Customer Reviews

School's Out

5 star:		(51)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I truly appreciate that Rhino Records re-released and remastered Alice Cooper's "Billion Dollar Babies" and "Welcome To My Nightmare" which included bonus tracks and more.

Rhino's 4 CD box set was rather a disappointment because they chopped up or only gave us "single" versions of many of his tracks. So when I saw "Welcome To My Nightmare" come out re-released and remastered from Rhino, I was hoping that Rhino would re-release and remaster Alice Cooper's entire catalog.

At least, Rhino should consider remastering Alice Cooper's "Love it To Death", "Killer", and "School's Out".

"Love it To Death", and "Killer" really need some extra attention. The first and only issues of these two albums from Warner Brothers just sound simply awful.

Come on Rhino, please finish what you started.

SCHOOL'S OUT was the album that put the Alice Cooper Group way over the top.Taking every worn out cliche of American High School,a dollop of teen angst,and a love of WEST SIDE STORY,and you have a classic seventies(and beyond)release.The title track has always been a song to be played on the last day of school(very loudly!).Many music styles are incorporated:cool jazz(BLUE TURK),space rock(MY STARS),hard rock(PUBLIC ANIMAL NUMBER 9),and broadway show tunes(GUTTER CATS VERSUS THE JETS,FINALE).My favorite track is ALMA MATER because it shows a hitherto unseen sensitive side of the Coop.SCHOOL'S OUT is a perfect concept album for the teenage years.Even the cover was innovative for it's time(I wish I had the first edition with the "surprise" wrapper) .I'd advise all novice Cooper addicts to purchase this release.Remember the Coop,eh?

I have read the other reviews and I agree with all of them. But I had to add that this album is worth buying if only for the title song. The opening to School's Out is probably one of the best guitar licks around. Instantly recognizable, like Johnny B. Goode and Smoke on the Water, it is so simple but just screams off the album. Combined with the bass, and Alice's feral screams, the song is amazing. The rest of the album is good but would only merit 3.5-4 stars, especially when compared with Killer and Billion Dollar Babies. It is the title song that kicks it up to five stars.

Alice Cooper struck a universal chord with the title track from their fifth album and the group-penned anthem became the only Top 10 hit of their career--"School's Out" peaked at No. 7 in the summer of 1972. [Note: It was also a No. 1 hit for three weeks in the U.K.]

While "School's Out" is the focal point (and only hit) of this apparent concept album, there are other classic Alice Cooper songs here, including the rockin' "Luney Tune" (co-written by bassist Dennis Dunaway and Alice Cooper), the snarling "Public Animal #9, and the jazzy "Blue Turk" (the latter two co-written by guitarist Michael Bruce and Alice Cooper). Two other strong tracks are the ones inspired by the music from WEST SIDE STORY: "Gutter Cat vs. the Jets" and "Grande Finale." [It should be noted that Leonard Bernstein is given co-writer status on both of these tracks.]

In addition to the terrific music, the original LP was housed in an album jacket that could fold into an actual school desk--and the record was not in a paper sleeve but a pair of pink women's underwear! VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Alice Cooper is interesting, misunderstood, and hard to classify. Many have placed his music in the hard rock category, but in listening to the range of music on this CD I find jazz, rock, hard rock, progressive rock, instrumentals, and even a song that sounds like a Broadway show tune.

The CD opens with the title track. While the song sounds like it is anti-school and anti-establishment, the song is a parody of teen angst. It's easy to overlook the key line in this hard rock song, which is "Well we got no class and we got no principals and we got no innocence and we can't even think of a word that rhymes." The opening lyrics and the closing lyrics sound rebellious, but the middle line has more double entendres than a James Bond movie and pokes fun at people who do not go to school. This wonderfully subtle song is considered to be Alice Cooper's signature song.

"Luney Tune" is a bizarre song that evokes surreal images of horror that still contain pieces of parody regarding teenagers understanding their world and how they react to it. The last line is interesting because many teenagers have a difficult time understanding their mortality, and the images in the song are so surreal that dissociation is possible and what you do to yourself may not be happening, but then again, how would you know? The style of this song contains elements that were a part of new wave music in the following decade.

