Alice Cooper is an American rock singer whose career spans over five decades. With a raspy voice and a stage show that features numerous props and stage illusions, including pyrotechnics, guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, reptiles, baby dolls, and dueling swords, Cooper is considered by many music journalists and peers to be "The Godfather of Shock Rock". He has drawn equally from horror films, vaudeville, and garage rock to pioneer a macabre and theatrical brand of rock designed to shock audiences.
Billion Dollar Babies is the sixth studio album by American rock band Alice Cooper, released in March 1973 by Warner Bros. Records. The album became the best selling Alice Cooper record at the time of its release, hit number one on the album charts in both the United States and the United Kingdom, and went on to be certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. The album has been retrospectively praised by such critics as Robert Christgau, Greg Prato of AllMusic, and Jason Thompson of PopMatters, but The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004) gave the album only two and a half stars.
Neal Smith is an American musician, best known as the drummer for the rock group Alice Cooper from 1967 to 1974. He performed on the group's early albums Pretties for You and Easy Action, their breakout album Love It to Death and the subsequent successful albums Killer, School's Out, and Billion Dollar Babies. The last new studio album with the five original Alice Cooper group members participating in new music was Muscle of Love in 1973. The original group's Greatest Hits studio album was released in 1974. In 2018, a live performance album Live from the Astroturf recorded in 2015 was released, featuring four of the original group members performing eight of their hit songs, with long-time Alice Cooper solo band guitarist and friend Ryan Roxie interplaying lead guitar parts with original group rhythm guitarist Michael Bruce, on behalf of original group lead guitarist Glen Buxton, who died in 1997 of pneumonia three weeks before his 50th birthday.
Michael Bruce is a founding member of the original Alice Cooper band. Bruce is best known for writing the hits that cemented the Alice Cooper band's legacy in rock history.
Glen Edward Buxton was an American guitarist who played lead guitar for the rock band Alice Cooper. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 90 on its list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". In 2011, Buxton was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the original Alice Cooper band.
Dennis Dunaway is an American musician, best known as the original bass guitarist for the rock band Alice Cooper . He co-wrote some of the band's most notable songs, including "I'm Eighteen" and "School's Out".
Muscle of Love is the seventh and final studio album by rock band Alice Cooper. It was released in late 1973, the band played its last concert a few months later.
Love It to Death is the third studio album by American rock band Alice Cooper, released on March 9, 1971. It was the band's first commercially successful album and the first album that consolidated the band's aggressive hard-rocking sound, instead of the psychedelic and experimental rock style of their first two albums. The album's best-known track, "I'm Eighteen", was released as a single to test the band's commercial viability before the album was recorded.
School's Out is the fifth studio album by American rock band Alice Cooper, released in 1972. Following on from the success of Killer, School's Out reached No. 2 on the US Billboard 200 chart and No. 1 on the Canadian RPM 100 Top Albums chart, holding the top position for four weeks. The single "School's Out" reached No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100, No. 3 on the Canadian RPM Top Singles Chart and went to No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart.
Pretties for You is the debut studio album by American rock band Alice Cooper, released on June 25, 1969, by Straight Records. At this time, the name "Alice Cooper" referred to the band and not its lead singer Vincent Furnier. The album has a psychedelic flavor to it; the group had yet to develop the more concise hard rock sound that they would become famous for. Most of the tracks feature unusual time signatures and arrangements, jarring syncopation, expressive dynamics, sound effects, and an eclectic range of music influences. A few songs, such as "Levity Ball", show the influence of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, with whom the band hung out during the British group's U.S. tour. Alice Cooper guitarist Glen Buxton stated he could listen to Barrett's guitar playing for hours on end.
Killer is the fourth studio album by American rock band Alice Cooper, released in November 1971 by Warner Bros. Records. The album peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard 200 album chart, and the two singles "Under My Wheels" and "Be My Lover" made the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Good to See You Again, Alice Cooper is a 1974 feature film starring Alice Cooper. The movie primarily features live concert footage of the Alice Cooper band on their record-breaking Billion Dollar Babies tour, filmed in Texas in April 1973, with some footage from other tour stops, including the Memorial Coliseum, Portland, Oregon, intercut with 'comedy' scenes of a German film director chasing the "Cooper gang" for revenge after they abandoned his would-be masterpiece movie.
Brutally Live is a DVD of American rock singer Alice Cooper's concert on 19 July 2000 at the Labatt's Hammersmith Apollo in London, England, released later in the same year. It was re-released in 2003 on DVD accompanied with an audio CD of an edited version of the DVD's soundtrack.
The Strange Case of Alice Cooper is a live concert video released in September 1979, of Alice Cooper performing with his backing band The Ultra Latex Band. The concert was filmed on April 9, 1979 during Cooper's 'Madhouse Rock' Tour in San Diego, California, at the San Diego Sports Arena, in support of the album From The Inside.
"Billion Dollar Babies" is a popular 1973 single by the rock group Alice Cooper, the title track taken from the album Billion Dollar Babies. It was released in July 1973, months after the album had been released. The track is a duet between Alice Cooper and Scottish musician Donovan, who provides the falsetto and high harmony vocals. BMI lists the composers of "Billion Dollar Babies" as Alice Cooper, Michael Bruce and Reggie Vinson. Some sources list the composers as Cooper, Bruce, drummer Neal Smith, and "R. Reggie", the latter being an allusion to Vinson's nickname "Rockin' Reggie Vinson".
"Elected" is a single by rock band Alice Cooper, released as the first Hot 100 hit on their sixth studio album Billion Dollar Babies (1972). The single reached number 26 during election week on the charts in the United States, number 4 on the charts in the United Kingdom and number 3 in Austria. The promotional music video was directed by Hart Perry.
"No More Mr. Nice Guy" is a song by American rock band Alice Cooper, released in 1973 as a single off their sixth studio album Billion Dollar Babies (1973). The single reached No. 25 on the US charts and No. 10 on the UK charts, and helped Billion Dollar Babies to reach No. 1 in both the UK and the US. The song was written by Michael Bruce and Alice Cooper.
"Halo of Flies" is a 1973 single by rock band Alice Cooper taken from their 1971 album Killer. The single was only released in the Netherlands, two years after the song appeared on the album. The song was, according to Cooper's liner notes in the compilation The Definitive Alice Cooper, an attempt by the band to prove that they could perform King Crimson-like progressive rock suites, and was supposedly about a spy organization.
"Reflected" is a song by American rock band Alice Cooper, released in 1969 as the first single from their debut album Pretties for You.
Alice Cooper, also known as the Alice Cooper Group or the Alice Cooper Band, was an American rock band formed in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1964. The band consisted of lead singer Vince Furnier, Glen Buxton, Michael Bruce, Dennis Dunaway, and Neal Smith (drums). The band was notorious for their elaborate, theatrical shock rock stage shows.
