Blake Shelton

On to Blake Shelton. The only non-band that I'll be covering in these posts unless I fancy going through some solo projects, or somehow get brave enough to write anything about Tom Waits...

Blake Shelton is a Nashville based country artist. I was first put on to him by Biggins, who sent me his single The More I Drink. I'm not normally a big country person, but that song's pretty great so I bought his greatest hits (this was before I banned myself from buying any compilations). I then slowly accumulated the rest of his catalogue up to Red River Blue, and have bought each subsequent album as it's been released.

Unlike most artists I like (perhaps BÖC are a slight, but not total, exception), Blake doesn't really write his own songs. He has a credit here and there but for the most part he is the voice and sometime guitar to a few dozen songwriters' compositions. But damn, what a voice. He's even a judge on America's The Voice.

As a solo artist, I don't even need to do a line-up list. So let's crack on.

Blake Shelton (2001)

In many ways, I think that Taylor Swift followed Blake Shelton's template. Well, it's almost definitely not solely his template but let's go with it. Both started out as 'serious' straight up-country musicians, who got popular and slowly but surely became pop-acts with a country flavour.

Blake Shelton's self-titled debut is pretty country, but it's Nashville country - which is kind of like country but is listened to by people not just from the South.

Opening us up is the fun and fast paced Every Time I Look At You, probably my personal favourite of the album with a great riff, some background banjo and a chorus to sing along to. She Doesn't Know She's Got It is similarly upbeat, kind of like a country version of 1 Direction's You Don't Know You're Beautiful (and yes I made that comparison). The final upbeat song is If I Was Your Man, it's slightly weaker than the others but has fiddle parts so that gives it extra points.

The rest of the album is... actually pretty depressing in that way that country often is. All Over Me has some fantastic vocals from Blake, but is too piano and strings heavy, lacking that country edge. I Thought There Was Time is also a vocally impressive song, and actually feels like a country song, but doesn't stand out. Problems At Home is an oddly preachy and protesty song in a similar way that Livin On The Edge by Aerosmith is - in that it just doesn't sound right coming from this artist.

The absolute stand out depressing song is Austin. A beautiful vocal/guitar combo that tells the story of two ex-lovers who try and get back in to contact with each other, but keep missing the other's calls. Well worth a listen.

Blake considered the slow and sleazy Ol' Red his trademark song for quite a while (I doubt he still does given his change in sound, but who knows). Originally recorded by George Johns, and later covered by Kenny Rodgers, Blake took a go. Blake's is much closer to George's original, as Kenny's was a bit rocked up. It tells the story of a prisoner, condemned for a crime of passion, who becomes friends with the warden's tracker dog which facilitates his later escape. It's a fun story-driven song.

Though relatively unremarkable, Same Old Song is worth mentioning due to what some might see as an irony. The song describes the author's disdain that country music these days all sounds 'vanilla' and samey, with artists only singing about love when there are so many other topics. I think the irony has some purchase, as Blake's latest two (three?) albums in particular fall in to this trap in my opinion.

So Blake's first album is a mixed bag. A handful of fun-loving songs about women, a handful of depressing songs about women, and a handful of wildcard songs on other topics. This is generally the Blake Shelton album format, though some go more one way than others...

The Dreamer (2003)

And until some of his most recent releases, this was the softest leaning Blake Shelton album. It may not shock you to learn that it's also my least favourite album. I'd almost go as far as to say that, on the whole, it's bad.

There is one absolute star of a song on here: Playboys Of The Southwester World. A raucous tune about two close, college-age friends who go and have a wild time in Mexico. It's fast, fun, and genuinely funny. It deserves so much more than the rest of this album.

Heavy Liftin' is one of a handful of Shelton songs that are just cringeworthy. It's a relatively (compared to the rest of the soft stuff on the album) rocky country song about doing manual labour, like the good ol' rednecks used to do. Georgia In A Jug is a forgettable stripped back fiddle and guitar-led cover song about drinking after a breakup. My Neck Of The Woods just about passes as a decent song, it's country rock and it describes a classic southern family.

So the remaining... 6(?) songs. Ugh. I guess The Baby is a good showpiece for Blake's voice. Asphalt Cowboy sounds like it was sent to the wrong artist - not a Shelton song at all. In My Heaven makes some peculiar melody choices which just sound wrong. The Dreamer is... fine. Underneath The Same Moon sounds like it was meant to be the backing for a particularly sad moment in the rain in a romantic drama. Someday just goes nowhere.

The Dreamer, on the whole, is a step backwards for Blake Shelton. The material is uninspired and easy. Not even the best voice in the world could have rescued this album. But Playboys, what a tune.

Blake Shelton's Barn & Grill (2004)

Now this is more like it. Blake's humour had come through on a few previous songs like Playboys and Ol' Red, but it really shines on B&G.

