Did you jump on to the "TRASH" train...

[Jason]

No, I didn't jump on the "Trash-train". I was already a fan.

I'm 35, and Alice Cooper was inescapable for me growing up. My Dad played tons of Alice when from before I was born (1974) when he saw the "LITD" tour in 1971. He played mostly the original band albums but did play the solo stuff too. The last album he bought new upon release was "Special Forces". He fell out of Alice after that.

But what he did have in his collection was enough for me to listen to and to search out the rest of the catalogue, which I did. So, as a young child I was already hooked, this would have been around '78-'79. That puts me at 4-5 years old. It was the original band that did it and still does it for me.

Also, like and have all the solo Alice, like some more than others, but all combined makes for an original, interesting and impressive body of work!

As for the "Trash" album, I didn't own it until a few years later, other AC albums took priority when it came to making purchases. Still not a huge fan of it, it's my second least favorite of all the albums (behind "Constrictor") but it is a well written/played/produced album, just not quite my style, that's all. There are some good tracks on it but overall doesn't get played very often.

"Trashes The World" I liked. Wicked band as per usual!

[Malchik]

Alice has been jumping bandwagons since they started. We can see Alice venturing into the (then fading) sphycielic scene before finding a market in the hard rock garage scene of the seventies. He's also escaped into scenes like epic rock ballads with Nightmares and Whiskey. Alice also found when he began to loose footing that new age and punk was making headlines and then tried that.

It's inevitable that Alice will venture into different scenes simply because he needs a platform to survive in the industry. Alice is entitled to it simply because he not only contributes to whatever trend he adopts but makes it his own. In saying that, you have the right to dislike anything Alice Cooper has done that’s your privilege. I dislike the hair metal Alice a lot but I can’t deny the man hasn’t made accomplishments with it because every one expects poison today.

[A_MichaelUK]

>Alice has been jumping bandwagons since they started.

That's a bit unfair. What about the genres he and the band influenced?

> We can see Alice venturing into the (then fading) sphycielic scene

Actually, that's very misleading. The band went to Los Angeles because it was one of the centres of the music business at the time, not because they wanted to be psychedelic, neccasarily.

> before finding a market in the hard rock garage scene of the seventies.

So? They were already too "hard rock" for Los Angeles and they ended up in Michigan and were much happier.

> He's also escaped into scenes like epic rock ballads with Nightmares and Whiskey.

Other than "Dream On", name me some other "epic rock ballads" that were hits and that came out before "Welcome To My Nightmare".

> Alice also found when he began to loose footing that new age and punk was making headlines and then tried that.

That is a complete exagerration (and I think you mean 'new wave', not "new age").

> Alice is entitled to it simply because he not only contributes to whatever trend he adopts but makes it his own.

Now you're making sense.

[MadameBondage]

I see nothing wrong with Alice putting out a more commercial album and getting a big radio hit. Commercial success is important in order to sustain one's rock music career in the long haul. It's because of the big hits that Alice Cooper is still able to tour every single year, so we should be glad that he had those big hits.

As for Alice being part of the "hair metal" scene with Trash, remember that Alice heavily influenced and played a pioneering role in both the metal and glam genres. Just because some of the "hair metal" stars were not as talented as Alice was not Alice's fault. He still had every right to partake in that genre since he was the forerunner. And the fact that he got a big commercial hit while doing it was a big bonus and much deserved. Alice never stopped being Alice though. He was always cool, no matter what.

That is an excellent post, Glam and I entirely agree with all the points you raise. All totally valid, balanced and sensible, as ever

[glamprincess]

I see nothing wrong with Alice putting out a more commercial album and getting a big radio hit. Commercial success is important in order to sustain one's rock music career in the long haul. It's because of the big hits that Alice Cooper is still able to tour every single year, so we should be glad that he had those big hits.

As for Alice being part of the "hair metal" scene with Trash, remember that Alice heavily influenced and played a pioneering role in both the metal and glam genres. Just because some of the "hair metal" stars were not as talented as Alice was not Alice's fault. He still had every right to partake in that genre since he was the forerunner. And the fact that he got a big commercial hit while doing it was a big bonus and much deserved. Alice never stopped being Alice though. He was always cool, no matter what.

That is an excellent post, Glam and I entirely agree with all the points you raise. All totally valid, balanced and sensible, as ever

Thanks Madame B. Welcome Back!

[MadameBondage]

I see nothing wrong with Alice putting out a more commercial album and getting a big radio hit. Commercial success is important in order to sustain one's rock music career in the long haul. It's because of the big hits that Alice Cooper is still able to tour every single year, so we should be glad that he had those big hits.

