For a group that’s had such success with power-oriented songs in the past (“Under My Wheels,” “School’s Out,” “I’m Eighteen”), the approach is as mysterious as it is absurd.Īlice himself is fond of saying that “Raped And Freezin'” is “a classic rock & roll song in the spirit of ‘Brown Sugar.'” Believe it if you can, but Jagger and Co. Guitars decelerate, horns recede … it doesn’t make any sense.
Alice builds the song’s tone steadily throughout, then right at the top of the final chorus, just when you’re expecting the thing to explode into a fist-hoisting anthem, the whole damn thing suddenly fizzles out. “Elected” fails similarly, a victim of incredibly inept production. As on every other cut the band just never manages to mesh musically, and the final chorus merely bluffs its way around becoming the intended musical conjuration of the awesome instrumental power behind a rock singer. The adapted version gives an interesting view of the reluctant cynicism that’s an unavoidable component of the rock star existence, but does precious little else. “Hello Hurray,” which opens the album and the current stage act, is a Broadway production number by Rolf Kempf (the play escapes me), once again underscoring the “show” aspect of the Cooper experience. Zero to each song.Īs expected, Billion Dollar Babies doesn’t cut the mustard when viewed musically, either. So we get to hear large stretches of the band in total sonic disarray while dentists’ drills roar (“Unfinished Sweet”), snakes hiss (“Sick Things”) and guillotine blades drop (“I Love the Dead”). Rather than following Cream’s formula of presenting a tight skeleton on vinyl that can be expanded at will onstage, the Cooper troupers insist upon acting this soundtrack concept out to the bitter end. The extended numbers (ones around which the stage skits revolve) are the most abrasive.
But even considered as a soundtrack, Billion Dollar Babies seems an abortion. Concerning Alice Cooper, it is by now axiomatic that any new album is intended only as the soundtrack of the latest group traveling extravaganza.