Alice considering re-recording some early 80's material

[Daggers & Contracts]

To darkmenance
I have PM'd A_MichaelUK- you will get a response. Are you afraid it won't get played out on the Board? Can't you see this has played itself out or can we get back to the original discussion.
Which I believe centers around AC updating a few tunes to current standards.

[killer wolf]

i remember the good old days when this site was fun to visit and not a kindergarten of trolls bitching and flaming constantly.

[Si]

People complain that the thread has gone off topic, as conversations tend to do, yet don`t post anything about the topic themselves?
If no one posts about the topic it will never get back to it.

[A_MichaelUK]

From Daggers & Contracts:
"I have PM'd A_MichaelUK- you will get a response."

I did receive a message from darkmenace but given that he or she has sent two long replies here (the last two posts) as well, I'm not sure if I should reply to them here in the interests of fairness (to me) or in private. I am happy to let the moderators decide.

[kevinuk81]

Should Alice re-record some early 80's material? Will it be worth it financially? I doubt it. Is there enough interest from people who know about these albums? I doubt it. Would I buy them? No, heard them and never liked them, maybe the odd song seemed okay, but no interest in buying any the albums. Does Alice seriously want to go back over 30 years instead of looking ahead? I have no idea, only he can answer that.

[Si]

Should Alice re-record some early 80's material?

If he wants to.
Personally as someone who also thinks that there are some good songs there that could maybe be recorded better I'd be interested in hearing the results. You wouldn`t want to turn them into heavy metal versions or anything (yuck) but I think there could be improvements made if someone like Ezrin was involved. Call it reimaginings haha

Will it be worth it financially?

No. Probably not. At least no more then any other release. No one would be rushing to buy it. It would have to be purely because Alice wanted to do it.
I think the best way to do it would be as a digital EP or bonus tracks on something.

[Daggers & Contracts]

I can go for some tweaking on a few tunes & add them as bonus tracks to the covers album (or another) but as a whole I don't see a demand that would offset the cost.
Just tossing a "Live" recording of an older tune as a bonus is just the budget way to not return to the studio.

[cooperrocks]

I personally love the early 80's Alice albums with the exception of Zipper Catches Skin, so I would love for them to be rerecorded or remastered, but that like most other things is a personal opinion.

I wasn't planning to chime in on most of this discussion initially, but I feel compelled to comment on the users claiming Constrictor or Trash hurt Alice's "credibility." Once again that comes down to opinion. What makes an artist "credible" or not credible. I love the original band and I love solo Alice both, but frankly I get tired of the argument that the original band did everything right and solo Alice did everything wrong.

Many critics and some fans dislike "Muscle of Love" and believe that album to be disjointed and did little to add to the original band's legacy. Based on some people's opinions, is it fair to say that album hurt the original band's "credibility." The first two albums, Pretties For You and Easy Action weren't well-received or liked by many people, so did the original group immediately ruin their "credibility," of course not but couldn't one argue that.

In addition, Alice Cooper is well-known for his theatrics. Has the theatrical side of Alice ruined his "credibility?" I mean after all, here is a musician who wears demented clown makeup, has many songs about the dead, boa constrictors in the past, etc. Many Alice songs are tongue in cheek and always have been. How many of the albums EVER have been more serious in nature. I would argue that Brutal Planet contains some of the most "credible" lyrics Alice has ever done. My point being Alice has always been about dark humor and entertainment and that is what makes Alice great.

Billion Dollar Babies has songs like "Sick Things" and "I Love the Dead." These are fun songs, not to be taken seriously. How is what Alice was doing back then, any more credible than what he was doing with Constrictor and Trash?" There were plenty of critics and fans who found fault with the lyric content and image of the original band but sometimes that seems to get overlooked as the years go on. Constrictor, though not a huge smash, had a very successful tour bring back the old theatrics and was a fun album. Is it my favorite? No, but it won over some new fans who were too young to remember the 70's material. The Trash album gets criticized on here a lot, which is fine, but it was also Alice's biggest selling album in many years and remains so. It opened him up to a new audience and for many fans, the song "Poison" gets one of the strongest reactions. It got him a lot of press and he was playing bigger venues. Radio began to play him again, which in some people's minds reestablished him as a once again viable, "credible" artist.

