Without Alice Cooper Rock N' Roll only would have had bad boys, but never any villians. There would be no Rob Zombie, and Michael Jackson never would have gotten into doing the stage shows that he became famous for. I'm not making that up either. He said on multiple occasions how Alice's stage shows inspired him. I could go on and on, but this tribute has nothig to do with any of those huge artists. In fact this album goes the other way. This tribute is performed by a multitude of independant bands, that take the master's work spanning from Pretties For You to Trash, and they do it their own way.
There are a few bands on here I had known prior to picking up this album, but not many, and there's only one that I can say I knew other than by name alone. I had heard of Of Cabbage And Kings, The Hangmen, They Eat Their Own and Vandals, but I didn't know anything about them or any of their music. The only group I had known any music from was Flaming Lips, and that was only the song She Don't Use Jelly. So, needless to say this album was a surprise to me when I picked it up and listened to it for the first time.
I can still remember my opinion of it after that first listen. "What the fuck is this shit!?" I wasn't very impressed and to be honest I'm still not, but there are a few tracks on here that I think are really cool, and well done. However, the best part about this album is the track listing. You can tell by the songs that these are real fans, not just a bunch of artists trying to cash in on someone else's work and fame.
The album opens with Reflected, and if you know your Alice you'll know that this song was later recycled into Elected, and performance wise I find that is the song more represented here. Dramarama's version of this song is decent, and honestly well performed. It's pretty faithful to the original and for the most part I can't really complain, except for what I already said. Wallison Ladmoh (featuring Paul Cutler and Don Bolles) take on one of my favourite early Alice Cooper Group songs, Levity Ball. The interpretation is a respectable modernization, but it's not as good as the version from Live At The Whiskey A Go Go, which was much better than the version on Pretties For You. I feel the problem with this cover is that they went for replication of music instead of trying to capture the original vibe.
John Trubee and the Ugly Janitors Of America take on Refrigerator Heaven. It's okay, but nothing special.
Of Cabage And Kings cover Lay Down And Die, Goodbye, which is one song I've never been a fan of, but I feel the band missed the point of this song, which is that it was primarily an instrumental. Over all I'm not impressed with this song, but like I said I never was.
Now it's on to the major label years with Caught In A Dream being the first song to appear from Love It To Death. I love this song, but not this cover. It sounds too Pop Punk for my likings. It's like Rubber City Rebels were trying to go for a Ramones kind of vibe, but with the attitude of Blink 182 (which weren't out at the time of this album's release).
Lydia Lunch & Rowland S. Howard crank out Black JuJu, and they do it with some real style. Although they lose some of the original vibe in the middle of this song, for the most part they do a decent enough job. It's not the original, but they do give it a good go, and even add their own acceptable tweaks and twists. Also, the vocalist reminds me a fair bit of Courtney Love circa Celebrity Skin.
Now when it comes to Alice Cooper there are some songs that are like a religion that you just don't fuck with them, and if you screw them up you better be ready to have your ass kicked. Bug Lamp decided to be brave and take on one of those songs, Ballad Of Dwight Frye. However, the were very faithful in the sense that they actually start with Second Coming. That scores huge points with me, because I love the two songs back to back on the original album. What costs them points are the vocals. I want to punch the vocalist in the face, because he shouldn't be singing this song. His voice is ass. Also I don't like how they picked the tempo up on Second Coming either. It's suppoed to be slow and somber. This version sounds rushed, which kills the mood for what comes next. Now what it should be and what we get are two completely different things. Ballad Of Dwight Frye is about the slow mental meltdown of a man trapped in an asylum. This version is some some stupid attempt at jacking up a song by adding unnecessary force. If I had my way Bug Lamp would be beaten with the chair Bob Ezrin stacked on Alice while recording this song
This is followed by the final track from Love It To Death, Sun Arise, which is technically a cover of a cover on this album. It's also performed by the only band I knew prior to this album, The Flaming Lips. They do a really good job on the song, and I respect their cover. The thing is though, I never cared for the Alice version of the song, and I never knew the Rolf Harris version until I decided to listen to it as I'm writing this. The Australian ditty is actully pretty cool, and I like it better than both Alice Cooper and The Flaming Lips versions. However, this album's version is still pretty good.
Bulimia Banquet performs under My Wheels. I don't care for the vocals, and the intro prior to the song kicking in is pretty stupid. However, this band nails this song musically. I mean they really, really do a great job, and throw in a little nod to Bowie as well for good measure and it works really well.
One of my favourite jokes in the movie The Commitments is when the drummer says that Animal from The Muppets is one of his influences. I love it so much because I claim the same thing. I love The Muppets. I love Alice Cooper. I loved when Alice was on The Muppet Show. The reason I bring this up is because the next song sounds like muppet monsters performing Halo Of Flies, and doing it well. It's actully a band by the name of Haunted Garage, but as far as I'm concerned this was recorded during that amazing episode, and never released. This is one of the few songs on this double CD set that I'll throw on my Mp3 player. From what I gather from a quick online search this band is a gore fest live, and clearly get this song. I even respect the personal touches they added to this song.
The first disc finishes with what seems to be a live version of Desperado, by Chris Connelly. I don't care for it at all. Most of the songs on this CD have pretty decent production value, especially cosidering this is a collection of underground bands. This song on the other hand sounds completely like shit. It's almost like it was recorded during a sound check by someone holding a microphone in the middle of the room instead of connecting to the mixer board.
