Thursday, May 9, 2013
Alice Cooper "Billion Dollar Babies" [1973]
If you've never heard Alice Cooper's music before, be prepared to recoil in horror… though not for the reason you may think. From the early 70s to present, the public's capacity to handle grotesque imagery has grown exponentially, rendering Ms. Cooper's Halloweenie camp rock star bit a quaint amusement in the modern age. Far more offensive are "Billion Dollar Babies"' musical contents: cartoonish hard rock schlock that would make Elton John cringe, the residue of pinheaded prog elements from the band's earlier incarnation, a kindergarten-level intellect and -- worst of all -- the aggressively mediocre teflon-coated recording quality of future Kiss producer Bob Ezrin. Antiseptic, edgeless guitar tracks finally prove Kryptonite to the Marshall stack due to Ezrin's anal-retentive hackery, which proved him to be the Lex Luthor of rock music, leaving the genre vulnerable to the virus of disco soon to be bubbling up on Fire Island. Naturally, the execs at Warner Brothers gave "Billion Dollar Babies" a huge push; major labels had by then finally realized they could cage and control their talent, even and especially if said talent is prone to overcompensating by playing with snakes onstage.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment