I'm Alice

[Parish]

I dunno man, Alice has done some great dark tracks lately - I am Made of you was probably the last full fledged beast but some under the radar stuff like wonderful world strikes the right mood.
I doubt he will go full horror (especially given the title etc) but never count him out!

You may be right...I think I'm just too old.
Ya had to be 14/15 years old in 1973 to appreciate the complete cool-ativity and worldwide stranglehold of the ACG.

[Dannorama]

...I wouldn't be surprised if his next album was titled, " Pull My Finger" or " Root Beer Barrel Candy"

Each of which absolutely delight my 4 year old grandson. I am pumped for this album.

[cooperrocks]

I dunno man, Alice has done some great dark tracks lately - I am Made of you was probably the last full fledged beast but some under the radar stuff like wonderful world strikes the right mood.
I doubt he will go full horror (especially given the title etc) but never count him out!

You may be right...I think I'm just too old.
Ya had to be 14/15 years old in 1973 to appreciate the complete cool-ativity and worldwide stranglehold of the ACG.

Parish that is actually a fair assessment but you bring up a point. Some of this depends on one's age (There are exceptions of course). Speaking personally I was very young when the original band came out so while I like the original band they never registered me the same way much of Alice's solo career has. Take for instance when the Trash album came out with the hit Poison (I was a fan way before then by the way), Alice made a lot of new fans. That is what people must learn to respect albums like Dada and Raise Your Fist and Yell are my Billion Dollar Babies and Welcome To My Nightmare. I have as much emotional investment in those albums as you do to the stuff you like. But for some reason Alice fans have to always battle one another, some can't get past the original band, early solo stuff etc. There is well over 50 years of material and I just can't confide it to a 5 or 6 year period and get excited about every new project and never expect or assume it will sound completely like something done in the past. I actually knew a group of people in their early and mid 20's that love everything Alice has done from Brutal Planet to the present but aren't a fan of anything before it. They hate the 70s stuff. I don't get that either but we all have to keep the age thing in perspective. Very good post by you.

[Parish]

Very good post by you.

Rightbackatcha... Nicely encapsulated round up of all his fans from many angles.

My point which I stumble over sometimes is that the actual songwriting (for me) isnt as good as when the ACG were doing it. Naturally there are great songs sprinkled here and there on his solo records but for the most part
they fall short of the legacy stuff. I LOVE Dada, From The Inside, Flush The Fashion, Brutal Planet but they arent in constant rotation like LITD, Killer, School's Out, B$B and MOL are...these records mean more to me as I was first experiencing them during the sweet spot of my teenage years.

[Si]

My point which I stumble over sometimes is that the actual songwriting (for me) isnt as good as when the ACG were doing it. Naturally there are great songs sprinkled here and there on his solo records but for the most part
they fall short of the legacy stuff. I LOVE Dada, From The Inside, Flush The Fashion, Brutal Planet but they arent in constant rotation like LITD, Killer, School's Out, B$B and MOL are...these records mean more to me as I was first experiencing them during the sweet spot of my teenage years.

With those original albums it was very much a case of 'lightning in a bottle'. The right people at the right time in the place and climate.
It will NEVER happen again in the same way, even if you could get everyone involved back in the same room. An attempt to recreate that would almost certainly fail as unavoidably it ISN'T the same people (no one is the same person they were at 20years old), nor the same time or climate.
When considering any solo album I consciously put those ACG albums (in fact all the 70s albums) to one side. It's pointless to compare them. The 'baggage' of familiarity, memories and nostalgia that comes with them is immense. Nothing released later can really come that close.
However for other fans that 'baggage' could well be attached to later albums. As CooperRocks basically said so much about music is how you FEEL about it and how it relates to you and the time you first heard it. The problem with you is that you absolutely have to be the only one that is right, and you insult anyone who has different opinions. It serves no purpose at all other than to piss people off.

Interestingly when you say the songwriting isn't as good as it was on those albums, I think many professional songwriters would disagree. Most of his more recent material are very well written songs, from a technical point of view. I think what makes the early albums stand out was the that they didn't really KNOW, or just ignored, the standard rules of how to write a song, and so you got something far more interesting and original as a result. No other artist truly sounds like the original Alice Cooper, because they had no barriers or pre-conceived ideas on what a song should be, and treated movie soundtracks and pop singles as the equally valid influences, mixing it all together.

So many bands, as they grow older, claim they write better songs then they ever did in the early years, and yet it's the earlier material that stands the test of time better. Many classic bands become more 'mainstream' as the years pass but almost always it's the earlier songs that are fan favourites. It's almost impossible for any bad to better their classic period.

[Parish]

With those original albums it was very much a case of 'lightning in a bottle'. The right people at the right time in the place and climate.

Point well taken Si...

It just seems that EVERYONE wrote better from 1969-1979....the albums that came out during this decade for almost every group are now considered "the classics".

[Si]

With those original albums it was very much a case of 'lightning in a bottle'. The right people at the right time in the place and climate.

Point well taken Si...

It just seems that EVERYONE wrote better from 1969-1979....the albums that came out during this decade for almost every group are now considered "the classics".

Absolutely agree.
And as I say, I think that is down to the climate in which they were made as much as anything else. Commercialism was much less of a issue and bands were given time to develop.
Many of those legendary bands would never have got past album #1 if they had started in the 80s or beyond?

[Parish]

Many of those legendary bands would never have got past album #1 if they had started in the 80s or beyond?

Bingo...thank the Lord they were given all the rope needed back then.

[Dannorama]

I like the time, place, and climate thing, Si. Very well put. McCartney said that there was “A ‘germ’ in the air” back then. I also refer to Zappa talking about the days when record companies were a lot more loose. I’d say that theory goes into “climate,” but he’s still got some fun thoughts.

[Ted Sallis]

A number of very good points were made by Si in his last lengthy post above and by Parish in his comments afterward. Yes, 'lightning in a bottle' was captured by the ACG with their 7 album run. It is for this reason that I confine myself to the 5 year period within which their albums were recorded and released; in my view nothing Alice has produced since comes close to equalling the Original Group's output. Anyone else is of course perfectly entitled to believe differently if they so choose.

Ted

[revinkevin]

It just seems that EVERYONE wrote better from 1969-1979....the albums that came out during this decade for almost every group are now considered "the classics".

There is a reason why they call the music from that time period “Classic Rock “. Not only was much of it very, very good, it has also stood the test of time.

[Street Schizo]

I listened to I'm Alice a bunch of times and to be honest it's not knocking me out. This one sounds like I've heard it several times already. I hope the rest of the album has better stuff. Maybe the next song will catch my attention. I honestly don't remember an Alice album where the first song I heard didn't get me pumped. This one is just ok.