromptu by Frédéric Chopin. The lyrics were written by Joseph McCarthy, and the song was published in 1917.” While Alice may have lost a lot of things when he shitcanned his band and struck out on his own, you can at least say he didn’t completely lose his sense of irony and humor, and thusly this wistful standard gets the Hunter/Wagner bombastic treatment. It is funny, though, and I rather like it. Steven is kinda feeling sorry for himself now, at least that’s how I interpret it in the context of the concept.
Going Home. Having had his moment of introspection, Steven decides to say “fuck it, I am what I am, and I won’t repent” and presumably impresses Satan enough to send him back, or at least wake him up from his nightmare. The song itself is a big grande finale type thing with horns and massed group vocals and the ever present Wagner/Hunter boom shackalacka. You can imagine all the cast members coming out and mingling as the chorus “I’m going home…back to my room” repeats and repeats, smiling and waving and bowing and… well, yeah, it ends the record with an appropriate tone.
Curtain, lights, thanks very much for coming out tonight, and safe travels home.
This album was another success, although it didn’t quite have the same impact as Nightmare did- there was no TV special, for example, which actually might have been a lot of fun if that had happened. After this album and the concurrent tour, Cooper took a break, in large part because the drinking and touring and substance abuse had taken a toll. His next release was Lace & Whiskey, also a concept record without an explicit concept, but the songs weren’t nearly as good. After a perfunctory live album, the next one, From the Inside, a fantasy about rehab clinics, was more successful but Alice didn’t take its lessons to heart- he didn’t really get clean and sober until the mid-80s, when he embraced the heavy metal side of his music and went on a long and mostly successful release-and-tour schedule which continues to this date.
All in all, a hell of a life, really.
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