The is the first thing that comes to mind when I hear this album
\ncompared with that oh-so-stinky debut
\nPretties For You<\/i> is how rapidly the Alice Cooper group’s
\nsongwriting and playing skills managed to drastically improve in
\nthe space of only one year.
\nEasy Action<\/i> isn’t a perfect album, but it’s pretty shocking
\nto hear such a colossal improvement over
\nPretties For You<\/i>. This is the classic Alice Cooper band’s
\nlittle known follow up album to their little known debut record,
\nreleased in 1970, only a year before the critical and commercial
\nbreakthrough classic album
\nLove It To Death<\/i>.<\/p>\n
All the signs of the band’s musical direction in the near future
\ncan be found on
\nEasy Action<\/i>. I guess they woke up and realized what a turd
\nof a debut they had put out and by the sound of things managed to
\nget sober enough the second time around in the studio to actually
\nnail down some stellar songwriting. I mean, judging by the lyrics
\nhere I’m pretty much convinced that they must still have been ON
\nsomething, but hey! That’s rock ‘n roll, MAAAAAAAN!!!!<\/p>\n
Yep, those are actually fully developed songs you hear this time
\naround! Isn’t that shocking? Unlike the debut which was 38 minutes
\nof mostly unintelligible noise, each song on
\nEasy Action<\/i> is distinctive from the rest. But keep in mind
\nthat this is a transition album seeing the band mature from
\nnon-sensical crap phase to awesome hard rock songwriting phase, so
\nthere’s a mix of both these aspects throughout the album.<\/p>\n
So without further ado, let’s get down to the nitty gritty: the
\nactual songs. Right off the bat the change in style hits ya like a
\ncloud of weed! I personally feel that there are a few songs on here
\nwhich should have become classics and remained in the live
\nrepertoire, but unfortunately the album bombed…it didn’t even
\nsell as well as
\nPretties For You<\/i> for some ungodly reason, so I guess that’s
\nwhy even the good material on here has become completely
\nforgotten…which really is a shame. Cooper probably hasn’t
\nperformed ANY of this material since 1970, if ever, and I’d bet
\nthat he even doesn’t remember much about this album!<\/p>\n
The first song is “Mr. And Misdemeanor”, which sounds a lot like
\nthe Alice we would come to embrace in later albums. It’s a mid
\ntempo rock tune with prominent piano accompanyment, but the most
\nimportant thing you’ll notice is the first appearance of Alice’s
\nstraight forward poppy singing punctuated with his now famous
\ntrademark frequent bursts of that whiskey soaked hoarse growl to
\nemphasize the good\/evil split personality for that ultimate creepy
\neffect that he would master for the full blown psychotic themes
\nthat were stylistically central to his albums later in his
\ncareer.<\/p>\n
The next song, “Shoe Salesman”, is a pretty bizarre ‘lil
\nnumber… it’s a pretty mellow, mostly acoustic tune and while it’s
\nnot bad, it’s certainly no classic, and the lyrics serve as a prime
\nexample of an utter lack of sobriety! “Still No Air” sounds a bit
\nlike a leftover from the first album with the weird arrangements
\nand unorthodox guitar noises, but it’s still executed a lot better
\nthan anything on that stupid album.<\/p>\n
“Below Your Means” in my opinion is one of the songs on
\nEasy Action<\/i> which is very well crafted and acts as a real
\nglimpse into the band’s future musical direction. Sort of an eerie
\nsong with a catchy melody and some great guitar arrangements before
\nturning into an extended jam. Kinda reminds me of the style on the
\nseminal
\nWelcome To My Nightmare<\/i>.<\/p>\n
“Return Of The Spiders”, the next song, I assume is a reference
\nto the period around 1967 when the band was still in high school
\ntogether and called themselves The Spiders. They sure upped the
\ntempo for this one…just check out the hyperactive bass playing by
\nDennis Dunaway and the blistering drumming by Neal Smith with
\nAlice’s over-the-top snarls! Hardly any guitar on this one
\nthough.<\/p>\n
What I always loved about the original Alice Cooper group is
\nthat each of the band members developed their own unique and
\ninstantly recognizable playing style. This is one of the few bands
\nwhere the drumming and bass work consistently capture as much of
\nthe limelight as the guitars and vocals. I’d be hard pressed to
\nfind another bass player who is as original as Dennis Dunaway. Just
\nas fascinating is that you can’t really pin down the band’s sound;
\nunlike most harder rock bands of the era, there doesn’t seem to be
\nany strong blues influence, but it’s rather more theatrical
\nsounding.<\/p>\n
It may be sacrilege to make comparisons to the Beatles because
\nAlice Cooper, nor anyone else at that time, were quite in the same
\nsongwriting league, but I think that as musicians they were every
\nbit as original. Even John Lennon himself was a fan of Cooper’s
\nmusic, and they regularly got sloshed together!<\/p>\n
Back to the songs…”Laughing At Me” is a beautiful track that
\nshould have been a hit…it’s an early example of the eerie teen
\nangst riddled songs like “I’m 18” and “School’s Out” that would
\nbecome such huge hits for the band over the next few years.<\/p>\n
Now, when you hear “Beautiful Flyaway” I swear you’ll think it
\nmust be a misplaced track or something. This very solid mid-tempo
\npiano tune sounds like a lost Beatles recording! There’s nothing in
\nthis song AT ALL that would indicate it’s Alice Cooper! The most
\nbaffling thing is that Alice himself sounds exactly like Paul
\nMcCartney! Shocking! But awesome!<\/p>\n
Last but not least, the last song on Easy Action is “Lay Down
\nAnd Die, Goodbye”, and is pretty much a seven and a half minute jam
\nwith a bit of singing thrown in in the last thirty seconds. But
\nunlike the nonsensical, disjointed, uninspired, and ill adivised
\ninstrumental jams on the debut record, this one actually seems to
\nhave some structure to it, and it defintitely sounds very dark and
\ncreepy, almost like the soundtrack to a nightmare (foreshadowing
\nyet again)…it’s a perfect tune to throw on the stereo on
\nHallowe’en night to scare them kiddies…MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.<\/p>\n
In closing, this is another obscure snapshot of a band less than
\na year from smashing into the mainstream world unleashing a legacy
\nand impact that remains to this very day three decades later.
\nEasy Action<\/i> is totally a transition album that mixes the
\ntotal freak out weirdoness of the debut with the garagey rock of
\nthe next one,
\nLove It To Death<\/i>, which made them a household name. It’s
\npretty much for die-hard fans only, but it’s very interesting to
\nsee how this bizarre band evolved!<\/p>\n
In any case, this is an underated album that is way better than
\nthe debut, but not nearly as good as the next dozen or so releases.
\nIt suffers from inconsistency, but the good material here is REAL
\nGOOD and it annoys me that it’s constantly ignored. Too bad that it
\nalso has been out of print for years now, so I guess we’ll just
\nhave to wait for the inevitable remastered re-issue with restored
\nphotos and artwork, and new liner notes, which is the kind of
\nfaithful treatment every other classic rock band seems to be
\ngetting nowadays. This is definitely an album that deserves a
\nrevival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":25986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5676],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-37192","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-alice-cooper","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37192"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37192"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}