We open with Some Beach, a summer-drenched laid-back tune with a double entendre that only works in the south of the US of A. Each verse details a menial frustration in the narrator's life before saying he'd rather be on 'some beach... somewhere'. But with a southern drawl, some beach sounds an awful lot like sum' bitch.

Cotton Pickin' Time is equally tongue-in-cheek, though more upbeat, detailing the story of a young cotton picker that falls in love with the neighbour's daughter who he finds skinny dipping down by the lake.

After many years I'm still not sure whether What's On My Mind is meant to be amusing, but it's about a man who doesn't think his woman can handle what's on his mind... Makes me laugh.

A little less happy, but still done with a bit of a wink, is On A Good Day. A classic 'guy got dumped and is drinking his sorrows away' song that lists the things that he can handle on a good day, but today is not one of those days. On A Good Day is third from last on the album, and is actually followed by two further songs about drinking: The Bartender and I Drink. The former is a slow, sombre reflection on the life of a bartender and his relationship with his patrons. The latter is also slow, but in a way that kind of makes it sound like the guitarist was drunk when playing - it's about a guy who doesn't do much but drink.

So that's about half of the album, and sticking to the template the rest are mostly love songs. Nobody But Me is pretty short, coming in at 2.39, but is probably the best. A great vocal performance over pianos, though it isn't very country. Love Gets In The Way is much more guitar-driven, though feels a bit confused as to whether it's up or downbeat.

Goodbye Time and When Somebody Knows You That Well are the full on depressing songs. As usual, can't fault the vocals, but neither grip me.

Final mention has to go to Good Old Boy, Bad Old Boyfriend: a slow sleazy song about a guy who's good to his friends, but not to his girlfriend. It borrows heavily from The Beatles' You're Gonna Lose That Girl by ending with the narrator suggesting the woman should end up with him instead.

Overall, a huge improvement on The Dreamer with some of my favourite Shelton songs.

Pure BS (2007)

Pure BS is such a good title, thought I should start by pointing that out. This album is extremely ballad heavy, with only three rockier country songs out of 11 (3 more on the deluxe edition, one of which is kinda rocky).

Because of that I always feel that this album is a bit misleading, because the two rockiest songs open the album. This Can't Be Good is a heavy and sleazy tune about a guy drinking with a sheriff's daughter girl by a river, who then both have to escape when the sheriff chases after them.

Now. The More I Drink. This is the song that got me in to Blake Shelton in the first place (thanks Biggins). My favourite drinking song of all time. Period. It's a bit honky-tonk, and all the better for it. 'If I have one I have thirteen, there ain't no in between'. And I can even kind of play it on guitar. Even better!

The last non-ballad is the standard album's closer: The Last Country Song. An upbeat song about an old country bar that is having a final blow-out before the big city buys up the land and puts some apartments on it or something.

The rest of the album consists of 8 thoroughly depressing songs. Some of them have the classic Shelton humour cutting through though. It Ain't Easy Being Me is a cover of a Chris Knight song, but Shelton's version is a notch less sad than the original.

Other standouts in this category are I Have Been Lonely (for the melody and tempo being much more upbeat than the lyrics), She Don't Love Me (for it's melancholy ending) and I Don't Care (but he does).

There is a 'deluxe' version of Pure BS which I have. Two original Shelton penned (solo, with no outside help, which is extremely rare) songs and a cover.

Chances is the better of the two originals, even if it does begin with a very dodgy rhyme (closing and chosen). Not that I Can't Walk Away is poor, but perhaps my British upbringing doesn't let me empathise with a song about being sore after bull-riding.

But we can't finish this without talking about the Michael Buble cover: Home. A classic Buble song, Blake pulls it off fantastically. Blake's voice is a match for Buble's on a good day, and this was a good day. The country twang gives it enough to feel unique.

Buble seemed to be pretty happy with Blake's version, and they did a duet live here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q33YUxnGvwE

And they reunited for a Christmas version... see below...

Startin' Fires (2008)

Not many rocky songs on this album either, but there are some fantastic ballads. 

Opening with the rocky Green; this is an odd song about how hillbillies who live off the fatta tha lan' were living the environmentally friendly lifestyle before it became popular/necessary: 'I was green, before green was a thing'. 

I may as well finish up the heavier song roundup before moving on, so the other one is Country Strong. Some great fiddle playing, and the lyrics just describe how great it is to be a cowboy. 

Then there are 10(!) ballads... She Wouldn't Be Gone is clearly the best one of the lot, and was the lead single. It's just really powerful, and an anthem for anyone who realises and regrets how much they messed up a relationship. This Is Gonna Take All Night is also quite good, but mostly for the jokey/innuendo-driven chorus: 'Girl tonight I'm making up for lost time, I hope you got a good night sleep...'

The rest of the ballads kind of mix together and fade in to obscurity. The title track (Good At Startin' Fires) is good. Never Lovin' You is a very country, twangy guitar ballad. Bare Skin Rug is co-sung by Shelton and his future wife, Miranda Lambert - it's fine, and I think the title is a pun?

