The Best Of Alice Cooper: Mascara & Monsters [Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered]

Alice Cooper | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 16, 2001)
• Original Release Date: 1974
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
• Label: Rhino
• ASIN: B00004TZYJ
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (69 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,376 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #29 in Music > Classic Rock > Glam
  • #43 in Music > Latin Music

Track Listings

1. I'm Eighteen

2. Is It My Body

3. Desperado

4. Under My Wheels

5. Be My Lover

6. School's Out

7. Elected

8. Hello Hooray

9. Generation Landslide

10. No More Mr. Nice Guy

11. Billion Dollar Babies

12. Teenage Lament '74

13. Muscle Of Love

14. Only Women Bleed

15. Department Of Youth

16. Welcome To My Nightmare

17. I Never Cry

18. You And Me

19. How You Gonna See Me Now

20. From The Inside

See all 22 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

An essential figure in any history of the American grotesque, son-of-a-preacher-man Vincent Furnier served as a missing link between Screamin' Jay Hawkins and Marilyn Manson. As Alice Cooper, he helped make the pop world safe for morbidity and makeup, scoring a bunch of hits and misses along the way. Mascara & Monsters serves up a fairly rote chronology of Cooper's '70s singles, with the occasional B-side and 1989's "Poison" (cowritten by mainstream hitmeister Desmond Child!) thrown in for good measure. As such, the album doesn't live up to its best-of billing. "Dead Babies," arguably the best track on Killer, loses out to "Under My Wheels," while the garage-rock glories of the band's first two albums are also conspicuously absent. On the plus side, "School's Out," "Elected," and "No More Mr. Nice Guy" still sound great. If you're looking for easy access to those and numerous lesser singles, this collection will do the trick. --Bill Forman

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If Not For the Bing Crosby Years..., January 29, 2001

By 

John D. Pride (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Best Of Alice Cooper: Mascara & Monsters (Audio CD)

Yes I, like you, still love Alice Cooper to death. I bought all of the albums by the Alice Cooper Group (including "Easy Action and "Pretties For You"), saw them live a bunch of times, even covered "Be My Lover" in a band when I was 17 years old.

This is definitely a better collection than any released so far, including the box set. Problem is, it reminds you of the fact that Alice had "it" through "School's Out", and then pretty much lost it until the brand new one (which is amazing).

The CD sort of evolves like this: Cuts 1 through 11 get you jumping all over the room with joy, then everything sort of falls apart until, strangely, "Clones" and "Poison". Maybe it's the fact that Alice wanted so badly during the period of cuts 12 through 20 to be "legit", playing golf with Bing Crosby and all, that the songs just weren't Alice anymore. You wind up wanting to hear "Raped n' Freezin'", "Black Juju", "Caught In A Dream", "I Love the Dead" and other vintage songs all the more.

So, knowing full well that Rhino did the best they could to make this a career-spanning retrospective, you can just feel them aching to get another "Sun Arise" or "Ballad of Dwight Fry" on this disk. Despite 9 really lame tracks, this record made me smile.

33 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Original Greatest Hits Album (Plus 10 More!), January 20, 2001

By 

T. C Lane (Marina, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Best Of Alice Cooper: Mascara & Monsters (Audio CD)

This is an expanded edition of the classic 74 album, Greatest Hits. Rhino has added 10 songs from that edition: one pre-74 cut, "Generation Landslide" and 9 post 74 songs. They've also ditched the cover that graced the Greatest Hits album, but they have improved the sound from that CD. There are those who believe Cooper slipped after 1974, and have always believed that the Greatest Hits album was the best chronicle of the band's peak years. True, the majority of hits from the late 70's are ballads like "I Never Cry", "Only Women Bleed" and "You and Me", but these slower hits were guilty pleasures for me, so their inclusion doesn't bother me, but the rock and rollers who don't like the slower cuts might want to stick with the original, glorious and kick-ass Greatest Hits. Rhino has balanced the ballads by adding rockers like "Department of Youth", "Generation Landslide" , "Welcome To My Nightmare" and the eternally weird New Wave minor hit "Clones". There are track-by-track liner notes by Alice and a couple of band members. For those who thought the box set was too much, this turns out to be the best single disc of Alice Cooper's career.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Killer Single-Disc Collection, January 18, 2001

By 

Steve Vrana (Aurora, NE) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Best Of Alice Cooper: Mascara & Monsters (Audio CD)

Alice Cooper's career divides neatly into two distinct phases. There was Alice Cooper the band, which defined the shock rock genre from 1969 to 1974 and released classic albums like Killer and Love It To Death. Then there was Alice Cooper the solo artist, who would schmooze with celebrities on the golf course and make appearances on Hollywood Squares. The former was a terrific band and I saw them twice in the early Seventies when I was in college. The latter didn't hold my interest much--though "Only Women" and "I Never Cry" were pleasant, if somewhat wimpy, ballads.

When his box set came out last year, I was disappointed by how little attention was given to his early-Seventies glory years with the Alice Cooper band. So even when BMG offered it at an amazing discount, I passed. Instead, I stuck with my vinyl copies of his albums and a cassette copy of Greatest Hits. This new release, however, makes a nice addition to my CD collection. It completely duplicates 1974's Greatest Hits and adds all of his solo hits through 1989's million-seller "Poison." The only downside is that the only additional Alice Cooper band track is "Generation Landslide" from Billion Dollar Babies--not exactly the band's best album. "Black Juju" from Love It To Death or "You Drive Me Nervous" from Killer would have been better choices.

So what you have here is a terrific poor man's version of the box set--all the essential songs, great liner notes and terrific sound. If you want more, get Killer, then Love it To Death and (if you still need more) School's Out. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED