RYF&Y. vs. Dragontown

[Mr.Bluelegs]

Been awhile for one of these. Two average releases with both strong and weak tunes. For me, Raise Your First wins. Side 2 is great. Your turn...

[tim10cc]

I like most of RYF&Y...wasn't big on Give the radio back & Time to kill


Dragontown, I like most of the tracks, the ones that didn't stick with me were "Somewhere in the jungle" "Sister Sara" "Every Woman Has a Name" "The Sentinel"

Both have good memories for me. Both tours were pretty decent too.

[evil syd]

DRAGONTOWN!
I love this album, very underrated!
"Raise your Fists........"
Well, it has a few good tracks. I find the "Coop Hair Metal days" his weakest era.

[DracoFidus]

I've gotta go for Dragontown. RYF&Y is great and they both have about the same amount of excellent tracks and weak tracks but the style and flair of Dragontown has more going for it than the kinda simplistic FYF&Y in my opinion.

[concolz]

'Freedom' made for quite a good single and 'Prince Of Darkness' has some clever wordplay. The rest? Hair-metal nonsense, with the sort of misogynistic, sexist lyrics more associated with twerps like Motley Crue. Alice has done plenty of 'nasty' before and since but always with style, panache and tongue-in-cheek; the virtual absence of humour and wit during the hair-metal years is probably the worst aspect. RYFAY's got a crap cover as well.

For me, Dragontown is almost the equal of it's brilliant twin Brutal Planet. IMO the start of the millennium saw Alice completely rejuvenated both musically and lyrically. He deserves lots of kudos for writing about the Rwandan genocide in 'Somewhere In The Jungle' and I'd say the only weak spot is 'Sister Sara', a rather ordinary plodder. Overall, a very good album.

[cooperrocks]

RYFAY by a long shot. Brutal Planet was such an epic album and I thought Dragontown was nowhere close to being as good as that album. RYFAY was a very entertaining album that blew Constrictor out of the water in my opinion. I still enjoy revisiting RYFAY from time to time.

[andyrew]

Raise your fist and yell all the way!

In my opinion, this is the only Alice album that has creepy humour matched with a very fast beat. Dragontown is a great companion to Brutal Planet in its own right, but it doesn't have the twisted dark humour that an Alice album should have with that fast beat. When I listen to RYFAY, I know that I'm listening to:

1) A twisted album with a fast fist pumping beat
2) An album without a ballad that slows it down
3) A story that works a lot better than ACAS
4) An album that doesn't take itself too seriously

If Alice followed up RYFAY with something even creepier as opposed to Hey Stoopid, I think it could have been one of his more darker and edgier sounding albums.

[A_MichaelUK]

>If Alice followed up RYFAY with something even creepier as opposed to Hey Stoopid

I assume you mean "Trash".

[evil syd]

I assume you mean "Trash".

Exactly! and Trash was Coop's most commercial album.
To be honest, comparing DT and RUF&Y really shouldn't be compared. Completely two different types of albums. DT is one of his more serious, with some warpness added, albums and a complete different musical direction.
btw, as a side note, RYF&Y has "Roses On White Lace", which is to me, a classic!

[Daggers & Contracts]

btw, as a side note, RYF&Y has "Roses On White Lace", which is to me, a classic!

You've got that right!

[pitkin88]

As much of a lame dog RYFAY yell is I prefer it over Dragontown which just plods and plods and plods.
Triggerman is the only good song on it and Disgraceland is just mean spirited.

[Mr.Bluelegs]

Pitkin- good way to describe DT- "plodding". I was disappointed when it came out, nowhere near BP, tried hard to get into it, but the majority of it just "plodded" along. The bad overshadowed the few decent tunes. I broke it out about a year ago, but still no air! Couldn't
get into it.

[dadascot]

I was so disappointed with both these albums when they came out, I found both lyrically weak and cliched, musically both pretty much devoid of melody and worse of all Alice's singing was really rough, but last year I thought to give them both another chance and listened to them repeatedly to give them another chance and now I find them........the exact same as before!

[ThePainAddict]

I love both lps, I think DT was a worthy sequel to BP. As far as Disgraceland being "mean spirited"--I love that song, and as a bonus, it was the first time in a long time that I found out that Alice could still offend people. I knew a lot of rock fans who in other discussions had no religious beliefs at all, but really didn't like Alice putting Elvis in hell.
Although I prefer to think of it as very witty commentary and not an actual pronouncement.

[andyrew]

Woops can't believe I forgot about Trash! Thanks Andy.

I agree that RYFAY isn't comparable to Dragontown. These are 2 different albums in 2 different eras.

After Alice's cover album, I hope he comes back with an album like RYFAY with more of a fully rounded concept though. Maybe something that follows Alice in hell...Goes 2 Hell...a more brutal, darker hell than the first time with some first pumping tracks like Freedom. And after that he can complete the nightmare trilogy with Welcome to my Nightmar3! That would be awesome!

[HORRORHOLIC]

Well Raise Your Fist And Yell is my favorite Alice Cooper album so obviously that.

[HORRORHOLIC]

Woops can't believe I forgot about Trash! Thanks Andy.

I agree that RYFAY isn't comparable to Dragontown. These are 2 different albums in 2 different eras.

After Alice's cover album, I hope he comes back with an album like RYFAY with more of a fully rounded concept though. Maybe something that follows Alice in hell...Goes 2 Hell...a more brutal, darker hell than the first time with some first pumping tracks like Freedom. And after that he can complete the nightmare trilogy with Welcome to my Nightmar3! That would be awesome!

YES!!!