To be honest, this is a pretty forgettable album. 

Hillbilly Bone (2010)

All About Tonight (2010)

So along with his record company (Reprise), Blake decided that one way to respond to the increasing influence of streaming and downloading on the internet would be to not make albums anymore. I mean, who buys a whole album anymore, right?
So, 2010 saw Blake release two 'Six-Packs'. Basically, two 6 song-length EPs. 

The first of these is Hillbilly Bone. There's some good stuff on this. I'd classify 4/6 as upbeat. The opening title track is a fun duet with Trace Adkins about how everybody is a bit of a hillbilly deep down. This is followed by Kiss My Country Ass, a bit of a southern pride song but not in a confederate way. 
Can't Afford To Love You is a fun love song about a poor guy trying to woo a rich southern belle. Almost Alright is about trying to put on a good face after a bad breakup, and has a great line: 'I'm getting back to hatin' me some soft rock', which I always find ironic as after these two EPs Blake goes back to full ballad. 

All About Tonight also has a lot of good stuff. The title track is a fun song about going out and getting drunk, and for some reason was 1st in a list of the most intelligently written songs of the last decade (primarily based on the use of some long words like 'concoctions' if you ask me). The other 5 songs are all about women. That Thing We Do, Draggin' The River and Got A Little Country are the more upbeat ones. I always laugh at the last of those because I imagine that Blake's singing about The Queen (she's got a little country, haha etc.).
Then we have some proper ballads. Who Are You When I'm Not Looking has some awful rhymes (looking, bookends and cookin' are all meant to rhyme...), but a nice message of genuinely wanting to know the person behind the face they put on for you. And then there's Suffocating... Which sounds like a Dreamer or Startin' Fires reject. 

If these two EPs had been put together, we would probably have my favourite Blake Shelton album. There's so much to love. It's mostly upbeat, the ballads are few and the songwriting is strong.

Red River Blue (2011)

Red River Blue is the first BS album I bought in real-time. I got in to him in late 2010 so this was good timing for a new album the next year. I remember listening to it for the first time in my then girlfriend's house and thinking... Hmm, there's a bit too much ballad for me.

But on reflection, it's quite a Pure BS-ey album. The opener, Honey Bee, is a catchy soft-rock-country song. I was playing Pokemon online with Biggins once, and he didn't realise that we had voice chat on, and he was singing this. Good times.

A lot of this album is catchy soft-country. Ready To Roll and Good Ole Boys are all pleasant songs for a day in the sun, sipping on beer. Hey is a very odd song, which is one of those songs you sing along to without quite knowing what you're saying. Once you think about it, you realise the lyrics are just total nonsense. But it's a fun listen anyway.

But God Gave Me You, I'm Sorry, Over and Red River Blue overpower them with their saturated ballad-ness. All 4 are fine, but they don't reach She Wouldn't Be Gone levels. 

A serviceable BS album, it delivers on both ballad and country counts, but it doesn't stand out particularly. 

Oh, and the bonus track on the deluxe version, Chill, is pretty great.

Cheers, it's Christmas (2012)

I really should have written this one in December rather than late January...

So Blake made a Christmas album. Mostly Christmas staples with a few originals for good measure. It's such a warm album, you can almost feel the fire from the cover when you listen to it. 

It's got quite a family feel. There are lots of guest stars and features (Kelly Clarkson, Miranda Lambert, Dolly Parton etc.). 

Michael Buble turns up to duet on a re-written Christmas version of Home. It was a nice idea, but the lyrics feel so forced (the word 'Christmas' is shoehorned in to a few places where the original only had a one syllable word). 

In the end, there's not a lot to say about this album. It's got lots of Christmas songs and they've been 'country'-ed up. I like it, and it works for a seasonal listen.

Based On a True Story (2013)

'Red, Red, Red, Red, Red, Red, Red, Red, Redneck'

Autotune! Alert! Bro-Country! Bigger ALERT!

Based on a True Story begins with Boys 'Round Here, an embarrassing attempt to celebrate good ol' fashioned values and times where men worked the land, then went out for beers with the boys to 'talk about girls, [and] talk about trucks'. And you can be sure 'ain't a damn one know how to do the duggie' like these youn'sters today. 

Fortunately the rest of this album is pretty good. Small Town Big Time is a fun hard(er) country rocker, which works despite the awful autotune in the chorus. I Still Got A Finger is another song with a jokey wry smile you can hear Blake singing through, along the lines of Some Beach. Ten Times Crazier is also pretty upbeat, although an out and out love song about how the singer is ten times crazier about his girl that football and cars (etc.). So romantic. 

Sure Be Cool If You Did was the lead single, and is perfectly fine except for the main chorus line which tries its damned hardest to gloss over the fact it's trying to rhyme 'this' with 'did'. You can pronounce either as Southern as you want, the s sound does not rhyme with the hard d sound. 