As for Alice being part of the "hair metal" scene with Trash, remember that Alice heavily influenced and played a pioneering role in both the metal and glam genres. Just because some of the "hair metal" stars were not as talented as Alice was not Alice's fault. He still had every right to partake in that genre since he was the forerunner. And the fact that he got a big commercial hit while doing it was a big bonus and much deserved. Alice never stopped being Alice though. He was always cool, no matter what.

That is an excellent post, Glam and I entirely agree with all the points you raise. All totally valid, balanced and sensible, as ever

Thanks Madame B. Welcome Back!

Good to see you too Glam

[alicestrash]

i can't really remember what made me get on to alice but i really hate new music and really love classic rock. i heard a couple of older songs (under my wheels etc) and just kept looking for more and more and realized how incredible he is and then worked further into trash/poison. if it weren't for waynes world im sure half the kids my age wouldn't even know who he is...

[woman_machine]

I remember being in grade 5 and 6 and looking into my older brother's album collection. Alice's WTMN caught my eye and I put it on. Vincent Price's little bit scared the Hell out of me, but I had to listen to more of the album and I ended up loving it. The next thing I knew, my brother bought me the first greatest hits of Alice Cooper album and I fell in love with all of the songs on there.

Then I remember being at the "sock hop" in junior high school and "Poison" came on and everyone started dancing. I didn't know Alice had changed his music in this direction, and remember saying to a friend of mine "this sounds like Alice Cooper!".

So I guess I didn't jump on the Trash bandwagon cuz I loved his earlier stuff first, and I'm now 33.

[Somwhere In Auckland]

Simple for me, I was brought up listening to Alice. My dad being a huge fan had every album at the time.

I remember the 90s the most, and actually "Trash" wasnt an album that got many spins on my dads player.

Off topic I think its cool that all these years later I am a huge fan of Alice, and my dad is still the same fan he was over 30 years ago.

Even cooler is we are going to gigs together

[Lisacooper91]

I really like the album Trash... but he has so much other masterpieces! wish people knew more...

it's kinda funny though.. when people discovered that I'm a Alice Cooper fan, they immediatly started to sing for me!
had that with some kids at school and even some teachers :D
the only songs they could sing were "Poison" and "How You Gonna See Me Now"

[TonyfromNH]

Off topic I think its cool that all these years later I am a huge fan of Alice, and my dad is still the same fan he was over 30 years ago.

Even cooler is we are going to gigs together

That's what is so special to me, sharing these times with my daughter AND mother. (9, nearly 42, and 62)

[WickedYoungMan]

Alice has been jumping bandwagons since they started.

Perhaps since he started the Constrictor album maybe. In the early days, especially after Bob Ezrin got a hold of them, they still had a unique and threatening sound that I don't think you were going to find much in popular music (Halo of Flies, Dead Babies/Killer comes to mind.) And especially with School's Out, what bandwagon could they have been following then? 1960s musicals?

I think there might be a difference of "jumping the bandwagon" and simply "sounding like an album of the time," if that makes sense, and are two concepts that might be confused at times. A "jumping the bandwagon" sound, for me at least, is when an artist suddenly changes their sound drastically and have a very obvious sound which is like some other artists of the time. For instance, one of my favorite albums, "Brutal Planet," could be construed as a "bandwagon" album as it seemed to follow heavily on the Zombie/Manson/Industrial sound of the time. On the contrary, DaDa, while hints of early 1980s sounds here and there, doesn't really follow any bandwagon. I'm sure if Alice wanted to truly follow a bandwagon at that point then all he would have to do is look at Def Leppard or even more so Ozzy, who, ironically & arguably took the torch from Alice and ran with it in the early 1980s when Alice dropped his trademark image and tried the new wave thing. Luckily for that particular album, he didn't.

To bring this full circle back to the original discussion, "Trash" is definitely without a doubt a "bandwagon" album. Alice mentions in the extended features for "Prime Cuts" that he brought Desmond Child in because he liked what he did with Aerosmith and Desmond Child and the popular music at the time (I'm paraphrasing,) and it definitely shows. "Only My Heart Talking" could very easily had been an Aerosmith song. And "easily" could probably be used in a few layers here. I can almost hear Steven Tyler singing it if I took Alice's voice out.

For me personally, Si says it best on the site in that "Trash" was missing an element, Alice! However, I'm sure we can forgive this one minor gaffe in that it brought an Alice revival at the time.

