note: misanthropaganda is so much more fun when you view it on your desktop or laptop. Your tablet is fine I guess, as is your phone, but for full enjoyment and understanding of the artist's (ha ha) vision, take my suggestion. It gives the posts a look that's a bit more reminiscent of an old 90's fanzine layout, which is the whole point of this bullshit blog...
Today marks the 45th anniversary of Alice Cooper's Welcome To My Nightmare. Despite having about six irons in the fire right now as far as writing is concerned I wanted to post in acknowledgement of this dope record to commemorate. I won't sit and tell you that Alice Cooper was a huge part of my musical diet in my youth because such is not really the case. Quite frankly I didn't really start to appreciate his particular genius until recently, as in the last decade or so. However, my earliest memories of discovering Rock N'Roll do include seeing Alice Cooper footage on a then infant network called MTV which actually played music videos, good music videos if you can imagine that! There on the screen were these images of this fucking freak with a python around his neck and creepy eye makeup, rocking out on a stage with a fucking guillotine behind him. Can you imagine the impression that an image like that can make on a young mind which up until that point had only seen the likes of Latin Jazz orchestras or crooners like Julio Iglesias? It was disturbing and yet instantly enthralling all at the same time.
Alice's name is synonymous with the term Shock Rock. Sam Dunn's notable sociological works in the field of Heavy Metal and it's five million sub-genres already determined that Alice wasn't ground zero. Dunn's research predates Shock Rock to the likes of Arthur Brown and Screaming Jay Hawkins, but those earlier names have fallen sadly out of relevance either through death or old age. Alice Cooper remains active, not only that, but also he is revered by the contemporary (not so much) guard of Shock Rockers like Marilyn Manson and that gavone Rob Zombie. To declare Coop the sitting king at this point wouldn't be a stretch... To me Alice is a reminder that in the end Rock N'Roll is show biz, it has to entertain, which he most certainly did. Alice's formula was somewhat unheard of in its time but has been rehashed ad nauseum since!
Prior to Welcome To My Nightmare, the name Alice Cooper referred to the band itself whom had released seven albums together. One of these was 1971's Killer, regarded by some as a quintessential proto-Metal album. In the spring of 1974 Cooper the man, along with Lou Reed's live band began working on 'Nightmare. It was released the following year to some unfavorable reviews, but hindsight typically provides 20/20 for eyes blurred from brilliance, and so later on this record received some due. Ironically, some big deal music journal or another rated this album's front cover in the 100 greatest album covers of all time, and I personally think the cover kind of sucks!
You couldn't imagine the relevance that I'm finding in this album in my middle age. The opening lines alone seem to speak directly to me in the zero hour of my insanity:
"Welcome to my nightmare/ I think you're gonna like it/ I think you're gonna feel you belong"
This was a concept record, and so some of it tends to come off as a musical, or like cabaret music ("Some Folks"), but never fear, for no one hates musicals more than myself and I happen to love this album. It's an entertaining listen and has a reasonable running time so it never feels as if it's dragging on. As I wrote this I played it on loop three times and still wanted to go back and cherry pick a couple of cuts. So take it from me, on this the 45th birthday of this work, give it a spin before the end of the weekend and show this thing some respect. You may want to get good and loaded too, in tribute to Alice's self-admitted problems with alcohol.
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