Two slower songs which aren't about women (what?!): Country On The Radio and Granddaddy's Gun. The former is an odd riposte to Same Old Song from his first album, where the lyrics describe how it doesn't really matter if all country songs sound the same and cover the same topics. That's all right then...

The latter is a well meaning song about the memories someone has about going out shooting with his grandfather, and now that he's gone the gun is imbued with all this sentimental value. You can't quite get away from the 2nd Amendment connotations though... Couldn't it have been about a car instead?

The rest of the album is the usual country ballad stuff. My Eyes has some good lines ('Tonight, my eyes are the only thing I don't wanna take off of you'), Doin' What She Likes and Mine Would Be You are both also fine. 

It's the same format as all BS albums, but the quality is generally a tad higher than Red River Blue. 

Bringing Back The Sunshine (2014)

This album starts off so promisingly. Bringing Back The Sunshine is such a great opening song, with its electric guitar intro and lyrics which describe coming back after being away for a period. The chorus comes rushing in, and it starts feeling like a proper driving song. You could fool yourself into thinking the song was causing the clouds to part if you looked up.

Unfortunately, it's pretty mediocre from then on out. Neon Light was the lead single, and somehow manages to be both too twangy country and too poppy (in the verses and chorus respectively). 

Buzzin' attempts to pull off a similar trick to Hey from Red River Blue, where the lyrics are mostly nonsense. But it's just not as catchy. Although, it has one of the best multi-levelled puns I've ever heard in a lyric: 'Hanging with my buds, speaking of buds who's got a light?' (In case you don't get it: the puns are on buds as buddies, buds as budweisers, light as bud light, and light as a cigarette lighter).

Just Gettin' Started rounds off the upbeat songs, and album. It's quite a good drinking/partying song, although some of the lyrics feel like they should have been redrafted. There's a reference to granny's slippers somewhere which just doesn't fit.

Good Old Country Song keeps up the tradition of having a nostalgic meta-song about how great old country songs are. 

The other 7(!) songs are full on ballads. Worth mentioning are: A Girl, which is a cute retelling of teenage love; Sangria, which has a vague Latin feel; and I Need My Girl, which has quite a loud and emotional chorus. 

The other 4 are a bit bland and forgettable. 

There is some good stuff on this album, but on the whole it's in the bottom half of Blake's albums, ranked by quality. Just download the opening song.

If I'm Honest (2016)

So in real life, Blake and his wife of about 4 years, fellow country artist and sometime collaborator Miranda Lambert, had recently divorced. And this is very much a 'break-up' album, mixed with some messages of hope for the future.

Odd, then, that we open with something that feels like it was written for the album before they decided what tone it was going to have. Straight Outta Cold Beer is lyrically very similar to Boys 'Round Here, minus the embarrassing lines. So not a great message, but it's fun enough.

Where to go from here... A lot of this album is very depressing. Bet You Still Think About Me does what it says on the tin. Every Time I Hear That Song is also pretty self explanatory. Came Here To Forget is at least chortle inducing - not sure you did Blake because half this album is about her!

She's Got A Way With Words also deserves a shout out for having some of the worst lyrics Blake has ever had to force his way through. 

The latter half of the album is a bit more positive, and seems to signal Blake's soon-to-be relationship with Gwen Stefani. Go Ahead And Break My Heart is a duet with Gwen, which is an interesting song for how upbeat it is in contrast to its lyrics. 

Doing It To Country Songs also deserves a shout out for being the equivalent of the 'isn't country music great' song. A lot of this song's albums are very self-descriptive aren't they?

Who knows why, but Blake took this album as an opportunity to rerecord 'hillbillies were environmentally friendly before it was cool' Green from Startin' Fires. It's barely different at all, other than some slightly improved production. 

Only slightly less confusing is the song Blake recorded for the Angry Birds movie: Friends. It's... ok... I guess?

I'd say other than Friends, Green, Doing It To Country Songs and Straight Outta Cold Beer, you'd be hard pressed to refer to much of this album as 'country'. It's so poppy all over the place. The production is too good, and there aren't many guitars (I don't think there's a single banjo).

To bring back the comparison with Taylor Swift, this is Blake's Red album. We're dangerously close to falling off the cliff in to full on pop... and we know that pop is a gateway genre that can lead to misguidedly attempting rap and R&B. Or is that just Swift?

Texoma Shore (2017)

So where did Blake go next? Did he follow Taylor's lead and dive head first in to pop?

NO HE DID NOT and I'm so glad. 

He went straight back to what he does best. An album half country rock and half country ballad. Phew. 

I'll Name The Dogs is a great little upbeat love song, if a little 'old fashioned' in its gender stereotypes: 'You name the babies, and I'll name the dogs'. 

At The House is similarly lovey topic-wise, but is also upbeat and feels far from a ballad. I think we're starting to feel Blake's personality here, he's in love with Gwen Stefani and he's SO HAPPY about it, so all these songs which might have been ballads have been given a boost. 

