At #85 in my personal countdown of top musical artists from the past four years is a heavy metal artist who took the name of his original band as his legal name and went on to have a successful career spanning five decades. He has been known to play with dolls on stage, as well as big snakes. He’s a guy with a girl’s name, and he’s not Marilyn Manson—he was performing music before Marilyn Manson was even ten years old.

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#85: Alice Cooper

According to Wikipedia, Alice Cooper was originally the name of a band. Then the lead singer, Vincent Damon Furnier, took the name Alice Cooper as his legal name. The Alice Cooper songs that I like the best are from the band, released in 1971 through 1973. Here’s a video of my favorite Alice Cooper track. It doesn’t matter to me that the lyrics have next to no meaning. To me, this is art.

Video (Live Recording): Alice Cooper – Billion Dollar Babies

It was actually a toss up for most favorite Alice Cooper track between the title track from Billion Dollar Babies and this next song. But over the last four years, I listened to the Billion Dollar Babies track a few times more. This next song is also from the Billion Dollar Babies album. The video is from 1973, while Alice Cooper still referred to the band, not the solo artist. In this video, the man who was to later legally become Alice Cooper gives evidence as to why he is not a nice guy. Don’t ask me what he is doing with those things he hangs from his pants. He was quite possibly drunk during this performance, and didn’t know what he was doing either.

Video (Live Recording): Alice Cooper – No More Mr. Nice Guy

I actually owned a vinyl copy of Billion Dollar Babies once upon a time. My parents didn’t appreciate it, and my dad was quite vocal about it, but then, my dad thought all rock music was of the devil, and he told me so. He got onto my case so much about it that one day I couldn’t take it any more. To get him to shut up I lifted my portable radio over my head and dashed it to bits on the ground. I could tell by the look in his eyes that he hadn’t meant to drive me to that extreme, and when I got another radio after that, he didn’t hassle me about the music I played. But I also tried not to play my music around him.

Nevertheless, when I listen to this next song from Billion Dollar Babies, I can understand why my dad considered the music to which I listened not to be appropriate for a teenager. But it’s not like I was going to violate a corpse just because I listened to some song. It simply stoked my imagination to listen to lyrics that to me were so totally absurd yet delivered with such conviction.

Video (Live Recording w/ Interview): Alice Cooper – I Love the Dead

This next song is also on the Billion Dollar Babies album, and is just plain sick.

Video (Live Recording): Alice Cooper – Sick Things

Okay, so I’m dwelling on the album Billion Dollar Babies, but there are a couple more good hits from it. And you didn’t need to hear School’s Out again anyway.

Video (Live Recording): Alice Cooper – Hello Hooray

Did I mention that the Billion Dollar Babies album reached #1 on the US album charts? This next song, also from Billion Dollar Babies, nearly always gets a lot of air play every four years, during the presidential campaigns. Boycott lettuce!

Video: Alice Cooper – Elected

Okay, let’s jump back even further in time to check out a song from an earlier Alice Cooper album, Killer.

Video (Live Recording): Alice Cooper – Under My Wheels

Here’s another song from Killer that caused a bit of controversy back in the day. The title gives the impression that the song is about babies that are killed, but if you pay attention to the lyrics, you’ll see that they’re about neglecting your kids and the possible horrific consequences.

Video (Live Recording): Alice Cooper – Dead Babies

Skipping forward in time to after Alice Cooper became a solo act, here’s proof that Alice Cooper can sing a tender ballad when he wants. This video is from a 2005 performance. The song is originally from the album Welcome to my Nightmare.

Video (Live Recording): Alice Cooper – Only Women Bleed

From the album Trash, here’s the video for what is possibly Alice Cooper’s most popular song. I like it, too, just not as much as some of his other ones.

Video: Alice Cooper – Poison

And what is Alice Cooper up to these days? He’s doing a world tour this year, which doesn’t seem to include the US. (Not that I go to many concerts these days.) A couple of months ago he released a re-issue of his latest album, Along Came A Spider, with three bonus tracks not on the original release of the album in 2008. Here’s a short film featuring three of the songs from the 2008 release. He doesn’t sound like a 60-year-old singer. He sounds good to me.

Video: Alice Cooper – Vengeance Is Mine / (In Touch With Your) Feminine Side / Killed By Love

No guns were used in the making of any of these videos. But there are plenty of other accoutrements of death. It’s all make believe. Just remember that, kiddies.

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Dekh’s Picks:

My friend dekh has suggested these Alice Cooper videos, the first one to demonstrate the likely influence of the Rocky Horror Picture Show on Cooper, the second to demonstrate the likelihood of Gary Numan’s influence on Cooper. I’d not seen either video before, and find them right entertaining!

Video (Live Recording): Alice Cooper – Who Do You Think We Are?

Video: Alice Cooper – Clones (We’re All)

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Reader Recommended Similar Video:

Here’s a video suggested by dekh to help demonstrate the possible influence of Gary Numan on Alice Cooper’s work in the 80s.

Video: Gary Numan – Down In The Park

Thanks, dekh!

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