Alice Cooper: From the Inside
1978
Warner Bros. Records
Format I Own it on: Vinyl
Track Listing: 1. From the Inside 2. Wish I Were Born in Beverly Hills 3. The Quiet Room 4. Nurse Rozetta 5. Millie and Billie 6. Serious 7. How You Gonna See Me Now 8. For Veronica's Sake 9. Jackknife Johnny 10. Inmates (We're All Crazy)
One of my fondest memories growing up,,,
I went to my Grandma Davy's house one idyllic summer day in the mid 80's...She would always go to Florida every winter and then return in the summer. During the summer she would have kids stay at the house to watch over it and in return the kids got a free party pad away from their Parents for the winter...Anyway, the kids that had watched the house that winter left behind a huge record collection. My Grandma had attempted to contact the kids to come back and collect their belongings, but for some reason or another they never did, so she told me and my younger Brother that we could keep whatever ones we wanted!
This was too good to be true. We returned home with an armload of vinyl, with our head's buzzing...Among the finds were....
Kiss: Rock & Roll Over
Kiss: Alive!
Billy Joel: Glass Houses
Queen: Flash Gordon Soundtrack
Alice Cooper: From the Inside
...and about a bazillion more that I can't remember offhand...Anyway, I spent the entire summer spinning those albums non-stop...
One that I left behind that's never left my mind, was some album by Dr Hook... I remember reading the lyric sheet and coming across the line, "Hot Dogs turn me on..." which I found deeply disturbing for some reason...To this day I wonder what in the hell that song could possibly be all about...Waitaminute, we live in the internet age where any song in existence is only a mouse-click away.....I'm finally going to listen to this Doctor Hook song that's haunted me for all these years (who the hell is Dr Hook, anyway?)...
Turns out the song was "The Turn On" from the 1982 album"Players in the Dark."...Let's check it out...
(Oh man, am I happy I left this one behind! What kind of shit is this?!?!?! I was sure I was remembering it wrong, but no, hot dogs clearly turn him on...So do tacos apparently...Such sleazy medallion yacht-sex music...It's almost awe-inspiring in a way....?)
Anyway, like I was saying, I spent the summer totally immersed in those recordings and "From the Inside" in particular. For starters, this record has some of the greatest album packaging I've ever seen... The front cover shows Alice's face superimposed over a set of doors that open to reveal...
The inside of the asylum and all its inhabitants, like Nurse Rozetta, Old Silky, etc (as outlined in the song lyrics), This room also includes another little door labeled "Quiet Room" that you can open up to see Alice sitting in a rubber room...
The back cover is another set of doors...
That you can open up to let the inmates out...
I can't imagine owning this on any other format than Vinyl...Even if you're not into Alice, I'd recommend this for the cover alone, so much fun...People often ask me "Why don't you get out of the past and just download the MP3's?" My only response is to show them this cover and if they still don't get it, then you and I have nothing to talk about so, nyahhh!
For all the theatricality of the album artwork, the album is one of his most personal and grounded albums...You're just as likely to hear tender power ballads as you are snarling, vicious rock...
Surprisingly the album is based on a real-life experience...Right around this time Vincent (aka Alice) had an alcohol-fueled nervous breakdown and ended up in a Sanitarium...When he was released he teamed up with Elton John lyricist Bernie Taupin and wrote an album based on his experiences there and the other inmates he met in the facility...
That's why you get character portraits like "Millie and Billie" where Alice improbably teams up with the bubbly Kiki Dee and sings lyrics like:
"...And I liked your late husband Donald
But such torture his memory brings
All sliced up and sealed tight in baggies
Guess love makes you do funny things..."
Ooookay, on the flip side of the hatchet, we get the touching "How You Gonna See Me Now" based on a letter he wrote to his wife while institutionalized...
There's some outstanding stuff here though, if I had to choose my absolute favorite Alice song, the easy answer is "Serious." It's a balls-out pop rocker with Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen on guitar, and it's the type of hooky rocker that would fit right in on "Heaven Tonight" or "Dream Police." Once I hear this song, it tends to overtake my mind for the rest of the day...
"Nurse Rozetta" is a winner too...Nice and sleazy and the section where he sings, "Nurse Rozetta, iI won't let her catch me looking down her sweater," is catchy as hell...
The song that initially drew me into the album though is the grand finale, "Inmates (We're All Crazy), which falls somewhere between a Disney musical and the Psycho theme. Alice rasps antisocial lyrics like, "It's not like we're vicious or gone, we just dug up the graves where your relatives lay in old forest lawn..." over an orchestral backing...Now this is the Alice you were probably looking for...
Oh yea, Marvel also produced a comic book based on this album...
...Maybe soon we'll get a regular, ongoing series based on Lindsay Lohan's endless rehab stints...
Dense and challenging but with a few too many ballads...This is a bit of a grower, rather than a shower, so it's probably not the best place to start if you're just getting into Alice Cooper, despite the fact this was the Alice Cooper album I started with...
Well, it's about time to get out of here...Here's "Serious" by Alice Cooper...Enjoy...