Having said that... Most of the rest of the album is quite ballady, although some of them are the best ballads that Blake has ever recorded so it's hard to complain too much. 

Why Me might be my favourite Blake ballad of all time. Simply put, it's about being shocked that this women is with you. 'Why me, out of everybody, baby, why me?'. 

Hangover Due is a super chilled Sunday anthem for spending a hangover day with your girl. 

When The Wine Wears Off is a heartfelt worry about whether a girl will stay with you the morning after. It's nice to have a gender reversal of that trope. 

The other ballads are good too. But I don't want to go through all of them. 

Songs on other topics include Money, which is the worst song on the album by some margin (another Hey/Buzzin'-like song that just doesn't work). I Lived It fills the space of the 'country music is great' song, though is more nostalgic about a simpler life than simpler music (ooo burn). 

Yes, it would have been nice to have a few rockier songs. I'll Name The Dogs is probably the rockiest, and that's a stretch. But importantly this feels like a country album, and it's got some good songwriting.

I wasn't looking forward to this album, following the musical misstep of If I'm Honest. But after Texoma Shore, I am looking forward to the next one. 

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So that's Blake Shelton. I like a lot of his music. I also don't like a lot of his music. (And with that sort of insight you wonder why I never became a music journalist).

Sometimes it's nice to listen to something very well produced. Sometimes it's also nice to hear about what the American South is up to. 

Plus, Blake still has one of the best voices in all of Country music. 

Alice Cooper (Band)

Whilst procrastinating writing the Blake Shelton and Steeleye Span Discographies (seriously, I get about 2 sentences in and remember my musical vocabulary is so limited for the country and folk genres), I thought I might start one for the original Alice Cooper band, as I'm seeing them in mid-November (2017).

Now, I started off with an Alice Cooper greatest hits, then moved on to getting some of his 90s and 2000s albums (as well as Welcome To My Nightmare (1975), a classic concept album - and necessary to understand the 2011 follow up Welcome 2 My Nightmare). Then in mid-2016 I thought I'd give the albums from the original band a chance. I mean, they're the ones who did School's Out, Billion Dollar Babies and Elected. They must be pretty straight up rocky.

How wrong I was...

Alice Cooper was/is:

Vince Furnier/Alice Cooper - Vocals

Glen Buxton - Lead Guitar

Michael Bruce - Rhythm Guitar & keys

Dennis Dunaway - Bass

Neal Smith - Drums

Pretties For You (1969)

What. The Hell. Is this album. 

Dissonant sounds, weird effects, few actual 'songs'. This is mostly just noise. An attempt at making 'art' perhaps? But no, that's too much praise. Avant-garde, baroque, psychedelic; these are the only appropriate adjectives. Oh, and possibly: nonsense.

Fields of Regret is sort of a song. It's kind of the most listenable thing on the album. There's a riff, some solos, a discernible melody and lyrics. But it's all very noisey.

Reflected is also nearly a song. It even turns in to one on Billion Dollar Babies, as the completely rewritten 'Elected'. 

Apple Bush sounds almost normal, and is a nice respite from the rest of the album. 

Maybe another 2 or 3 tracks are bearable, but the other 6/7 offerings on this overlong 13-track album are just offensive to the ear.

Honestly, it's like they all listened to Revolution 9 off the White Album and went 'let's try and beat that'.

Ignore this album, start with the next one.

Easy Action (1970)

The first song off Easy Action is better than anything on Pretties. Mr and Misdemeanour is just good wordplay for a start, but it has a solid riff and keyboard part. Sure, it gets a bit shouty and crazed at the end, but it shows the evolution of the band's sound. 

In fact, there's quite a bit of a screamy, noisy overhang on a lot of tracks. Still No Air and Lay Down And Die, Goodbye are both very much successors to the difficult-to-listen-to feel of Pretties. But there's enough here to suggest a more listenable future.

Shoe Salesman is a completely out of place folky acoustic song. Laughing At Me is similarly folky, but with electronics. 

The rest of the songs sit uncomfortably between experimental and a (hard-)rock place. Refrigerator Heaven is relatively straight forward, and the title would return as a lyric for Alice's first solo album (Cold Ethyl on Welcome To My Nightmare). The long-ish (6.54) Below Your Means has slightly more progressive ambitions than the utter madness of Pretties, but has one of those outros which just drags and drags.

Return Of The Spider is a speedy rocker, but also runs on about a minute too long. 

Beautiful Flyaway is a bit of a hidden gem for me. A catchy melody and piano riff with build ups at the end of each verse which pay off. 

Very much a transitional album, this. 

Killer (1971)

Finally, we might have some songs you've heard of!

Under My Wheels and Desperado (allegedly about Jim Morrison) come from Killer. Both are classic rock staples and are still regularly played by Alice live. 

