As the original shock artist, Alice Cooper’s influence on rock and roll spans nearly five decades long. His live shows were legendary for their theatrics and featured elements like magical stage illusions, pyrotechnics, guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, and baby dolls. He was basically the Tim Burton of 70’s rock, and one of the first artists to recognize that establishing a larger-than-life live show that looked more like a musical than a bunch of dudes just playing instruments could elevate music to something larger than its consummate parts.
Incorporating elements of garage rock, cabaret, Vaudeville, and classic rock, Billion Dollar Babies is a pretty wild ride. The whole album feels very much like a concept album set in a grimy New York neighborhood at night filled with seedy characters with a propensity for the illegal and depraved. In other words, it’s a goddamn scene. And even if it’s not technically a concept album, Cooper’s ability to transport you into another dimension certainly makes it feel like one.
And I’m not the only one. My favorite rock singer of all-time Chris Cornell felt the same about Billion Dollar Babies, stating its influence on his career in a 1989 interview with Spin Magazine:
When I was in junior high, every Friday the teachers would let the kids play their favorite records. I brought in Billion Dollar Babies and they wouldn’t let me play it. They never vetoed anyone’s choice before. It was then I knew that rock’n’roll could scare the fuck out of certain people.
Chris Cornell to Spin Magazine, 1989
All of that tracks and is a testament to Cooper’s legendary ability to create worlds that went far past beyond your standard singer-songwriting fare.
Today Cooper is still at it at the ripe old age of 75 years old, still delighting (and shocking) audiences across the globe with his electric live show. Much of his longevity can be attributed to his decision to get clean in the mid-80’s. Cooper was the founding member of The Hollywood Vampires, a drinking club whose sole purpose was to outdrink all other members and be the “last-man standing”, and that boasted names like Keith Moon, Ringo Starr, John Lennon, Harry Nilsson, and Bernie Taupin. Cooper got clean in the 80’s after his full-blown alcoholism and meth addictions became a problem, finding an outlet in his love for golf which is detailed in this great interview as well as his autobiography Alice Cooper, Golf Monster.
Standout Songs: “Hello Hooray”, “Unfinished Sweet”, “No More Mr. Nice Guy”, “Generation Landslide”