I wanted to bring up an interesting piece of trivia regarding this album. I had a Billboard Magazine program a few years ago, which, for the love of me I can't find. It had detailed weekly chart positions from the late 1980s all the way to something like 2001. If memory serves (and I seem to recall being surprised at this very fact when seeing the weekly chart) was that "Trash" actually charted relatively low in the U.S when it first debuted. It did only slightly better than "Raise Your Fist's" peak chart position, something like #65 or something similar. It sort of retained that position and then suddenly it started lifting up, and without a doubt took off because of "Poison." It retained it's #20 position (fluctuating a few places) for several weeks before a very slow drop off and was in the top 200 for a few months if I recall.

*********

Edit: Was just on Billboard's site and found that they have "Visualizer" which shows a week by week break of "Trash's" and "Poison's" week by week chart breakdown.

It is as follows (I post this for nothing really more than for trivia purposes):

Trash
Week 1 - 08.12.89 - #161
Week 2 - 08.19.89 - #88
Week 3 - 08.26.89 - #65
Week 4 - 09.02.89 - #60
Week 5 - 09.09.89 - #50
Week 6 - 09.16.89 - #38
Week 7 - 09.23.89 - #30
Week 8 - 09.30.89 - #24
Week 9 - 10.07.89 - #24
Week 10 - 10.14.89 - #23
Week 11 -

Yeah, well it was on the chart for 43 weeks and I'll make a new thread giving a week by week breakdown of the charts.

***********

This was at a time on MTV when they um, you know, played MUSIC videos. We have a VHS recording of a call in contest MTV would do on some nights in which you could vote for which music video you wanted to see, and "Poison" won. Which perhaps goes to show you how MTV actually was at one time rather important and influential to the music scene.

This rather meandering and long winded post is a reminder that I need something else to do at 6:23 AM on a Sunday Morning.

[Shoesalesman]

For me personally, Si says it best on the site in that "Trash" was missing an element, Alice!

Just my opinion, but I think Trash had alot of Alice in it; some of that sly, sexual presence from earlier incarnations of the Alice albums and character. I hear where folks are coming from when they comment on Trash being more "honey-coated" than let's say Raise Your Fist And Yell, but I still think Alice is still ever present in the Trash release.

[AC Collect]

I quite liked trash and I still do, But it was Brutal Planet that did it for me. That was the first album/tour I heard.

[dadascot]

really interesting that Trash debuted at 181 in the billboard charts, shows exactly what poison accomplished, is it fair to say that the song gave Alice more longevity? Certainly it is the starting point for a lot of his fans who are under 30.

When poison came out i had been an Alice fan for about Ten years but had never known him to have a hit single. i remember one sunday afternoon listning to the top 40 on radio one, Alice had hit the charts at 36 the week before, when it got to the top ten i lost interest figuring that he must have slipped out of the charts but just pleased that his name had been mentioned then the announcement "and the highest climber at number two..." I can still remember the huge buzz i got from that, so I'll always love poison for giving me that moment.

[A_MichaelUK]

>To bring this full circle back to the original discussion, "Trash" is definitely without a doubt a "bandwagon" album.

Who influenced the artists that influenced "Trash" though?

>For me personally, Si says it best on the site in that "Trash" was missing an element, Alice!

I wouldn't go that far although I think I know what he means.

[WickedYoungMan]

Who influenced the artists that influenced "Trash" though?

Cocaine. Lots and lots of it.



Oh, you mean Alice. Yes, strange as it comes back around.

Ironically, I think this worked well, musically, in Alice's favor as far as Brutal Planet. He was going after that sound that arguably was pioneered by White Zombie and popularized by both Zombie and Manson, whose influences are undeniable (except Zombie actually has no problem admitting his influences) and Alice seemed to fit right in to it seamlessly. Just seemed like a very natural progression for Alice funnily enough (something Alice also alluded to when discussing "Trash.")

[TonyfromNH]

I quite liked trash and I still do, But it was Brutal Planet that did it for me. That was the first album/tour I heard.

Wow, you were 3 years old when you saw the "Brutal Planet" tour!! What was your fondest memory?

Just kidding with ya: my daughter is only 9 and has only been "into" Alice for 3 years, but at 3 yrs old she was more into "Barney" and "pull-ups".

[RemarkablyInsincere]

Just kidding with ya: my daughter is only 9 and has only been "into" Alice for 3 years, but at 3 yrs old she was more into "Barney" and "pull-ups".

My 4 year old's favorite Alice song is "No More Mr. Nice Guy". Actually, that and "School's Out" are the only ones she knows at this point. She's been singing along to NMMNG in the car since even before she was 3 I think.

She'll sing just about the whole thing, but she always gets a big kick out of screaming to me when we get to that part of that song... "and Daddy you have to hide!"

[Dave Conway]

Very funny! I have mentioned this before, but the point is, Alice's songs tend to be really catchy. Kids just love to sing-a-long to them!

P.S. I never 'got' Barney