More of the Coop

I don't normally do back to back pots on the same artist but I had some more I wanted to add about Alice Cooper. My mom bought me my first Alice Cooper album when I was 11. It was the School's Out album. From that day I have been a rabid fan. Even when Alice went new wave in the 80's with albums like Flush the Fashion, Special Forces, and From the Inside. I loved these albums while a lot of people thought they were crap. I stuck by Alice through the lean years and then he came back with a vengeance with the Constrictor album.

A comment from Spin in my last post made me realize that I had not made myself as clear as I should have on the previous post. Spin said:

Glen Buxton, Dennis Dunaway, Michael Bruce and Neal Smith were a big part of what made (The) Alice Cooper (Group) great. They co-wrote and played on most of the hits songs associated with Alice, including "School's Out."

Since embarking on a solo career, Alice Cooper has produced a hell of a lot more shit than good music. Welcome to My Nightmare (solo album #1 in 1976) was good. Flush the Fashion (released in 1980) was refreshingly direct. But From the Inside? And Lace and Whiskey? Yecch.

While I agree that the stage show was groundbreaking, I'd like to see the whole original band inducted, not just the singer.

I totally agree with what he said in the first paragraph, the group should be inducted not just the front man. Which brings up the case of inducting him twice, once with the group and once as solo artist. I agree Alice really strayed from his roots with 4 or 5 albums but like I said I enjoyed them all. Thanks for the feedback Spin.

Today I'm featuring not one, but two tracks from Alice's so called new wave phase. Both tracks are extremely good and may get people to check out these forgotten classics.

Clones(We're all) by Alice Cooper

Who do You think We Are? by Alice Cooper, this is the single version and not the album version.



Cartoon of the Day

Alice Cooper

The Rock n Roll Hall of Fame will hold it's induction ceremonies in March and once again there are some glaring omissions, most notably Alice Cooper. Last year they inducted ZZ Top, Prince,Bob Seger,and George Harrison to name a few. This years inductees are Buddy Guy, the O'Jays, Percy Sledge, the Pretenders and U2. Hey I like the Pretenders but come on guys, before Alice Cooper? See all inductees here.

This is not really the "rock n Roll" hall of fame it's more of a pop music hall of fame, which is fine, I guess. It stopped being the Rock n roll hall of fame when they inducted Michael "pedophile" Jackson twice, while ignoring truly groundbreaking rock n roll artists. You say what about that "Thriller" album in the 80's wasn't it groundbreaking? Well let's see we have the 19 minute video of Thriller that was groundbreaking or was it. Seems that Alice Cooper did a whole video of his Welcome to my Nightmare album back in 1976 on ABC(which won an Emmy award), before Mtv was even a concept. Talk about groundbreaking. Methinks Michaelwas just copying. Sadly after 40 million copies sold and over 20 gold albums, Alice is consistently ignored by the Hall of Fame. Alice influenced so many artists that it would be impossible to list them all. David Bowie was inducted back in 1996 yet he used to attend Cooper shows before he sang about Major Tom. Alice recently released a new album, "The Eyes of Alice Cooper", which incidently rocks with a vengeance and he shows no sign of slowing down. And yet, somebody is going, "Nah, I think we'll induct the Talking Heads (2002).

It`s now 2005, and once again Alice is snubbed by the institution now commonly referred to as the 'Rock And Roll Hall of Shame' due to glaring omissions from their inductee list while some acts that have been inducted seem to be simply one hit wonders who influenced no one at all, or ones who simply copied the originators like Alice. To the surprise of many music fans, Cooper's guillotine and snakeskin boots have been one of the most popular attractions at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, but the artist himself has never been nominated. It just ain't right.

School's Out is probably the summer anthem of all time. You may not be a fan, but you cannot doubt his impact on music, or his influence on artists (many who are already in the Hall).

Other glaring omissions are Black Sabbath, Kiss (29 gold albums,9 of which went 3x platinum or more), and Jimmy Buffett (36 albums, 7 gold, 4 platinum and 2 double platinum). Hey if James Taylor can get in the Rock n Roll hall of Fame then dad burn it these guys deserve to be in there too. Surprisingly The Clash, AC/DC, and Elvis Costello, and the Ramones have made it in, so maybe there's hope. But until Alice himself is in the Hall, everytime these clueless "experts" induct someone before him they are just spitting on Rock n roll.

Which brings us to todays selection which is the opening track to the classic 1973 album Billion Dollar Babies which you can get here.

Hello Hooray by Alice Cooper


Cartoon of the Day

Weird Al Yankovic

Weird Al Yankovic parodies songs, we all know that. But unless you're a huge fan like me and have all his albums, what you don't know is that for each album he's put out he only parodies 5 or 6 songs. The rest of the album is all original material written by Al that is better and funnier for what he is famous for. Another thing is that he's one of those genuinely sincere good guys. Todays song has a standard type of blues riff and the lyrics are funny as hell. Like, "she literally cried her eyes out". Well ya gotta listen to really get it.

Party at the Leper Colony by Weird Al Yankovic

This is from Al's last album called Poodle Hat. I've been a loyal Al fan since his very first album came out way back when. My only complaint is that he usually goes 3 or 4 years between albums. I need more Al.


Cartoon of the Day

I thunk this

Tomorrow the Rev. Horton Heat and 999 songs will be taken down so I can post some new ones. If you have'nt had a chance to sample these mp3's you've got a little time left. Unfortunately I have very little server space so I gots to make room. Now if people started visiting my sponsors maybe I could afford a little more space for tunes but I digress.

I was reading on several mp3 blogs about one site who is having a bit of trouble and was shut down. I forget the name, was it moistworks? Anyway it looks like us mp3 bloggers will be the next target of the record industry. That's a shame really. Here we are trying to promote the music we love and the majority of us encourage people to go out and buy the artist that we spotlight even providing links on our posts where they can buy the stuff. We do more promoting for the artists than the industry itself does and they'll probably be suing us next.

Once upon a time when i was young and foolish and had extra money to spend, I amassed a CD collection of over 1200 titles. I'm older and poorer now and let's just say someone else is now the owner of that collection. I rarely buy cds now because number 1 reason is that they are way overpriced. In the last year I had purchased 1 cd. Then I started reading these mp3 blogs and as a result in the last month I have purchased 5 new cds all due to some of the blogs I've read. If I hadn't have had the chance to hear and explore some of this music on these blogs I would have never purchased the discs. Do you hear that music industry? That is a 400% increase of my spending all because of mp3 bloggers. I think that mp3 bloggers are about the best marketing tool the industry has and we don't even get paid for it. We even pay our own hard earned money to have someone host our files for us. So I say if you want to go after us bloggers then that would be like cutting your nose off to spite your face.
Rant over. Some new shit tomorrow.

Cartoon of the Day

The Donnas

When I first heard The Donnas back in 1998 I was struck by their Ramones meet the Runaways type sound. I thought that these girls held a lot of promise. I mean this was pretty good stuff for a group who recorded their first album while still in high school. Through the years the Donnas have grown up and their sound has matured a lot. Make no mistake these pretty gals can rock hard. Whenever I watch them I am amazed by Torry the drummer. The most petite of the bunch and she hammers the skins relentlessly and I wonder how she keeps from collapsing. My favorite albums are Get Skintight and The Donnas Turn 21.

The song I'm offering up here today is from their first album released in 1998 simply titled The Donnas

Get Rid of That Girl by The Donnas

Cartoon of the Day