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21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
4 and a half stars -- LET THE DEBATE BEGIN, January 9, 2004
First off, I am not a Cooper completist. "Trash" is just what it says it is. "Love is a loaded gun" is a loaded pile of MTV poserism. The earliest release by the band is, hard enough to believe , some of the STRONGEST material, in a musical context. This is the only truly experimental, progressive phase of the band before becoming a heavy metal spectacle. Being a fan of the psychelelic and prog genres, I know a good one when I hear it.Here is the story. AC were a struggling band. Flat broke getting by only from stiffing every motel in Detroit. On to LA, things were no better. Frank Zappa met up with AC at a party where it was learned Mr. Z. had started his own record label , Bizarre/Straight. AC wanted to record an album.
When Frank witnessed the band on stage, he noticed that each time they played, they would send the audience away in a fit. To the point of a ghosttown. The stage show at this time was so
offensive and disgusting it made the later AC stage extravaganza seem mild. No big budget theatrics, instead the likes of a transvestite crying "nobody likes me" and then having a temper tantrum like a 2 year old, lying on his back repeating 4 letter f- words until every single audience member had enough. Zappa saw SOMETHING, we can only imagine what, in this.
Zappa offered them a tryout for a record deal, and to his surprise one morning, they snuck into his basement studio and began playing-- loud. A naked, alarmed Zappa rushed out of bed and gave them the deal on the account THEY STOPPED PLAYING RIGHT THEN!
The budget was microscopic and the scheduling was rushed. The band DID NOT have any say in the production. Ya'll can blame
Zappa for the lackluster sound.
One of the things Zappa found interesting was that he realized he would have a challenge trying to transcribe much of their music on paper. It was full of odd time signatures, on a dime changes, sputters, and things that gave it charachter. It is the perfect example of something that sounds like junk until your band tries to play it. It takes some skill to keep it all together. Trust me on this. It is a lot harder than it may seem. None of this music is orchestrated in notation, moreover none of it was developed over time in a studio and none of it was played with real enthusiasm to a crowd on stage. It is literaly taking green amateurs and giving them a couple of hours in a studio and thats that.
Aside from the multitude of musical detail on this album, admittingly hard to notice at first due to the rushed pace of recording (sloppiness)and the lack of studio polish (live in studio, few overdubs), there is some great songwriting. A lot of the ideas are quite off the wall, but there is a definate mixing of emotions within the songs, typical of a lot of the psych music. It is SUPOSSED to be that way! NOT a result of bad songwriting. This was recorded at a time when in LA about the hardest thing around was Spirit or Amboy Dukes. Maybe the likes of Zeppelin coming through on the radio. Or Cream. That's about it. Pretties is just oozing with that lovely "am I happy or sad?" , manic-depressive, so-on-dope- I'm confused mixed up emotional ambiguity. It's about putting some feeling in music rather than just playing what sounds "acceptable" to a beat. It is a testament to how records were sometimes made back then. Totally honest. This is what they were all about. Not a money making,
picture posing machine they later became.
They take risks. Neal Smith never again assaulted his drums like this. Those twin gibsons are never again given so much freedom. And those vocal harmonies are great! Alice REALLY sings in his REAL voice. It's like a pop album gone bad in some places. A times it sounds like Revolver era Beatles on bad acid! None of that nasal whining. But not all of this album is atonal disonant weirdness. There are a few beautiful songs too. Apple Bush with the help of George Martin could have been home on Sgt. Pepper. Reflected is actually better than the rehashed Elected. And Living is such a toe tapper. It sounds like the Beatles. It does. A fantastic song, a hundred times better than I'm 18. And I really like No Longer Umpire and BB on Mars (great titles by the way), these are go happy and almost giddy sounding, but yet disturbing. A technique AC would touch on later in songs like Dead Babies or I love the Dead, only this is much stranger. Twisted! Brilliant! Levity Ball souds like a live recording with a hand held tape recorder that was in a toilet down the hall-- terrible sound. Not a very good song, I'm afraid, either.
Yes it took me a while to warm up to this album, but after a some time I have realized its brilliance. It is probably my
favorite AC album.
This is one of the most underappreciated classic albums from the US underground scene. We can't always have sparkling production, motivated producers, or even seasoned musicians when making an album. It is the substance and the effort that makes it. Not to be judged comparably to say, Killer, but rather as some great material that was unlike anything else at the time, in true garage rock fashion. Stay away if you must have that studio polish or if some timing issues ruin your day. If you appreciate the avant-garde or late 60's experimentalism, this one is a must. By the way, AC were not into drugs. They only drank alot. And the cover of the album was taken from an original painting Zappa had hanging in his living room. Also, there are no Cooperisms on here , no "sick things" such as necrophilia, mental illness, etc. so if you are in love with Alice the persona, get a scrapbook and enjoy the wallet size cut out pics from your original LP press of BDB (great album packaging by the way), this has nothing to do with black leather. Alice has blond hair and is in a green mini dress in the back cover photo.
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~ Alice Cooper
~ Alice Cooper
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