never sold out.
For their entire career
HAS ALICE COOPER SOLD OUT?
Burning question and review by Lester Bangs
ANYBODY attempting to mate rock with
traditional concepts of theatrics is. by
definition, involved in a risky business, be-
cause rock is its own self-contained theater.
When Jerry Lee Lewis pounded his piano
with his feet, or when Chuck Berry rocked
back and duckwalked across the stage, or
even when Pete Townshend of the Who first
smashed his guitar to bits-all of these
events were so dramatic on their own that
they needed no further embellishment. This
is one of the things that gives rock its special
strength, and this is also why someone like
Truman Capote can say, in his Rolling
Stone interview -rap with Andy Warhol. that
Mick Jagger is not a singer at all, but an ac-
tor. Because rock-and-roll is basically an at-
titude, a stance, a posture.
So anytime somebody tries to beef it up
by injecting nonmusical elements from stage
drama, extraneous "plots," or extensive
choreography and use of props, it's bound to
come off as rather artificial. Take the case of
a group like the Doors, who were pioneers
of the rock -as -theater gambit: at the begin-
ning of their career they were hailed by crit-
ics and record -buying kids alike as apoca-
lyptic entities, betes noires, the last word in
the avant-garde. But by the time their third
album was out, even many of their formerly
strongest fans were beginning to find them
just a wee bit . . . well, teenybopperish,
bubblegummy.
92
Which is not to say that theatrical rock
can't be enormously powerful-certainly
the Doors were (at their peak at least), in
spite of being ludicrously pretentious and
juvenile. Now a band named after its leader,
Alice Cooper, is going much the same route
as the Doors-early rejection as too "far
out." cult favoritism, enormous success,
bigger and more elaborate presentations,
dilution of original power, and now dismiss-
al by the youth -market cognoscenti. Alice
Cooper has indeed, as their early defenders
claimed, taken rock -as -theater light years
beyond where the Doors (or anybody else)
had before. In six albums and related stage
shows they have thrown costumes, props,
air raid sirens, wind machines, switchblade
knives, giant balloons, manikins, dollar bills,
plenty of beer, and the kitchen sink into
their act: they exploited the current sexual -
identity crisis of the mass of American
youth in much the same way novelist Har-
old Robbins might have, creating something
as crass, mindless, and irresistible as The
Besy, and in that high -geared machine they
cruised all the way to superstardom and mil-
lionaire status. Now they're one of the big-
gest draws in the world, their current tour
(which ties in with their latest album, "Bil-
lion Dollar Babies") is the largest -grossing
rock band tour in history, and most of their
old fans are lamenting their "sell-out."
What a load of crap! Alice Cooper has
they've been too busy buying in. The very
jacket of their new album is a wallet, in line
with the record's concept -a future in which
affluent youth rules. No matter which side of
the cash register you're on, Alice Cooper is.
as Dori McMartin has said, the biggest
shopping center in the world; their nev,,
show, besides a guillotine and giant tooth-
brushes chasing teeth with Betty Grable
legs, features a solid rippling bank of neon
bulbs in a set so much like a hip boutique it's
incredible. Alice himself looks like some-
thing out of a boutique - wrapped in tinfoil
with a flower in his mouth -and if they have
been consistently calculating about selling
themselves through their entire career, the
Coopers are at least honest about it in "Bil-
lion Dollar Babies."
Unfortunately, however, in coming out of
the showbiz closet far enough to sing some-
thing like Hello Hooray ("Let the show be-
gin/I'm ready . . . ") or / Love the Dead,
they also lay the tombstone on any preten-
sions they might ever have had to living up
to those early claims of innovation and pro-
fundity. Mothers may not like to see their
fourteen -year -old daughters walk in the
front door with this record, but it is also true
that Alice Cooper is as old-fashioned as
anything in Vegas, and that it will sell pri-
marily to fourteen -year -olds because that's
who it's aimed at. Sick Things is no more
depraved than a Saturday afternoon mons-
ter movie on TV, and Alice Cooper will
quite likely fulfill a lifelong dream by ending
up as a network cartoon show. Hell, this
album's even got individual group -member
and live -action pinup punchouts, a la Donny
Osmond and the Partridge Family, as well
as a big Alice Cooper Dollar Bill poster. It's
a toy through and through.
A of which makes it, in the argot of
yesterday's hippies, plastic. But so what?
Artifice is fun too, and nobody knows that
as well as Alice Cooper. The only downer in
the whole thing is that these guys have on
occasion been a truly gutsy, slashing rock 'n'
roll band in the classic mold. Instead of ful-
filling the promise inherent in earlier works
like "Killer," they have opted for becoming
the Burton -Taylor of rock - except that, un-
like Liz and Dick, they haven't had a bomb
yet. "Billion Dollar Babies" cost far more
than any of their previous albums, in spite of
the fact that it's hardly what you'd call a
great achievement-more in the minor di-
versions category. But every penny spent on
that big production and all its gilt -lined tinsel
has paid off, because the album was gold
upon release. Obviously they know what
they're doing. Toast them, then, as supreme
American businessmen. And, since they're
about as dangerous or truly "sick" as a Mat-
tel robot, buy the record for your kids.
ALICE COOPER: Billion Dollar Babies.
Alice Cooper, Michael Bruce, Dennis Dun-
away, Glen Buxton, Neal Smith (vocals and
instrumentals). Hello Hooray; Raped and
Freezin': Elected: Billion Dollar Babies;
Unfinished Sweet: No More Mister Nice
Guy; Generation Landslide; Sick Thing.s.
Mary -Ann: I Love the Dead. WARNER BROS.
BS 2685 $5.98, ® A 2685 $8.98. OO M8
2685 $6.98, M5 2685 $6.98.
STEREO REVIEW