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...
Serious has always been one of my favorite songs by him. Hey, how are The Sword albums? I've been listening to a lot of The Faces, Kings of Leon and Glossary. Do you like any of this stuff? What have you been listening to? I have been playing my guitar a lot lately and I figured out how play most of Western Shore. You can play a lot of cool stuff with open tuning.
ReplyDeleteYea, I've been listening to almost nothing but the Sword albums for the last two weeks...I honestly can't tell which one I like more..I saw the Kings of Leon once a looong time ago...Never really listened to them outside of that except for the songs you sent me which I enjoyed...I've never listened to Glossary, but I like Lucero...I could be wrong, but aren't the two bands related? I'm a huuuge fan of the Small Faces...I probably won't get to them for a decade or so, but I listen to "Ogden's Nut Gone Flake" all the time...It's some far out shit! The guy that talks nonsense in-between the songs is my favorite...I love 60's psychedelia, so I haven't branched out to the later Faces stuff, which I understand is a little more grounded...I've had other people recommend it to me lately, so it's probably about time to go a little further...I've been thinking lately of combing a group of albums at once to move this blog along...cos at my current pace it's gonna take me the better part of a decade to get through them, never mind the fact I get new ones all the time...I burn through music like crazy...I listen to it on the way to work, then I listen to it for 8 hours at work, I listen to it when I get home, and then I usually listen to records at night too...Lol..I'm always happy when you recommend stuff to me..I've picked up a bunch of new stuff that you pointed me to and I've loved it all...
ReplyDeleteYeah Glossary and Lucero are related. They have the same guitar/pedal steel guitar player. I recently picked up a copy of Glossary How We Handle Our Midnights which is great! I also have Feral Fire by them. My favorite Faces album is A Nod Is As Good As A Wink... I Love it! Check out the song That's All You Need. It's bad ass! Debris is a good tune to! To me it sounds like Paul Westerberg singing it. I just ordered some stuff. I got Centro-matic- Candidate Waltz; Nada Surf- Proximity Effect and Sponge- Rotting Pinata. I'm the same way about music. Constantly listening and always looking!
ReplyDeleteI'll check out that Faces album for sure! Something Westerbergian sounds good to me right now....
ReplyDeleteHave you checked out the Faces yet? Also check out Nada Surf-Telescope.
ReplyDeleteWent to the Record Store today and searched high and low for that Faces album...Could not find it...Probably time to turn to Amazon...
ReplyDeleteThat is where I got it from. Pretty cheap to. Hey what is a good Roxy Music album to start out with that you'd think I'd like? I like the song More Than This. Is that bad?
ReplyDeleteI love Roxy Music. I have all their albums, but the absolute best one is out of print, but you could probably find a used version on vinyl pretty easily. But yea, get the one called "Greatest Hits" with the gold Record on the front. It doesn't have "More Than This" on it, but everything else is way better! Out of the regular albums, I think a good one to start with is maybe "Stranded." It's got their best song on it ("Mother of Pearl."). I do have "Avalon" which is their final album w/ "More Than This on it" and I do like it, but it's very very slow..."More Than This" is probably the most uptempo song on it...lol...I also personally love "Siren" but I know a lot of people consider it the moment they start to go downhill, but I don't think so...It's another good one...But yea, find the greatest hits with the gold record on front at all costs...lol...I think it's only on vinyl though, but nothing comes near it...
ReplyDelete