Style: hard rock, new wave
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1982
Home: n/a
Members: Alice Cooper ~ vocals/synthesizer
Dick Wagner, Mike Pinera ~ guitar
Erik Scott ~ bass
Jan Uvena ~ drums
Additional: John Nitzinger, Billy Steele ~ guitars
Duane Hitchings ~ synthesizer
Craig Krampf ~ percussion
Frannie Golde, Joanne Harris, Flo & Eddie, Patty Donahue ~ b. vocals
As the 1980's dawned, the king of shock rock, Alice Cooper, was floundering under the haze of alcoholism & declining commercial success. He was at the lowest point of his life & career. He would soon team-up with Rambo looking guitarist Kane Roberts for two albums of a heavier more abrasive sound, yet with one toe still in the nightmare/horror shock antics & lyrics that fans were accustomed to. That new musical face would not reach the commercial heights A.C. was looking for, but would spin him in the right direction for an international break through with Poison masterminded by songwriter/producer Desmond Child. From then on A.C. would never be out of the spotlight for long. More importantly, his time with Roberts would refashion the Alice character into a hard rockin' leather pants wearin' character that had more in common with a pimp than the drugged out nightmare creature that A.C. had built his reputation on. This new hard rock Alice would become the character he'd wear through the present day. But, before this permanent facelift A.C. went through many faces after the dissolution of the band Alice Cooper. Some of this due to changing music styles & finding himself musically as a solo musician. Some of it due to the influence of his growing substance abuse. By the time of 1982's Zipper Catches Skin Alice had been dumped for a new character in a 1930's detective, been turned into a soldier from the future & now, according to the album photo, was gone completely. No more make-up. No more costumes. Just a tie & normal look. Essentially, no more Alice Cooper the character. One might say he's become Mr. Nice Guy from the photo. The new non-existent Alice was an easy sell over the old Alice that had scared parents. The music also reflected this change by being the most commercially friendly album in a few years, particularly after the cold militaristic meets punk Special Forces. The fact that A.C. would soon be putting on the make-up again & changing styles is a sign that this experiment didn't work any better than the preceding ones when it came down to commercial sales & fan response. Zipper Catches Skin might be more famous for its odd cover than any of its ten songs, which doesn't say much about the music. There are moments here of great playing, like "Make That Money (Scrooge's Song)" has a guitar riff that reaches back to the Alice Cooper band. Yet, other times the album feels lacking, like something is missing, or A.C. just doesn't know what he wants musically. While A.C. also has some stand out vocal moments, like in the above song & "I Am The Future", but too often the results lack something. It is almost as if by abandoning the character he also abandoned the gentle push that turned an Alice Cooper album into more than just some hard rock songs, but an experience that nobody else could do. There's only one Alice Cooper, tons of imitators, but here we end up asking where is Alice? Alice is gone & in his place we have ten songs with ten characters we've never met, don't know who they are, don't have any attachment to, & will never meet them again. A.C. needs kudos for giving each character their own voice, as there's no confusing one song for another, yet by touching on ten characters we never get to sink into their lives like we did when Alice went to hell or how we met Steven, or suffering with Alice when he was calling out in pain from the inside. Which all leads to the problem of the album: to quote Hamlet's Polonius, its in the words, words, words. Even with A.C. exploring his vocal palette & the band creating some interesting musical landscapes, credit to guitarist Dick Wagner & his always great playing, the album is hurt by the lyrics. A.C. churns out a collection of nightmarish songs about some people you might not want to meet, but the lyrics often end up being more corny than interesting or memorable. Many A.C. albums have had elements of slapstick tongue-in-cheek comedy, yet it is often a side effect of the unexpected juxtaposition of different elements. The devil laughs, but underneath it is a vicious plan. Here A.C. seems to rely too much on the comedy, perhaps thinking this would be the selling point of the album. Every time A.C. tries to be funny, from his earliest albums to the present, it often ends up being his weakest work. The devil just laughs, nothing menacing underneath it, & thus the laugh is just a laugh. In "Zorro's Ascent" its hard to take seriously "Cause I am the fox/& I go where I want/If heaven ignores me/The devil adores me." It might be fun wordplay, but so was "Billion Dollar Babies" & "Desperado", which both had one singing not giggling. "I Like Girls" might be fine if sung by Motley Crue, but we expect something better from A.C.. Or, the ultra-silly "Adaptable (Anything For You)" with: "If you were Lucy/I'd be your Ricky/When you were juicy/I'd get real sticky/& when you're magic/It makes me tricky, too/ <sic> /Yeah, I'm a Sony/You're Panasonic/I'm heavy metal/You're philharmonic." It just goes nowhere. This lyrical approach has been done other times by A.C., such as in "Lost In America" that would come in a decade on The Last Temptation, but that opened up a concept album introducing a situation of hope. It had somewhere to take the wordplay. The highlight of the album is "I Am The Future", which sounds a lot like what would be heard in a few years on Poison. Keyboards give way to wild guitars & some laser sound effects, but in a primitive form that relies too much on sound effects where screaming guitars would be better. The lyrics dump the comedy for some great lyrics of a soul calling out for help. Its classic solo A.C. with "Take a look at my face/I am the future/How do you like what you see?/Take a look at my face/I belong to the future/& you belong to me." This song needs a re-visit, but with a different arrangement that is less cosmic & more emotional.
No comments:
Post a Comment