SickthingsUK

To my mind Alice has different catogaries of Album's, there are the classics - Killer, Billion Dollare babies, nightmare, from the inside, Dada and The last tempation. There are the great - Love it to death, schools out, goes to hell, trash and the eyes of Alice cooper and a couple of duds - RYFAY, Dragontown and ACAS. obviously only my opinion, i have a soft spot for special forces and flush the fashion even though they aren't great albums, just wondered what catogories you guys would put the different albums in.

Oh boy, I'm not sure I'd catagorize the albums, but I see the differences in the character: experimental, classic rock, ballad, showtune, new wave, metal, hard rock, industrial.

The best part is Alice combines the differences on some albums. A few examples of diversity in styles would be Dada and Dirty Diamonds; the character dips into more than one kind of "Alice" and there is various types of music presented.

But if I HAD TO choose a catagory...

Great: Welcome To My Nightmare, Love It To Death, Dada, From The Inside, Killer

Good: The Last Temptation, School's Out, Billion Dollar Babies, Brutal Planet, Special Forces, Hey Stoopid, Goes To Hell

Fair: Dragontown, Raise Your Fist And Yell, Trash, The Eyes Of Alice Cooper, Zipper Catches Skin, The Alice Cooper Show

There are no duds for me.

Classic:
Killer
Billion Dollar Babies
Welcome to My Nightmare

Very Good (as in thoroughly enjoyable all the time):
Pretties For You
Easy Action
Love It To Death
School's Out
Muscle of Love
Goes to Hell
From the Inside
Flush the Fashion
Special Forces
Zipper Catches Skin
DaDa
Raise Your Fist and Yell
The Last Temptation

Good:
The Alice Cooper Show
Constrictor
Trash
Hey Stoopid
A Fistful of Alice
Brutal Planet
Brutally Live

Fair
Lace & Whiskey
Live at Montreux
Dragontown
Along Came a Spider

Duds
The Eyes of Alice Cooper
Dirty Diamonds

For me

Great

BDB,LITD,KILLER

Good

Schools Out, Muscle of Love, Welcome,ACAS, Last Temp, Brutal P, Hey Dumbo

Fair

Hell,FTI,Lace,Eyes, Trash, Dirty Ds

Off Colour

Flush,Special F,Zipper, RYFAY

Bad

Dragontown, DADA,Constrictor,Pretties,Easy A.

Shoesalesman wrote:
There are no duds for me.

I honestly have to agree with that. For the most part, the only one for me that would be in MY lowest category of "fair" would be Zipper Catches Skin". I seem to be one of the few that would not put Dragontown in the lower categories. I love that album!

But as for the "greats" :

Love it to Death, BDB, WTMN, From the Inside, and Dada

I fall in the category of I'm just glad there are so many Alice albums and he still wants to make more. But a stinker would be Lace & Whiskey. Half of Goes to Hell is wasted too. Da Da and Last Temptation are not my favorite. The lyrics are brilliant but the musical effort seems lack luster. More so on Da Da. Both suffer from a heavy production in the studio. TLT actually kicked ass in a live setting if you had the chance to see that.

Don't have time to answer this fully.......but I really don't like SF, though this view may change over the years .

I personally don't think Alice has any true "duds" either. There are at least a few songs I like on every album. However, there are a couple of albums I seldom every listen to, so for this thread's purpose I will place them in the "duds" category.

Classic: Love It To Death, Killer, Billion Dollar Babies, Welcome To My Nightmare, From the Inside,The Last Temptation

Very Good: Dada, Raise Your Fist and Yell (yes it was an 80's album but a great song for that era), Brutal Planet

Good: School's Out, Goes To Hell, Flush the Fashion, Special Forces, Dragontown, The Eyes of Alice Cooper

Fair: Easy Action, Along Came a Spider, Constrictor, Zipper Catches Skin

Dud: Pretties For You, Muscle of Love (I only love two or three songs on this album), Lace and Whiskey.

