SONG OF THE DAY - Its the sixth of ROCTOBER, which puts us in 1971 and a breakthrough album of a rock legend with todays choice of Favorite Albums Through The Years. Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier, February 4, 1948) is an American rock singer, songwriter, and musician whose career spans five decades. With a stage show that features guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, boa constrictors, baby dolls, crutch and dueling sword , considered by fans and peers alike to be The Godfather of Shock Rock; Cooper has drawn equally from horror movies, vaudeville, and garage rock to pioneer a grandly theatrical and macabre brand of rock designed to shock. Originating in Phoenix in the late 1960s after Furnier moved from Detroit, Alice Cooper was originally a band consisting of Furnier on vocals and harmonica, lead guitarist Glen Buxton, Michael Bruce on rhythm guitar, Dennis Dunaway on bass guitar, and drummer Neal Smith. With the exception of Smith, who graduated from Camelback High School, all of the band members were on the Cortez High School cross-country team, and many of Coopers stage effects were inspired by their cross-country coach, Emmett Smith. Cooper, Buxton and Dunaway were also art students, and their admiration for the works of surrealist artists such as Salvador Dalí would further inspire their future stage antics. After securing an audition with composer and renowned record producer Frank Zappa, who was looking for bizarre new music acts, the group was signed to his new record label, Straight Records. Following the commercial disappointment of the bands first two albums, PRETTIES FOR YOU (1969) and EASY ACTION (1970), and fed up with Californians indifference to their act, the Alice Cooper band relocated to Oakland County, Michigan, where their bizarre stage act was much better received by the crowds of the Midwest states who were accustomed to the similar hard rock styles of local bands such as the Stooges and the MC5. It was also around this time that the group teamed up with producer Bob Ezrin for the recording of their third album, LOVE IT TO DEATH, which is also todays album pick. Ezrin, protege of record giant Jack Richardson, helped clean up the bands sound with fresh ideas, making it more accessible. (It would be the first of eleven Alice Cooper group and solo albums produced by Ezrin, who is widely seen as being instrumental in helping to create and develop the bands definitive sound.) This was the final album in their Straight Records contract and the bands last chance to create a hit. That first success came with the single Im Eighteen, which reached number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1971. Not long after the albums release in January 1971 Warner Bros. Records purchased Alice Coopers contract from Straight and re-issued the album, giving the group a higher level of promotion. LOVE IT TO DEATH proved to be their breakthrough album, reaching number 35 on the U.S. Billboard 200 album charts. The album cover caused much controversy at the time of its release. Early pressings show Cooper holding his cape around him in such a way to give the illusion of an exposed penis. This led Warner Brothers to censor it (nine different versions of the front cover exist on LP in Canada and the U.S. combined). Alice Coopers thumb along with his right arm is clearly airbrushed out on censored versions. Along with Im Eighteen, LOVE IT TO DEATH also contained the hits Ballad Of Dwight Fry and todays song pick Is It My Body, along with fan faves Caught In A Dream, Long Way To Go and the Doors like Black Juju . Coincidentally, it was also the first album I ever owned by the band, and Ive been a fan ever since. youtu.be/hdvRvqpI2A8
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 12:57:57 +0000
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