The following song continues the parody, this time of the fight in "West Side Story." The satire in this song is subtle in some ways, and blatant in others. Alice Cooper does a good job of conveying bloody images, but the lines that surround them are too humorous for the song to be taken seriously. This song is another hard rocker with a musically interesting ending that is a combination of elements that appeared more strongly in "Welcome to My Nightmare" with a flavor of music from "West Side Story." This song is followed by a brief instrumental, "Street Fight." The instrumental is primarily fighting sound effects with bass and a cymbal providing the musical accompaniment.

"Blue Turk" is a jazz song where the lyrics could mean several things, with a sexual undercurrent. This song is very strongly jazz flavored from beginning to end, and though the lyrics are typical Alice Cooper, unless you knew the song was by Alice Cooper I do not think you could have guessed it from the style. The song is accompanied by horns to enhance the jazz flavor. The tune is catchy and you may find yourself singing portions of the song if you listen to it too long.

"My Stars" is science fiction from beginning to end. At first it might be hard to tell, but the last line is a giveaway. "Klaatu barada nikto" is from the classic science fiction movie "The Day the Earth Stood Still." This line was provided by Klaatu (Michael Rennie) to Helen Benson (Patricia Neal) to give to Gort the robot in the event that something happened to Klaatu. If you've seen the movie you'll recognize hints within the song that at the very least several elements of the movie are contained within the lyrics. If you need any further proof that this song is science fiction oriented the sound effects in the last minute of the song should be convincing. This song is another rocker that has some progressive elements in it. I thought the piano near the end of the song sounded a lot like Elton John in the early 70s.

Alice Cooper does another changeup on the following song, "Public Animal #9." This time the group plays this rock song with a strong blues flavor. The lyrics describe a prisoner who seems to be unrepentant. Certainly he states that he's proud to be "Public Animal #9."

"Alma Mater" follows. This song is the mellowest on the album, and there is still a bit of satire in the tone. The style reminds me of The Beatles, and Paul McCartney in particular. The refrain has a faster beat, but the next verse returns the song to its mellow beginning. The guitar work is quite good on this song, and shows a strong Beatles influence.

"The Grand Finale" is a rock instrumental with jazz overtones. This instrumental could have been created by the Chicago of the 70s. The lead guitar is classic early 70s style. As the song progresses the sound is similar to that of a fanfare, as though hailing the album and calling attention to its passing, an interesting way of closing this album.

I've always thought of Alice Cooper the group and the singer in terms of their rebellion songs and their songs that spoke of blood and horror. However, this album has little of that, showing more jazz and rock influence, and substantial amounts of parody. The music is good and the lyrics are interesting and challenging. This music is from Alice Cooper at one of their musical peaks, and should be in any serious rock fan's music collection.

Please Note: This review is for the Audio Fidelity limited edition gold disc NOT for any other editions. Amazon as usual has combined these into one mishmash that serves no one well. Amazon, you really, really need to address and fix this issue since it misrepresents the reviews making them, in effect, useless for many.


"School's Out" remains one of my favorite Alice Cooper albums. Steve Hoffman has done a really good job of remastering the album (although you shouldn't expect a miracle--the album itself suffered from a poor, often muddy mix) but those of you who have HDCD players may notice a glitch; the HDCD light your player may go off and on during the playing of the album. I'm not sure if that's an encoding glitch that occurred during the manufacturing process or not but those of you who want to purchase this may want to be aware of it. Reportedly there's an audible click when the CD goes out of HDCD mode however I did not hear it on my player (but I didn't listen to this on headphones either which might be why).

As for the sound of the CD itself--it's probably the best sounding version of the album but let's be honest--this will probably never sound perfect because of the mixing and production of the album itself unless someone goes back and remixes it.Is it a huge improvement over the previously issued CD? Yes and no. It does improve the clarity of the sound BUT the mix is still muddy something a remastering job won't change any time soon.

This has been reissued in a limited numbered edition. I'm hoping that Audio Fidelity won't have any more of these glitches because the sound quality on their reissues have been stellar.

3 stars for the sound and 1 star because of the HDCD issue. 5 stars for the album itself.

It's nice to see that there are many fans around who still appreciate what a masterpiece this album was. I grew up a big, big fan of Alice's first band, who were incredibly talented musicians as well as powerful songwriters. People forget what an important player guitarist Michael Bruce was in those days, but if you look back, you'll see his songwriting credits on all the biggies from that era.