Be My Lover also turns up on compilations sometimes - an oddly simple song about a girl.

Then we get Halo Of Flies. In interviews and liner notes, the band has said that this was an attempt to show the world that 'We can do King Crimson-type stuff too!'. They'd spent much of the previous 2 albums in psychedelic experimental land, but could they mould and form that creativity in to a decent (8+ minute) prog-song?
Damn straight they could. I really like Halo Of Flies. But it's a bit of a bitter/sweet like. You know - a kind of 'if they could do this, why didn't continue?' or 'if they could do this, why were the previous 2 albums so crap?'. 
Either way, great song.

The final 4 songs on the album aren't particularly noteworthy. You Drive Me Nervous is fine. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah is completely forgettable. The title track, Killer, is a bit experimental but loses the plot about 2 minutes before it ends (and goes mental for the last 20 seconds).

And the final song to talk about: Dead Babies. What a title. The lyrics convey an anti-child abuse message, but only Alice Cooper would think that the main chorus line of shouting 'Dead Babies!' was a good idea. I actually quite like this song, the melody is easy to sing along to and the riff is dark and moody. Not one to play loud when not alone though...

Love It To Death (1971)

And so, following 3 strange and unsuccessful albums, Bob Ezrin took over as producer and - in effect - forced the band to learn how to play better and write 'better' songs. Where better means more straightforwardly hard rock.

I'm Eighteen is the main single from the album, and became an anthem for anyone around that age. The lyrics describe the anguish of being between a child/teenager and an adult, with no clue how to act. Although it's a decent enough song, it does feel relatively boring and simple compared to their previous catalogue...

Caught In A Dream, Long Way To Go and Is It My Body round out the 'simple rock songs' of the album. All have decent riffs, and are easy to listen to (which in itself is a huge improvement over previous albums!).

Hallowed Be My Name also comes in under this category, but I feel deserves singling out for its fun wordplay in the title, gritty rhythm, and generally blasphemous content.

Second Coming also has some odd (anti?)religious sentiments, but I'm not such a big fan of it musically.

In the middle of the album is the 9-minute length Black Juju. As Halo of Flies was a response to King Crimson, Black Juju is allegedly an attempt at 'doing a Pink Floyd song'. It's quite an experimental track, feeling more like a better written and produced outtake from one of the previous 2 albums. It's not bad, per se, but because it's mostly the same riff for the duration it does feel its length.

The Ballad Of Dwight Fry is another 'long song' at 6.33, but it's a much better one (and it has easy chords, so I can play it very slowly on guitar...). It has several sections and a really powerful chorus. The lyrics depict an inmate at a mental asylum. It's just great.

The album ends with a peculiar cover of Rolf Harris track Sun Arise... It could have been done as a sunny juxtaposition against the dark themes of the album. But that doesn't make sense post his conviction, and more pertinent is that it's just not worth listening to in general.

Overall, this is the first properly accessible Alice Cooper album. Other than Black Juju, it's pretty simple hard rock. 

School's Out (1972)

Here it is everyone! That song you know! The song that made Alice Cooper a worldwide, household star: School's Out. The anthem to every June/July period as schools and universities break up for the holidays. And what a song. 

Such a recognisable riff, with simple lyrics about finishing school and wanting to blow it up. With that classic line: 'We got no class, we got no principles, and we got no innocence... we can't even think of a word that rhymes!'. I would have gone with 'sense' myself...

The absolutely staggering, unbelievable thing about this album (to me, anyway), is that the title track is the only straight-up rock song on it. Despite Love It To Death's more mainstream direction, on School's Out the band seems to have funnelled all of its radio-friendly songwriting in to one amazing song, so that they could be left alone to carry on doing the weird experimental stuff elsewhere.

Luney Tune is another great bit of wordplay, and I really like the riff (and dat bass). It's almost a rock song, but something about the guitar sounds and ending breakdown make it slightly not-normal. Public Animal #9 also strays close to being a rock song, and probably gets closer than Luney Tune, but it's not what I'd describe as 'mainstream'... and certainly not in the same league as School's Out.

Gutter Cats vs. The Jets is a kind of theatrical piece with a hard-to-find double meaning... I think on the face of it it's meant to be about finding a beautiful girl in the gutter... But given the pseudo-concept over the album (and the following song called Street Fight), I think it's also meant to depict a fight between one school's sports team and another... Hmm. Maybe the girl is meant to be from the other team a la Romeo & Juliet? I don't know.

Later on we have Blue Turk, a kind of vaudeville-esque jazzy number. Echoes of the more swinging Tom Waits songs. 
My Stars is a weird song. I like the quick drum fill parts, and the general crescendo of the piano riff. But I'm quite sure it all fits together in to something listenable.

Alma Mater is a great melancholy song about leaving school for good. Thems were the good old days. 

Followed by the instrumental Grand Finale, which is fine but not particularly necessary.

