fartzarellah's Full Review: Billion Dollar Babies by Alice Cooper
The top ten success of the Coop's 1972 single "School's Out" finally provided the band with enough resources to turn their Alice Cooper show into the schmaltzy, big time production their producer, Bob Ezrin (and not necessarily the instrumentalists) had always wanted. Yes, their live performances had already been surrounded by controversy for using baby doll decapitations, a snake, and fake executions, but their 1973 release, BILLION DOLLAR BABIES saw the band take it all to unprecedented heights/lows. The tour was, at that time, the most expansive and expensive rock and roll circus the world had seen, and they had to have a totally organized system in place to make any of it possible. All of the music on BILLION DOLLAR BABIES was merely a part of the master plan, designed specifically for the stage show, and polished to a squeaky clean (dirty) finish.
As such, it might be unfair of me to judge the music ITSELF. After all, it was secondary to the stage show. Nonetheless, you can not see the band performing when you listen to the album, so there is actually nothing else to go on.
Save the packaging.
It seems that the "team" (I'm starting to picture some superhuman mafia organization now) anticipated my complaint and stocked the original vinyl release with all sorts of visual goodies:
1.The entire album looks like a giant, green, snake-skin wallet
2.There are pictures of each of the band members, dolled up to look cute, as well as shots of Alice looking very menacing on stage. The pictures all have perforations so you can tear them out and put them in your actual wallet (I wonder how many crazy teenage boys actually did that)
3.A ridiculously huge billion dollar bill, showing the Cooper gang decked out in turn of the 18th century American clothes, and various well drawn pictures filling out the edges (one of which, far in the background, is Alice, hung by a rope)
4.As if your mom wasn't scared enough, an album size picture of the band surrounded by loads of cash, all apparently intoxicated beyond belief, and Alice holding an actual naked little baby human with black paint around its eyes.
All of the pics and gimmicks were much more effective when they were huge. Literally. The size of cds can not do the original packaging justice. Billion Dollar Babies is all about BIG, ridiculously, laughably BIG.
The funny thing is, BIG, all in caps like that, is the only way to describe the success of the AC group's sixth album. It went to number one and produced three smash hits in the title track, "Elected", and "No More Mr. Nice Guy". Why did Billion Dollar Babies become so successful? The liner notes to the new deluxe edition, which includes a live cd, sum it up pretty nicely, so I will paraphrase that discussion for you. The young generation had become disillusioned with the hippie dream some years back. "All the peace and love had gone out the window" according to Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath (THE LAST SUPPER video). Kids wanted to be entertained, not enlightened. Plus, the whole satire of the American Dream that BDB plays with was very appealing to a nation just waking up from the nightmare of Viet Nam.
So, now that the stage is set...
"Hello! Hooray!" Not an AC original, being penned by Rolf Kemp (whoever that is). Slow and majestic, and orchestrated to the hilt. The lyrics are about the excitement of performing, sucking the listener in and inviting them to identify with Alice, super pop star. Plus, a perfect song to begin their show with. Works very well as the opener to this album, sounds a bit cheese-filled apart from it (sort of like Elvis in his later years)
"Raped and Freezin" straight ahead, dirty 70's rock-n-roll, with slick guitar solos. As the liner notes I mentioned point out, a "gender-bending" situation is portrayed as Alice gets picked up by a woman on the highway and she rapes him. Alice escapes, but is naked and "alone down in mexico", stranded in the desert. Then he starts singing "ayeee-ya-yaya" as the tempo speeds up and his mates play mariachi music. You can picture Alice running around naked, burning his toes on the hot sand here, and you can also laugh.
"Elected" Of the three big hits off this album, "Elected" is my favorite. This song is actually an adaptation of "Reflected" off of PRETTIES FOR YOU, but the two tracks are very different. Alice runs for president! Now THAT is a funny notion! Some of the best lines: "I'm Yankee Doodle Dandy in a Gold Rolls Royce" - "If I am elected, I promise the formation of a new party...a third Party...A WILD PARTY!" and a long running gag at the end where he goes on about how there are problems in the country, the punch line being "Everybody has problems...And personally...I don't care!" The music is sufficiently pompous and grandiose, but with a rocking chorus in a distantly related key. All the campiness works here.
Ok, this is getting a bit long. Just the stellar tracks:
"Unfinished Sweet", Alice goes to the dentist and has his gums removed. great music, using a rubber band sounding effect on the bass, having a mysterioso james bondish middle section where the Coop goes under the gas while strange sound effects and drills can be heard. The entire song has a tight and deceptively complex (or simple? I'm not sure how to say that...you think it's simple but it's really complex! that's what I mean!) structure. Favorite lines "De Sade's gonna live in my mouth tonight / and the rotten tooth-fairy is satisfied" (or is it rotten-tooth fairy? Alice was great at that kind of thing)
"Mary Ann" more of the gender bending (with a name like Fartzarellah, you know I've got to love that). A very short song stuck in the middle of "Sick Things" and "I love the Dead", sort of the eye of the storm. Just Alice singing and Michael Bruce(?) playing the piano. It's a torch song sung by a guy, which is a bit odd, but becomes extremely odd with the last line: "Mary Ann, I thought you were my man" Some Alice fans don't seem to get this one.
So, that's five out of ten that are excellent. Two that are still pretty good: "Generation Landslide" (excellent lyrics, best on the album, last time we ever hear Alice wail away on the harmonica, just the music is kind of flat) and "Billion Dollar Babies" (classic, classic, classic, rock that's been played way, way, way too much. Donovan sings along with Alice here, to good effect)
The three that I respect but don't much care for: "No More Mr. Nice Guy" (real corny musical arrangement, has a good opening riff, no format problems, but just real corny) and the evil boy songs "Sick Things" and "I Love the Dead" (ST is the better of the two, but awfully slow, and ILTD is far too orchestrated to be frightening, instead just being sick)
Okay, how can I like "Dead Babies" off of KILLER and not like "I Love the Dead"? DB is a song about child neglect! ILTD is just nasty. But, you see, ILTD is the exact song they would play just before chopping Alice's head off, which brings me back to the beginning of the review. Seeing that would probably make me like this track.
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