Having been practically weaned on Alice, I found it as sad to see this band break up as I imagine it must have been for fans of groups such as Pink Floyd or Van Halen. Sadder even still was watching Alice become less of a musician over the years and more and more of a shock rocker, and knowing that younger generations would never be aware that he had once made some truly remarkable music. Although there were a few flashes of brilliance in his solo period (most notably on 'Welcome to my Nightmare' and 'From the Inside'), there was nothing, to my mind, that ever came close to the stuff that was put out on Love It To Death, Killer, Billion Dollar Babies and School's Out.

To me, however, School's Out was the pinnacle. Not as hard rocking as some of the others, yet delightfully sprinkled with touches of various musical influences ranging from jazz to Broadway musicals, this was the opus for Alice and company. Interestingly, the title song, which was Alice's biggest solo hit with this group, has always been my least favorite. While I do like how it sets the theme of the album, I've always thought that things really kicked off with the second track, "Luney Tune," which is a neatly packaged song about losing it that has what is arguably their tightest song-ending ever. "Gutter Cat," "Blue Turk," "My Stars" and "Alma Mater" are likewise among the band's best tracks, and the closer, "Grande Finale," makes a fitting finale indeed for this particular piece of music.

I agree totally with one of the earlier reviewers who lamented that School's Out has not yet been digitally remastered. If there was ever an Alice Cooper album that would be suited for it, School's Out, with its extensive musical range, is definitely the one. The day that happens, I'll be sending for a copy, and pronto.

Mainstream Alice fans, this might not be to your taste. It's pretty experimental, and there's a lot less rock and guitar work than usual. However, if you consider yourself an Alice Cooper fan and are into musicianship and songwriting, than this should definitely be in your library.

School's Out was a transitional album for the Alice Cooper group. A bridge between the darker albums, LITD & Killer, and the B$Bs album. It probably is the album that really shows how talented and versatile, the band and Bob Erzin truly were. Plus the original vinyl had the best packaging design ever.
I won't go into the songs except to say there really are not any bad ones. Blue Turk, Gutter Cat, Public Animal #9 really stand out. Luney Tune is probably my least favorite. This is not a heavy sounding album like Killer or LITD.
Unfortunately I have to give this 4 stars instead of 5 because of the sound quality. I was hoping Steve Hoffman would spend more time remastering this like Rhino did with the Nightmare and B$Bs releases. This really doesn't sound much better (to my ears) than the original Warner Bros. CD, except perhaps a little cleaner. Still thin on the bass, slightly muddy on the highs. The original artwork is used so that is a plus.
If you don't have School's Out, by all means pick this one up. If you have the Warner CD, you may want to hold off. Hopefully Rhino will get around to remastering all of Alice's Warner albums, but that rumor has been around for years so who knows.

EDIT 1/2/2011 My review mainly refers to this remaster of the album. My "thin on the bass" comment is not a criticism of Dennis' bass playing. The musicianship is excellent here. In fact the disc sounds better when I play it through my newer HDMI-connected DVD player. More detailed, more dynamic. Now that the AC group is being inducted into the R 'n R Hall of Fame, hopefully Rhino will remaster all of the group's albums like they did with B$Bs a few years ago. Rhino are you reading this?

Rock & Roll at it's best and Alice Cooper (and the original band membrs) at their very best - Great writing and talent - Is my favorite !

Originally released in 1972, this was the band's follow-up to 'Killer'. 'School's Out', no doubt was a bit of a ground-breaker. I remember the summer this album had first seen the light of day. Maybe it was just me,but it seemed like the town's scuzziest women that you could ever come across simply worshipped this record. As for the guys who totally dug 'School's Out', they were often those trouble-making, long-haired pill poppers that were often a runaway. What am trying to say here? MAYBE 'School's Out' was like a white trash calling card, sort to speak. Don't get me wrong, the music here is great early '70's hard rock as so very FEW had managed to make. Best cuts are the title track "School's Out" (that've now become a staple in FM radio), "Luney Tune" (sort of like a search for teenage identity, 1972 style), the glittery "My Stars" (wish he'd play this on tour again sometime), their ode to those scuzzy women, probably "Public Animal #9" and "Gutter Cats Vs. The Jets" where he'll occasionally play on tour when a street fight occurs. A true keeper, nice reissue and a must-have.