Just a note on the album as a whole to finish off; there's definitely an air of 'concept album' around School's Out. Lots of the songs deal with school, leaving school, fights between schools. I stop short of calling it a full concept album, though, because songs like Luney Tune and My Stars don't quite fit in to the theme for me... But maybe they do and I can't see it. 

Overall, a weird, proggy, psychedelic album, with one of the biggest classic rock songs of all time shoved at the beginning to fool everyone in to buying it.

Billion Dollar Babies (1973)

The title of this album is a reference to the fact that School's Out projected Alice Cooper from a niche experimental, shock-rock band, to one of the biggest rock bands in the world. They were now Billion Dollar Babies (well, maybe million).

For some reason, BDB opens with a cover of a Judy Collins song: Hello Hooray. The original is quite quick with a really confusing melody line (literally listening to it for the first time while writing this... it's very strange). Alice Cooper slow it right down, add an air of theatrics and sinister undertones, and end up with a perfect song to open concerts with (as Alice still does).  

Raped And Freezin' (only the band who wrote Dead Babies could get away with that title in 1973) is a really catchy song about a young man who hitchhikes his way on to an older woman's lorry, who then tries, and ultimately succeeds, to have sex with him against his will. The lyrics are actually quite funny, and together with its catchiness the song was clearly meant to be a hard juxtaposition. Hey, I like it.

Elected! The re-lyric-ed and re-music-ed Reflected from Pretties For You. Elected is a great satire on politics: 'Everybody had problems, and frankly... I don't care!', and is also super catchy. 
The title track, I'm actually not a big fan of. Seemingly about being in love with a sex-doll (of course it is), I'm just not really in to the music of it.

Unfinished Sweet is a bit of a more experimental-ish song (6.18 minutes) about not wanting to see the dentist... It's fine.

No More Mr. Nice Guy and Generation Landslide are two of the highlights for me. The first is just a straight-forward rock song about a good man turned bad. The second is more complex lyrically, dealing with the different values and politics between parents and children in the 60s and 70s. I love it in particular for a harmonica solo which I can play reasonably convincingly. 

And back in to the experimental realm with Sick Things. Slow, moody, barely any instruments other than very deep bass and drums (and some orchestral parts). These lyrics are about Alice Cooper fans, whom he still refers to as his 'sick things'.

Before the big finale of I Love The Dead we have the completely-out-of-place Mary Ann. A ballad over a piano, with a possible twist that the girl in the song is a transvestite. Very risqué in 1973.

I Love The Dead is about necrophilia. And I think now Alice Cooper were realising that they had a niche, lyrically, and they were doubling down all through this album (Necrophilia would return on Alice's first solo album, Welcome To My Nightmare, on Cold Ethyl). Musically, I'm not big of I Love The Dead, it's a bit too 'musical' and outstays its welcome. 

On the whole, BDB is one of the most well-rounded Alice Cooper albums. The lyrics shock, the music rocks. Job done. 

Muscle Of Love (1973)

The last full album with the original Alice Cooper band together is an odd collection of songs, given the generally experimental and psychedelic nature of the band up until now. Sure, they'd produced the odd straight-forward radio hit (I'm Eighteen, School's Out, No More Mr Nice Guy), but all of the albums had a bit of the theatrical about them. Muscle of Love is a much less complex beast.

To be honest the opener, Big Apple Dreamin' (Hippo), isn't fantastic. It doesn't stand out to me at all. Whereas the second song, Never Been Sold Before, is much better and probably should have been placed as track 1. It's written as a girl's response to a her boyfriend suggesting she should prostitute herself to pay their bills: 'I'm really sick of streets, chicks and dicks, and I'm really sick of you!'. 

Working Up A Sweat is a fun fast-paced rocker with harmonica, what's not to love? Teenage Lament '74 is probably the highlight; following up on the teenage angst of School's Out, it's about not finding happiness trying to fit in with the latest trends and fads. 
Woman Machine rounds off the straight-up rockers, meant as a cynical exploration of what men would do if they had access to robots to fulfil the stereotypical female roles. 

Man With A Golden Gun was written as a Bond theme for the film of the same name (Lulu won, which apparently Christopher Lee was unhappy about). Honestly, it sounds like a Bond theme. It's got trumpets and a riff which sounds like a spin off of the standard Bond theme. Shame it wasn't chosen.
The title track I've never been able to get on with. Something about the music just doesn't hit me right, I can't really explain it. Lyrically it's about discovering masturbation, but it's no Walk This Way. 

The final two songs to mention are the outliers, musically. Hard Hearted Alice is possibly the only ballad the original Alice Cooper group ever recorded. A slow, emotional vocal over mostly synthy keys for the first 2 minutes, but the guitars don't rock it up much. Lyrically, your guess is as good as mine. Sounds to be about going crazy in isolation, but it might not be.
Finally: Crazy Little Child. A swinging, jazzy song, like Blue Turk from School's Out. It's interesting, but a bit weird. 