Alice Cooper has made a ton of fun music in his career and his shows are fun. Almost everything he has ever done in music is credible in my opinion because I love his solo career every bit as much, if not more than the work of the original band. However, for those who only like the original group's work, nothing Alice ever does frankly is going to satisfy you and for many critics "shock rock," "hair band music," or hard rock and heavy metal in general are never going to be viewed as "credible" by the critics. My long-winded point, it is all subjective as others have repeatedly said.

[patrick]

been wading through all these posts, lot of them interesting to read, and then remembered the Ask Alice question : didn't Alice say he wouldn't touch these albums ?
i would already be pleased to hear some songs in the setlist in the future , eg from dada of special forces...

[tommycooper]

Dada is a great piece of work but Alice's physical and mental state, which obviously played an important part in its creation, is surely not something any fan would want a repeat of. It follows (for me at least) that I loved the Constrictor through to Hey Stoopid period simply because, having feared his death in the early 80s, it was joyous to see him happy, healthy, in the news, touring, making new fans and selling records. I just ignored Thrill My Gorilla (and a few others), raised my glass (and fist)and cheered the return of my 70s idol

[darkmenace]

I won't post any more on the topic of music in general.

I invite Andy to have the final say and respond to my last posts, that's no problem for me. Then we can continue a discussion in private.

And to speak to the topic, I vote with people who don't think it's necessary to go back to the 80s albums, neat idea that it is. They were what they were, they have their place in time. I look forward to new work, perhaps that sequel to Along Came a Spider, which Alice seemed excited about.

[A_MichaelUK]

From cooperrocks:
"I get tired of the argument that the original band did everything right and solo Alice did everything wrong."

This is easily the best post ever on this site (apart from any of mine) and although I was going to pick specific statements from it and comment on them, there's no need as every sentence is exactly and perfectly correct. It is a perfect summary of some of the many threads that have been discussed.

[A_MichaelUK]

From darkmenace:
"I invite Andy to have the final say and respond to my last posts, that's no problem for me. Then we can continue a discussion in private."

It wasn't that I wanted "to have the final say" - I just thought there was no point continuing it here as it strayed so far away from the original topic and by the way, I don't consider you to be a troll and my guess is you don't think I am either, irrespective of what killer wolf thinks.

[pitkin88]

Dada is a great piece of work but Alice's physical and mental state, which obviously played an important part in its creation, is surely not something any fan would want a repeat of. It follows (for me at least) that I loved the Constrictor through to Hey Stoopid period simply because, having feared his death in the early 80s, it was joyous to see him happy, healthy, in the news, touring, making new fans and selling records. I just ignored Thrill My Gorilla (and a few others), raised my glass (and fist)and cheered the return of my 70s idol

Very few people feared his death in the early 80's as very few knew what was going on.

[pitkin88]

From cooperrocks:
"I get tired of the argument that the original band did everything right and solo Alice did everything wrong."

This is easily the best post ever on this site (apart from any of mine) and although I was going to pick specific statements from it and comment on them, there's no need as every sentence is exactly and perfectly correct. It is a perfect summary of some of the many threads that have been discussed.

Bollocks. Apart from someone who is now banned this is a complete exaggeration.

[darkmenace]

Very few people feared his death in the early 80's as very few knew what was going on.

This is true. I was the biggest fan of anyone I knew and I had no idea what his personal life was like. All I knew is he dropped off the map. There was one article in a rock magazine where he was interviewed about ZCS and that was it, but it was pure promo, there was nothing "behind the curtain."

It was obvious something wasn't right, based on seeing him on Tom Snyder and how skinny he looked, just how he was acting in general. Then when Dada came out with no promo at all, and you listened to the album and lyrics, you could tell something was wrong, but in those days there was no way to explore it. (I suppose there may have been, to join a fan club or something and probe, but short of that, nothing.)

[A_MichaelUK]

From pitkin88:
"Bollocks. Apart from someone who is now banned this is a complete exaggeration."

I don't understand what the first part of the second sentence means but in any case. if you can find a better post here that is as concise and clear a summary of different threads, do provide a link to it.