Superlative! Stupendous!! Absolutely Smashing!!! This is,
\nwithout doubt in my opinion and a lot of other people’s as well,
\nAlice Cooper’s finest hour. This stuff is rock ‘n roll of such high
\nquality that I know that when I want a multi-orgasmic experience,
\nall I have to do is throw this cd in the player…this single album
\ncould be a greatest hits package onto itself!<\/p>\n
\nWelcome To My Nightmare<\/i> takes all of the best
\ncharacteristics of the previous five albums but at the same time
\navoids the bad ones, and that is what makes this such a triumph…I
\nknow this is going to sound pretty cliched by now, but this is most
\ndefinitely one of the finest rock albums ever crafted. Some people
\nmight say that it’s not as raw, dangerous, powerful, or even
\nsocially relevant the way the early albums were, and admittedly
\nthis does mark the transition of Alice Cooper from a cutting dge
\nwildman to a tamer showman, but if you ignore everything that came
\nbefore you’ll realize what a great work this is.<\/p>\n
This was Alice Cooper’s first solo album after splitting with
\nhis high school mates and backing band over creative differences in
\n1974, and boy did he ever do his homework. This is more than a
\nconcept album with a recurring theme; it’s a rock opera! There’s
\njust so much going on here…it’s all the little details that
\nreally make this a work of art.<\/p>\n
Alice’s best move was to get Bob Ezrin back as producer, and he
\ndid an amazing job…considering the limits of recording technology
\nin 1975, this album sounds awesome…everything is clear and the
\nmix couldn’t be better. Just about every instrument that exists
\npops up in the weirdest places all over the album which makes for
\ngreat little surprises, like the weird watery vibrato effect on a
\nlot of the gutiars, bells, plenty of strings (even pizzicato!),
\npianos, and horns, organs…everything, playing kooky little
\neccentric melodies and creating mysterious soundscapes. Not only
\nthat, but Alice could not have hired a more talented backing band,
\nanchored by studio guitar virtuosos Steve Hunter and Dick
\nWagner…they might even surpass the original band, and they are
\njust as weird!<\/p>\n
Speaking of weird, this is Alice’s most twisted, sick, and
\ndemented album yet, which is great. I mean hey, it’s even got a
\ncameo by Vincent Price on it! You can really see how Alice
\nenvisioned a grand stage spectacle which would be very difficult to
\ntop, if ever…and in my personal opinion, based on the concert
\nvideos available, the tour he did for this album was something you
\nreally had to see to believe. We’re talking full scale Broadway
\nstyle production, with countless dancers, ballerinas, demons,
\nspiders, and countless other strange extras running around amidst
\nthe nightmarish carnival props. I would bet it was the greatest
\nrock spectacle in history, and I certainly don’t think even he has
\ncome close to ever topping it.<\/p>\n
On to the songs! “Welcome To My Nightmare” opens the album in a
\nslow, acoustic guitar fuelled intro with Alice quietly whispering
\nthe lyrics, as if you are entering a dream, another world…very
\neerie song, one of his best.<\/p>\n
Up next is “Devil’s Food”, a heavy song which has the brilliant
\nVincent Price doing a hilarious psychotic monologue about spiders
\nin a way only he could…excellent stuff! That song flows directly
\ninto “Black Widow”, and you can imagine what that one’s
\nabout…also a dark, heavy, plodding song. All of this stuff is
\nunbelievably over the top, and even the guitar riffs and solos
\nsound creep-crawly!<\/p>\n
Then we have “Some Folks”, a bizarre piano led song with a swing
\nbeat to it and use of a children’s chorus. “Only Women Bleed”, the
\nnext song, was a huge hit, and you could say it was Alice’s first
\ntrue slow, soft ballad, but of course with the ever present
\ndemented lyrics! He was really showing his versatility with that
\none, and it’s sappy commercial sound appealed to a wide audience.
\nAwesome song though…writing of this quality in a genre previously
\nunexplored for the Coop serves as a testament to his great
\ntalent.<\/p>\n
“Department Of Youth” is this album’s obligatory teen rebellion
\nsong, but it’s top notch…a very uplifting and fun rockin’ tune,
\nwith the typical self depreciating humour:
\n“Who’s got the power?” – Alice “We do!” – chorus of children
\n“And who gave it to you?” – Alice “Donny Osmond!!!” – chorus of
\nchildren “WHAT?!?!?!” – Alice<\/i><\/p>\n
“Cold Ethyl”, featuring some really detailed, complicated
\narrangements, seems to be one of Alice’s most popular tunes, and
\nrightly so…but if you’re one of those people who think it’s a
\ndrinking song (because of ethyl alcohol), listen to the lyrics;
\nit’s about fucking a corpse, complete with orgasmic oooohhs and
\naaaahhs buried in the mix if you listen carefully! A full out,
\nadrenalized heavy rocker with side splitting lyrics revisting
\nnecophilia…who could resist???<\/p>\n
And at this point in the album, the next three songs are among
\nthe darkest and most morbid I have ever heard…I don’t care what
\nanybody says about today’s bands being scarier and creepier, like
\nMarilyn Manson or Tool or whatever…if you sit in a room at night
\nand turn off the lights and listen to the songs “Years Ago”,
\n“Steven” and “The Awakening”, you will not come out the same
\nperson…they are completely eerie, twisted, dark, evil, psychotic,
\nand just plain sick…all of which makes them so great! During
\nthese songs the music really shines…they must have broken every
\nrock cliche at the time. And they created this powerful mood not by
\nbeing in your face or overly heavy, but rather through subtle
\nsuggestion.<\/p>\n
“Years Ago” is a harpsichord waltz; “Steven” has some excellent
\nclassical style cascading piano playing with acoustic guitar
\njoining in and subtle use of pizzicato strings, before Alice talks
\nlike he’s completely lost all sanity…just awesome stuff. The
\nalbum ends on a happy note with the straight forward optimistic
\nrocker, “Escape”, yet another very solid entry.<\/p>\n
It is my opinion that for Alice Cooper,
\nWelcome To My Nightmare<\/i> stands as the undisputed
\nmasterpiece. The crown jewel. The grand opus. This isn’t “real”
\nrock music…it’s so much more than just that. It transcends that
\nplane. A beautifully realized ambitious musical project. It’s a
\nstorybook come to life. I can’t think of another album that
\ninvolves and engages the listener (at least me) on so many
\nlevels.<\/p>\n
Of course, it’s not perfect; the only album that’s perfect
\nexists only in my head. Everybody has their idea of what perfection
\nis, and no matter how great something is, you will always be able
\nto find someting, no matter how miniscule, that you would have done
\ndifferently. It’s still one of the closest albums to my vision of
\nperfection however, by anyone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":25997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5676],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-37205","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-alice-cooper","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37205","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=37205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37205"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37205"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}