concolz wrote:'Freedom' made a reasonably good single, 'Gail' has a lo-fi charm, whilst 'Prince Of Darkness' is barnstorming for a couple of minutes until KR's widdly, widdly guitar histrionics sucks the life out of it. The rest? For me, it's hair metal horse manure; part two of Alice's Faustian musical pact.
It's Poundland Alice - a cheap, tacky cover with lyrics and music to match. Alice is in fine voice, but almost all the subtlety, stylishness, quirkiness, wittiness, tongue-in-cheek dark humour - the qualities that sets AC apart from the also-rans - has been deliberately bleached out. Instead, we get bludgeoned with lots of 'in your face' metal mediocrity and misogyny, all designed to appeal to those mid-West, Motley Crue-loving, mall kids. (Still, only one more part to go until the real Alice begins to re-emerge.)
I agree that the cover art is awful but I think this was another inside joke that was missed by the fans/public. I remember reading an interview at the time that the album cover was "awful" on purpose. The promotion of the album was geared to metalheads and those that worshipped independent European metal bands and the cover was a nod to the awful looking/cheesy/poor quality artwork that 90% of those albums contained. The album was not marketed as "hair metal" but straight ahead metal/hard rock. The album has nothing in common with Bon Jovi, Europe and the rest of the crap of that era. It was in-your-face metal--and the tour was the furtherst thing from a mainstream friendly concert. Live In The Flesh was very intense, brutal and graphic. It was the furthest thing from hair metal.
Constrictor was hair metal but the Nightmare Returns show was not and the Live In The Flesh made that tour look like a comedy. I think Alice and Shep were on the fence about which way to go and were testing the winds so to speak. Once Alice rebuilt his brand and reputation to the point they could lauch him back into superstardom they decided to go totally mainstream---and it worked beautifully.
I remember something being written at the time about how in every television appearance, personal appearance, etc that Alice would always be seen in the same "costume" which was what he wore on the cover of Trash. This was all done in the name of marketing and building "the brand". The whole Trash album and tour was an incredibly calculated piece of corporate business savy--which worked like a charm.
I look at it this way--the hair metal years and namely the success of Trash solidified Alice as a legend. It was this period that made it possible for Alice to continue doing Alice for the rest of his career. Even though I hate it--I love what it did for Alice and his career.
As far as the "real" Alice is concerned--which is the real Alice? 1969 Alice? 1974 Alice? Welcome To My Nightmare Alice? Maurice Escargot? Gary Numan Alice? Special Forces Alice (my favorite look by the way), Hair metal Alice? 2014 Alice? Alice Cooper always has and still is much more than the classic "horror" Alice. I can't wait for the day when Alice lets his hair turn to it's natural gray, cuts it short,takes off the make-up, puts on a jacket and tie and does an album of crooning standards and announce that this is the real Alice. I'd love to see him do this just to piss everybody off.