In all, Muscle of Love is good, but it's not great. It's all a bit safe. Not quite the extravagant, vaudeville-inspired Alice Cooper that they'd built up. 

After this album the Alice Cooper band split up, with Vince taking the name for himself and going solo. It wasn't an acrimonious split though. The rest have sporadically been in bands and played around, though Glen Buxton died in 1997. The remaining members flirted with a reunion throughout the 2010s, and played live on tour with Alice a few times. Until 2025 brought the full official reunion...

Welcome 2 My Nightmare (2011)
Paranormal (2017)

Detroit Stories (2021)

                                             

I wondered whether to include these, but thought why not?

So rumours spread around both in 2010 and 2015-16 that the original Alice Cooper band were getting back together to record an album. In actual fact, they did get back together but only to record a few tracks for Alice's solo albums. 

3 songs from Welcome 2 My Nightmare (the sequel to Alice's first solo album from 1975) are from the original band. A Runaway Train is a fantastically fast-paced song, which basically details the album's protagonist's descent in to a hellish nightmare on a train with 13 other despicable characters.  

I'll Bite Your Face Off, the album's single, is the second song. It's pretty simple and tame by Alice standards, even if it is about a liaison-gone-wrong when the female character bites the protagonist's face off. 

The third song is When Hell Comes Home. A slow, dark, heavy song that feels oddly out of place on this otherwise fun album. It's about an adult looking back on his childhood, where he had an alcoholic and abusive father whom he ultimately kills to save his mother. 

Looking at Paranormal's tracks is a tad more difficult. Although only the 2 'bonus tracks' are advertised as being the original band, if you read who played on each song then track 3 has Dennis on bass, and track 9 has the full original band playing - although they didn't write it. So I think I'll include 9 but not 3.

Track 9 is called Rats, and it's very short at 2.39. It's fast, energetic, and seems to be a dig at the American public who eat up anything they're given by the media or wherever they get their news. Topical!

Being totally honest, I don't really like either of the two bonus tracks... Genuine American Girl is a bit doo-wap and kitschy, though the lyrics are funny - it's about how being a 'genuine' American girl is to be as fake as possible. 

You And All Your Friends is quite rocky, and probably the better of the two bonus tracks. Another hard to decipher lyrics, but I'd interpret it as being about burning down the town, because what's the point any more? Ish. 

Detroit Stories is also slightly odd. The original band play on tracks 4 and 10, but bassist Dunaway co-wrote (but did not apparently play on) track 8. I don't like this album very much, but track 4, Social Debris, is one of the better songs. 

These three albums represented a willingness for the band to get back together, though not on a permanent basis, nor for a full album. The next album Alice released, 2023's Road, featured no original members whatsoever, but the fun they had doing these seemed to directly lead to the official reunion on the following 2025 album:

The Revenge of Alice Cooper (2025)

So finally, after 50(!!) years, the original Alice Cooper Band reunited for a new album of original material. One has to first appreciate the excellent cover art, mimicking the 1960s/70s horror movies which the band got its shocking inspiration from. The name of the album is perfect in also recalling horror movies, while signalling both the importance and intention of the album. Though Glen Buxton is obviously missing, one of the songs, track 12 What Happened To You, is based on a (very) poorly recorded demo of a riff Buxton made before he died. 

We may as well start there - What Happened To You is significantly limited by the quality of the recording available, but the rest of the song built around it is a perfectly serviceable - if slightly pedestrian - boogie rocker. 

Rewinding to the start, Black Mamba is excellent. A slimy, creepy song which exquisitely recalls some of the original band's more overtly horror-inspired songs. Kill The Flies is also along those lines - a classic Alice Cooper insane asylum song (see The Ballad of Dwight Fry) that hits the spot. 

The big standout here is Blood On The Sun, a 6 minute psychedelic trip of the kind that solo-Alice has never gone back to. It's a bit Easy Action/Killer era, and is easily the best and most interesting song on the album. 

Honestly, though, the other 10 tracks are all quite normal 70s rock stuff. Alice's solo efforts in the 2020s have been deliberate attempts to go back to the hard rockin' Detroit 60s/70s era which, although the Alice Cooper Group was steeped in, they never actually sounded like that. A few of the songs tip their hat a little too hard, such as Crap That Gets In The Way Of Your Dreams effectively being a Kinks' rip-off. As such, musically the rest of the album doesn't sound particularly Alice Cooper Group-ey, even though this is a highly consistent and listenable album. What is Alice Cooper Group-ey are the lyrics, which do their very best to embody the spirit of rebellious teenagers despite being written by septuagenarians.    

So there are some real flashes of 'Classic Alice Cooper' here, but overall this album more often sounds like a half-way-house between the Alice Cooper Group and solo Alice Cooper. Which, although slightly disappointing to someone who was hoping for a full album of slightly weird psychedelia, ultimately results in Alice's best album in well over a decade.