This Week’s Podcast – Alice Cooper
It is absolutely positively CRIMINAL that Alice Cooper is not in the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. While Robbie Robertson and other exalted insiders have left the boards, are sitting behind a desk instead of standing in front of a microphone, Alice Cooper is out KILLING night after night and those in power, with their multi-thousand dollar suits and private jets, are IGNORING HIM!
I’m against clubs. Because it’s always about us and them. Or maybe I’ve just been an outsider too many times in my life. But, if you’re gonna have an organization lauding artistic breakthroughs, and excellence, you’ve got to induct Alice Cooper LIGHT YEARS before Blondie and the rest of the dreck now passing through the doors of the Hall.
Or maybe these guys just hate what Alice represented. A ton of alcohol. And testing LIMITS! Alice pushed them way before the faux gangsters on MTV.
But as dramatic and challenging and ENTERTAINING as Vince Furnier’s live show was, a great deal of the music was positively AMAZING! Not only the instrumentation, and the changes, and the riffs, but the LYRICS!
What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is revered as a generational breakthrough but "Eighteen" is ignored. Shit, the Nirvana song has got a great riff, but its words don’t COMPETE with those of the Alice Cooper anthem.
I want you to go back and listen to "Killer". Like the kids. The ones with barely any pubic hair who are going in droves to see Alice perform. "Under My Wheels" is a better opener than anything the Stones have done in decades, and ranks right up there with THEIR best album introducing tracks.
And if you didn’t dig "Halo Of Flies" when this record came out, you were just too uptight.
The reason Lester Bangs is revered is he wasn’t too hip to call them like he saw them. Not too inside to say an act that appeared to be all about the clothing had delivered a masterpiece.
Yes, Lester turned me on to "Killer". And hopefully, if he were alive, he would boycott an organization like the Hall Of Fame for veering from its true mission.
Bob Ezrin might be legendary for the work he did with Pink Floyd on "The Wall", but he cut his chops with Alice Cooper. He’s never done better work. Not that the pricks at the R&RHOF know this. But thank god LISTENERS, FANS, DO!!
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