Classic: Easy Action(my favorite Alice album, and I'm not sure why), Killer, Billion Dollar Babies, Love It To Death, Trash, Welcome To My Nightmare

Pretty Damn Good: The Last Temptation, Hey Stoopid, Along Came A Spider, Eyes Of Alice Cooper, Dirty Diamonds, Brutal Planet, Dragontown, School's Out, Muscle Of Love, Special Forces, From The Inside, Flush The Fashion

Not Bad: Zipper Catches Skin, Raise Your Fist And Yell, Constrictor, Goes To Hell, Lace And Whiskey

Have To Make An Effort To Listen To It: Pretties For You, Dada

I agree that there are no duds. I don't think I could catorigize all of his albums, but;
Absolutely Classic:
-Pretties for You
-Easy Action
-Love it to Death
-Killer
Great:
-Eyes of AC
-Brutal Planet
-Last Temptation
-Dirty Diamonds
-Special Forces
-Dragontown
-Muscle of Love

I prefer to go by individual songs in all honesty, a little hard maybe when its a concept album but i like something from every album so therefore there are no duds. Im not so much into thinking i only like 1 or 2 songs therefore its a dud, if i like something im happy and its great. some are just better than others for me
WTMN FTW!

What a question, sure I am not alone in being slightly mood dependent on my choices which TODAY run as follows :-

Classic (never change):-

Love It To Death
Killer
Billion Dollar Babies
Welcome To My Nightmare
From The Inside
The Last Temptation

Good (some wobblers in here):-

Schools's Out
Muscle Of Love
Goes To Hell
Lace & Whiskey
Alice Cooper Show
Flush The Fashion
Dada
Trash
Hey Stupid
Fistful Of Alice
Brutal Planet
Dirty Diamonds

Fare (some suffering due to over exposure at the moment in here) :-

Constrictor
Raise Your Fist And Yell
Dragontown
Eyes Of Alice Cooper
Along Came A Spider

In an upstairs room .....

Prettied For You
Easy Action
Zipper Catches Skin

my favorite albums are

from the 70s From The Inside

from the 80s Trash

from the 90s Hey Stoopid

from 2000's Brutal Planet

Here's how I categorise them (at the moment...) with some comments to contribute to the discussion:

Classic
1. Love it to Death (the music and lyrics on this one are awesome, excluding Sun Arise which I totally don't get heh)
2. Killer (Halo of Flies, Dead Babies, Killer...what more is there to add?)
3. School's Out (My favourite album...Dennis's bass work really shines on this one)
4. Billion Dollar Babies (some of the songs detract from the overall product in my view, even though for many this is the definitive album...it's my least favourite from the 'classic' ACG albums)
5. Welcome to my Nightmare (the music is, in my humble opinion, not up to the previous 3, but the feeling on this album is great)
6. The Last Temptation (probably my favourite solo album, but I think it loses some steam in the second half - from Unholy War onwards)
7. Brutal Planet (the album that got me into Alice...musically it's a notch down from the 70s stuff in this category but the lyrics are great and the delivery overall is good enough to make it one of Coop's best)

Great
1. From the Inside (the lyrics are mostly good and very personal, the atmosphere is good as well but the music lacks something)
2. Dada (I'm very fond of this one...the lyrics show some of the great elements of old times, the atmosphere is creepy and it closes with one of my all time favourite songs)
3. Hey Stoopid (the pop-metal trend continues but this one sounds more 'Alice' to me...Might as well be on Mars is a classic ballad in my view)


