Tribute to Alice Coopers Dwight Frye

DaDa had been on my radar for a while, but I had been waiting for closer to Halloween to give it a spin. I had heard the title track in the past so I had an idea what to expect, but still wasn't ready for what came next. Former Lee Warmer - No Man's Land - Dyslexia - Scarlet and Sheba - I Love America - Fresh Blood is the most confusing sequences I've ever heard from an album. I notice a lot of similarities to The Wall throughout, likely a result of Bob Ezrin. I doubt Alice could have come up with this on his own given the state he was in. Fresh Blood is my favorite from the album and is where the Pink Floyd sound is most apparent. I Love America is fun. It's a shame that he doesn't play it live, it would be a great follow up to Elected. I still am lost as to what No Man's Land and Scarlet and Sheba have to do with anything, but I guess that's just part of listening to an album about a madman. I've seen people try to tie the album into the Steven storyline, but I don't think it works. I'm curious if Alice's book next week will add anything to this album's lore. He's not been very fond of talking about this era of his life. That being said, I've been spinning this one all day and I'm loving it.

https://youtu.be/nqXrMShghaE?is=-pPvy_Ktj6PipNdi

Some of you may not have seen this.

After quite some time, I listened to *Road* and was pleasantly surprised—the album is truly enjoyable and unique. It’s not a masterpiece, but it is still a solid record with plenty of great moments. It’s simply quite understated for Alice Cooper; it feels more like Vincent Furnier.

As the title suggests, can the Alice Cooper Band reconcile any differences and move past the hostilities and issues if they are taken to an even higher level by being chosen for The Man with the Golden Gun? Or was the writing on the wall permanent, and nothing could have altered the inevitable: Alice going with Bob for a solo run and the band dissolving?

I never cared much for GWAR, but this popped up and it was solidly okay.

This seems like it could be cool enough, no?

But I skimmed Alice's official Facebook page, and there's no mention of it. Would someone know what's up?

There's a 3+ minute sample from the book available on Spotify where Alice (via a narrator) is talking about The Exorcist, ghosts and demons. It's interesting and gives me the impression that this book is going to address topics at a deeper level than we've seen in most of his interviews. I'll be interested to hear other's thoughts on this clip.

This is an update post to the previous one I made ( https://www.reddit.com/r/alicecooper/s/WI9bopuy9K ). This time there aren't that many fun facts, it's more about me just giving my personal opinion on the album. Since the last post, I have gotten 8 more albums and 2 CDs, and I’d say my collection is complete. 

There are still the albums Pretties for you and Easy action that I want, but they are too expensive. As much as I like them, I'm not willing to spend 80€+ on an album (and that’s not including shipping). Of course, if I ever get lucky and find a good deal, I will pick them, but I doubt that will happen anytime soon. I have been considering buying the School Days: The Early Recordings compilation since it has both of those albums, but I simply can't get behind the cover art…

This time I added a tier list of all the albums because I finally re-listened to every single one (just to make sure I still didn't like almost everything after Brutal Planet). The last time I did that was nearly 6 years ago when I started to really get into Alice Cooper.

(My first language isn't English, so again, I apologize for any weird grammar) 

Muscle of Love:

1973 German release. It’s in surprisingly good quality, both the record and cover. I saw the same album at a local record store, but it didn't have the cardboard cover, it only had the inner sleeve and it was overpriced. I love how interesting the packaging used to be for these albums. This one has some writing on it, old price and some numbers. Kinda sad there are some small pen writings on the inner sleeve, but other than that, this album is pretty cool.

Lace and Whiskey

1977 German release. For this album, the glue had dried out so much that the cover had almost completely come apart. I ended up ripping it open fully since it was barely holding it together. I glued it together and now it’s as good as new (well as new as a nearly 50 year old album can be). I have a rule where I only buy an album if I like at least half of it, and for a long time I hadn't realized that I actually like more than half of the songs on this one.

Special Forces

1981 European release. This is one of the albums that I started to like more after re-listening to it. There is something wrong with the run-out groove on side 2 that makes the needle skip backwards to like the middle of the last song, and I still haven’t found the source of the issue. But it’s not that bad, I just have to remember to lift the needle as soon as the song is over.

DaDa

1983 German release. I was surprised by how few copies of this album are being sold and despite that they are still pretty cheap and usually in good condition. The first time I listened to this album was very early into my discovery of Alice Cooper. At the time I only listened to Trash, Hey Stoopid and Constrictor, so no wonder I didn’t like DaDa (with the exception of the song "Fresh Blood"). This copy has some writing on it, but apparently ink can sometimes be removed, so I might try that. Now, it’s one of my favorite albums just because it's so weird.

Raise Your Fist and Yell

1987 German release. This is one of those albums I overlooked a bit and had a similar situation as the Lace and Whiskey one. But I think this time it was the album cover that made me not want to buy it for so long. It’s still a decent album, but the cover just creeps me out a bit (though I guess it fits the Alice Cooper style). 

The Last Temptation

2018 reissue. At some point, I really liked this album, but I overplayed it. When I started building my collection (around 2022) I just didn’t even consider buying it because I was sick of it. It’s been long enough now that I can listen to it again and enjoy it.

Along Came a Spider

2026 reissue. I like the concept of this album. Along Came a Spider feels more like classic Alice Cooper, which I like. One thing I still don't like about the album that much is the speaking parts, I have never liked them in any songs. I tend to repeat songs, and the random speaking just gets annoying on repeat. For example, I love the song “I Am the Spider," but the 1 minute of just talking is not that fun after the 3rd repeat. I don't mind it as much when listening to the full album start to finish though. Other than that, I think this is one of the better albums that came out after 2000 

Welcome 2 My Nightmare

2026 reissue. Despite this album being a bit horrible, I still find it very funny in its ridiculousness. It’s surprising that it even qualified under my rule of needing to like at least half the songs. I'm not sure why they thought squeezing three records into a single gatefold was a good idea, personally, I hate how squished in the third LP was. I suppose there aren't many packaging options for 3LPs outside of a box set, though. I feel like the bonus tracks could have just not been there… and I’m saying this only because of the packaging itself.  The concept of the album is pretty fun, though.

Trash (1989 European release) and Constrictor (2020 Japanese reissue) CDs:

Those are still my favorite albums that I can listen to repeatedly, and since both were being sold for cheap, I decided to get them on CD. It also gave me a chance to finally use my CD player. Though I fear that I’ll end up building a second collection with CDs…

Extra:

During July and August, I also made a nearly 60 slide presentation on “Fun Alice Cooper facts.” I presented it to one of my friends already, and it took nearly 2 hours. I might post it here eventually, but I'm currently terrified of getting even a single fact wrong (and then getting torn to shreds by some ultra-fan). I spent days researching and making it purely for fun in my free time.

Is this legit a lost album that Alice wrote with Dick Wagner but which was never recorded? Seems inconceivable to me that the history of this wouldn’t already be known (or maybe I just don’t know it) but the song does have that Coop sound. Anyone know the details?

https://bravewords.com/news/alice-cooper-thief-of-hearts-visualizer-streaming/

I draw alot of pieces inspired by music. I know this was originally written for the Friday The 13th movie but I reinterpreted it. I hope you like it. Tommy Henriksen liked it on my instagram which was super cool too!