Disc two kicks off with another song that is holy to me, and once again the band performing it doesn't just do the one track, but they do two tracks back to back the way it was meant to be done. Shadow Project takes a crack at Dead Babies and Killer, and they do it well. Not only did they get the vibe right, but keep it faithful with their own personal touches that fit right into the song. My only real complaint about the cover is the slightly altered tempos. It's nothing drastic, but at times I find it a bit rushed. However, this one is decent enough to have been on my Mp3 player more than once. I should also mention that the production on this song combo is really good. It's almost as if Bob Ezrin himself produced this cover.
Now I understand when bands change up songs and make their own interpretation, especially in the case of songs that have been covered a million times, by a million different bands. A prime example of this to me is Type O Negative's version of Black Sabbath's Paranoid. That being said I will gladly kick every member of Reverb Motherfuckers in the balls for what they did to School's Out. Clearly these assholes didn't even bother to learn the original, except for the lyrics, and even then it's sketchy. Musically this is a complete nightmare, and totally wrong on so many levels. It doesn't even capture the essence of the original song.
Claw Hammer does Generation Landslide. It sucks. It's a shitty garage band performing a song that, requires more than the band clearly has to offer. I can't stand the vocalist, although some of the music isn't bad. However, skip this one.
When Alice Cooper originally did Working Up A Sweat one of the best parts about the song was the tongue in cheek lyrics. The fact that the song was just as dirty if not dirtier than Aerosmith's Walk This Way, but still just as radio friendly. This version from Royal Court Of China opted to make the song vulgar instead, which is a shame because musically it's really good. The worst part is that it was the change of only one line that wrecked it for me. The original went "The hardest part's explainin' / All those blisters on my - nose!" Which is so much naughtier than "The hardest part's explainin' / All those blisters on my - dick!" Which this band used to cheapen the song. I also don't like that they go all punk starting at the 3:16 marker. It could have been a really good cover otherwise.
I never really cared for Teenage Lament '74. I never understood why it was a single from the Muscle Of Love Album. I also don't understand why this bad accoustic version by Tyla was included on here either. It does even less for me than the original. When a band called Cold Ethyl covers Welcome To My Nightmare, you either get ready to panic, or get ready to enjoy. In this case you can relax and enjoy. The band is also featuring Steve Perkins, and I only mention this because he's mentioned on the back cover with the band, and not because he's played in Porno For Pyros or Jane's Addiction. Normally that would turn me off. I do enjoy this cover though. It's done well.
Carnival Art takes a crack at Cold Ethyl, and I kind of want to take a crack at them with my sledge hammer for this cover. They speed the song up in a bad way, take all the sexy out of it, and in general piss me off. This is one of my top three Alice Cooper songs, and if you aren't going to do it right you shouldn't do it at all.
I can't stand Only Women Bleed. I have heard one cover of the song ever that I thought was good, and it was done by a band for a D.I.Y. cover album that the band I once played with was supposed to be a part of, but in the end I ended up just doing the web site for it. I loved the way they sped up the song and gave it a whole new flavour. I wish I could remember the name of the band, or that the website still existed, but it doesn't. This cover on the other hand sounds like the original, but with a really bad vocalist. Musically this one is pretty faithful, and I will give credit to The Hangmen for that, but their vocalist sucked. I'm even okay with the added touches they put in.
I was both surprised and a little let down that Serious, originally off From the Inside was included on here. I was let down because it was the only song on here from that album, but it's cool that it was included. As for the cover, I would suggest skipping it. Sloppy Seconds sounds like a sped up demo version of the original version. It's pretty faithful, but done too quickly, and a little to Punk sounding for my likings.
You want to talk about a weird album to have two covers on this collection, 1980's Flush The Fashion. The first song included on here is Clones, which is titled incorrectly from the original track, but that's excuseable. This is one of those songs that's a guilty pleasure for Alice Cooper fans, but I think They Eat Their Own capture the original flavour quite well. I'm sure part of what helps is that for the one album in which this band existed they were a New Wave Pop band. This band included Tish Ciravolo who is the President & Founder of Daisy Rock Guitars. I like this track while it's playing on the CD, but it's not the original. Thankfully it's not as shitty as the Smashing Pumpkins cover of this song either.
The next track from that weird eighties album is Pain, covered by Dutchess De Sade. I don't like it at all. I'm not sure what they were trying to do, but it didn't work. So you can skip this song too.
The album ends with the one Alice hit I've never been fond of, Poison. This is done by a Punk band called Vandals, that I only knew through name, because of my buddy Ian. Now as much as I don't care for the original, I still feel a need to become very violent towards this band because of what they did to this song. I can over look the horrible instrumentation to a very small degree, and can even laugh at them for using part of Bell Biv Devoe's song by the same name, however what they did to the lyrics makes me angry beyond belief. I mean Alice Cooper's Vengeance Is Mine kind of angry.
If you can find this album cheaply, it might be worth picking up for the experience. You may even like some of the tracks better than I do. I must admit I'm very biased, because Alice is God to me. Sorry Lemmy. So, messing up his songs is as sacreligious, as holy rollers would find my statement of Alice is God.
On the other hand if you are a die hard Alice Cooper fan, I would suggest that you tread lightly because you aren't going to like this one.
As an off handed production note, some of the songs on this album are an eight or higher, most of which are on the first disc. With the exception of Dead Babies/Killer most of the second disc is a seven or less.
6/10 - content
7/10 - production
4/10 - personal bias
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