Good
1. Easy Action (early signs of things to come...some of the work is quite interesting)
2. Muscle of Love (some really good songs but overall it's far from being a classic)
3. Goes to Hell (some very good songs, other are quite weak...and I'm not a big fan of the change in sound)
4. Flush the Fashion (far from being up to the standards set in the 70s but this one is interesting enough to get categorised as 'good' in my opinion.
5. Special Forces (same as above)
6. Raise your first & yell (I like the music on this one, including the much criticised Kane Roberts....and the last 3 songs are classic Alice)
7. Trash (catchy but a bit too commercial...I love Poison and a couple of others though)
8. The Eyes of Alice Cooper (some great moments, but the music doesn't get enough time to shine and some of the lyrics are far from great)
9. Dirty Diamonds (same as Eyes, although I like it a bit better)
10. Eyes of Alice Cooper (I had great hopes for this one but the music is creepy enough to fit the concept, and the lyrics are a bit poor)

Poor
1. Pretties for you (just can't get into this one)
2. Lace & Whiskey (disco take over....I only like 3 songs off this one, and that's when I'm being kind to it)
3. Zipper Catches Skin (this one gives L&W a good run for its money in the 'worst album' contest)
4. Constrictor (can't get past that drum machine)
5. Dragontown (sounds to me like a collection of Brutal Planet leftovers...although I was totally into it on original release, Triggerman and Dragontown are the only 2 songs I still like)

It's hard to categorize as at this point I've found somthing to love in every Coop album. My tastes shift over time but this is where I'm at now after being a fan for 22 years:

Classic: LITD, KILLER, SO, BDB, WTMN & TLT

Great: GTH, RYFAY, FTI, TEOAC, FTF, ZCS, SF, DADA

Good: EA, HS, TRASH, MOL, BP, DT, DD & ACAS

Fair: L&W, CONSTRICTOR, PFY

Classic albums: Love it to death, Killer, Billion Dollar Babies, Welcome To My Nightmare, From The Inside, Hey Stoopid, The Last Temptation

Great albums: School's out, Muscle of Love, Flush The Fashion, DaDa, Constrictor, Raise Your Fist and Yell, Trash, Brutal Planet, Dirty Diamonds

Good albums: Easy Action, Goes to Hell, Special Forces, Zipper Catches Skin, DragonTown, Eyes of AC, Along Came a Spider

Fair: Pretties for You, Lace and Whiskey,

Classic

Any album with the Original ACG Members is a CLASSIC

Great

WTMN, GTH

Fair

Everything else...

I don't have time to categorize every Alice Cooper album (But this list will have most of them) but I think Killer, School's out, Welcome to my nightmare, From the inside, Dada and The last tempation are classics.

Dragontown, Brutal planet and Goes to hell, Easy action and Dirty diamonds are excellent.

Zipper catches skin, Pretties for you, The eyes of Alice Cooper, Trash, ACAS and Billion dollar babies are good. I love songs from B$B live but for some reason the studio album itself never represented me anything magical.

Special Forces has some of the most horrible AC material on it and Muscle of love and Constrictor are only slightly better. So those are the bad ones.

Mostly the same for me too - as its very difficult to put albums into catergories. However, in my most humble attempt:-

CLASSIC - Killer, Schools Out, B $ B and WTMN.

GREAT - Love it to Death, Special Forces (my personal favourite), Flush the Fashion, Last Temptation and Eyes of AC.

MOST UNDERESTIMATED - Probably Zipper, Dada, Dragontown and Hey Stoopid.

OK-ISH - Raise your fist and yell, Trash and Along Came a Spider.

GARBAGE DISPOSAL - Its gotta be DIRTY DIAMONDS, which has to be the WORSE thing that Alice has ever made. Its just too painful to listen to.

Headbangers Ball wrote:


GARBAGE DISPOSAL - Its gotta be DIRTY DIAMONDS, which has to be the WORSE thing that Alice has ever made. Its just too painful to listen to.

I was incapable of putting anything into the 'Garbage' category. I do have 2 that get far less play in our house than all others, but still appreciate them.

I guess that's what makes Alice so great...the diversity of 'sounds' over the years. So many of us differ in opinions of albums, but all share that same common denominator.

I had mentioned Dragontown as an album that I actually love, but Dirty Diamonds has also got to be one of my favorites. Anyone share this sentiment?