As a teen, I started out with the Greatest Hits, which covered all the 70's hits. That's a good as place as any to start I guess. Then move into the late 90's, around The Last Temptation and onward. All of those albums have been pretty strong. Brutal Planet is awesome. Really dark, even for Alice.

In my opinion, as far as the 70's stuff goes, anything with the Alice Cooper BAND is gold, starting with Love it To Death. That's where they started to sound like the Alice we all know & love. After he goes solo, it gets a little spotty by the end of the 70's. Some gems in there though too.

I don't care much for his work throughout the 80's. The early 80's is too avant garde(?) and the late 80's is too hair-band slick.

If you can find The Life & Crimes of Alice Cooper box set for cheap, I'd recommend that. It's a nice overview with a little bit of everything.

In 1971 Alice Cooper released their break thru album 'Love it to Death' and talk about major improvement in terms of songwriting, performance, production and everything all around.

The difference between 1970 and 1971 is almost unbelievable, and the band credit the production and influence of producer Bob Ezrin. When Ezrin saw Alice Cooper, he heard potential in their material and helped the band strip their arrangements of the excess psychedelic noodling and helped the band concentrate on the strength of the songs and their strength as songwriters. Also Ezrin worked closely with Alice to help create the persona of Alice Cooper.

Ezrin used bassist Dennis Dunaway ( who acted as a musical director for the band) and Neal Smith as anchors for the new sound. Once the album opens you hear a world of difference the stripped down material makes.

"Caught in a Dream' opens the album with a cool guitar leads from Glenn Buxton and Michael Bruce, and Alice's voice sounds much more improved and for the first time contains his trademark sneer. Lyrically Alice has found his footing. "Caught in a Dream' with is hooky verse serves a great opening number.

'I'm Eighteen' follows and it is one of the best rock anthems of all time, Alice stating he is between a man and boy, the confusion of growing up and just one of their best songs.

'Black Juju' is the first song that plays up to the Alice Cooper image we are all familiar with, the songs topic of death, voodoo, surreal sounds make this one of their early live favorites.

'Ballad of Dwight Frye' named after the 30's character actor best know for playine Egor is psycho drama at its best, Alice even wore a straight jacket and sang it underneath a row of chairs as he was recording his vocal.

"Second Coming' is also a dark almost ballad, that seems to be taking Jesus point of few regarding coming back.

Alice's music was not all just psycho drama and the album contained two hit singles, 'Eighteen' and 'Is it My Body?' which is catchy and displays Alice's sense of humor.

'Hallowed by thy Name' a cool song with politically incorrect lyrics about queens taking off with somebody's son.

Musically the turn around is incredible, and the band sounds renewed and has discovered their own sound.

Rolling Stone who's disdain for metal is second to none, named this album one of the most important albums in rock history.

'Love It To Death' was the Alice Cooper bands 3rd album. It marks the first collaboration with Canadian super-producer, Bob Ezrin, who would have a big role in Alice Cooper's success. This album also shows the band from some different angles. We get the psychedelic space rock songs the band did on the first 2 albums. But we also get some raunchy rockers in a style that would later on become synonymous with the shock rocker, Alice Cooper. And then there are the songs that somewhat falls in between these two styles. "I'm Eighteen" is probably the most known song from this album, and has become a regular in his live shows. But I think my favorite here is "Ballad Of Dwight Fry". What a quirky mix of spaghetti western music and theatrical twists and turns! "Black Juju" is another stand out track, a nine minute plus psychedelic trip. As a whole 'Love It To Death' is maybe a bit messy musically. But fortunately Bob Ezrin managed to bring it all together with his production, and as a result this became the bands breakthrough album, and a favorite amongst long time fans.

The original cover art for the LP version of the album caused a bit of controversy. On the original front cover, Alice has his thumb poking out of his cape in a suggestive position. This was first covered up by simply cutting off the bottom of the picture with a white band, and later painting over the offending digit.

"Sun Arise" was written by Rolf Harris and Harry Butler. They were trying to capture the magic of Aboriginal music. Rolf Harris recorded it in 1962.

Killer tracks: I'm Eighteen, Black Juju, Ballad Of Dwight Fry

Love It To Death is absolutely brilliant. I won't get into a review since the one above is suffice and I already reviewed it on my site. However, I will add that it is the first Alice Cooper album that I absolutely loved from beginning to end. If anyone wants to hear the roots of heavy metal and hard rock, here it is.

Alice Cooper was already earning a reputation for their bizzare stage shows, that featured live snakes, beheading of baby dolls, executions and more, but none of this would mean a thing, if they did not have the music to back it up.

Critics were seeing Alice as nothing more then a novelty act and metal, a new genre as just another passing fancy, but they as usual were wrong.

Releasing 'Killer' in 1971 the band made a greater leap in terms of songwriting and performance on this album, and this remains one of my fav albums of their career.

The album sonically and lyrically seemed to be created with the stage in mind. The first song 'Under My Wheels' kicks things off to furious start with a cool opening riff from Glenn Buxton. While Alice was the star of the show, he was not the only creative person in the band, as everybody in the band wrote, including drummer Neal Smith.

As a matter the first two songs were written by other members of the band and not Alice. 'Be My Lover' a cool song with a catchy riff and cool lyrics by Michael Bruce, where the groupie in the song asks Michael, why the singer's name was Alice.

'Halo of Flies' was a big stage number and showcase for Neal Smith, the song is my favorite on the album and plays up to dark image of Alice, and features killer bassline from Dennis Dunaway.

"Desperado' which was another single, was influenced partly by Alice's drinking buddy Jim Morrison, who died the year this album was released and one of the characters in the movie ' Tha Magnificent Seven'

'Dead Babies' and 'Killer' two songs that seemed to be written with the stage in mind, 'Dead Babies' was a particular favorite and the song is actually about neglectful parents and not whatever people assumed it was about. 'Killer' features Alice best vocal performance and was written by Dunaway and Bruce, which was their attempt at a prog rock song, except done the Alice way, cool song and great way to end the album.

The other two songs I left out are 'Yea Yea Yea' which is ok but sounds more like a filler song, and 'You Drive Me Nervous' which could have been another hit single if the band had chosen to release it as a single.

If you are new to Alice Cooper I would suggest you start here, the album lives up to its name, it is a killer.

Easy Action - Much more focused than their debut. 4/5
Love It to Death - A good album, but it's not one I listen to a lot. 4/5
Killer - One of Cooper's best albums and contains my favourite Alice Cooper song; Halo of Flies. 5/5

Love it to Death was my favourite for a long time, but I'm leaning more and more towards Killer these days. I would agree that Yeah, Yeah, Yeah is kind of an unnecessary song, but aside from that, the album is amazing. It's always fun to mention the song Dead Babies to people, because they think it's some really messed up psychotic song, when it's actually a really great song lyrically.

Alice Cooper were on a roll now. Killers is another absolutely brilliant release.

Love It To Death and Killer are both excellent albums that get frequent spins from me.

I don't have Killer, yet.

Easy Action- I dig this record, it's the perfect picture of the AC band evolving. As a result, you end up with a great blend of the sound that was to come and the Psych of their earliest days. Still a couple tracks that don't quite measure up, but the good ones are excellent.

Love It To Death- AC (the man and the band) find their signature sounds. One of my personal favorites and a 5 star album.

Killer- Rock N' Roll perfection. This album is just gold from beginning to end.

Released in the summer of 1972, this album would push Alice Cooper to even greater success. The image had been cemented and the stage show had already become legendary. 'School's Out' was the band's most ambitious album to date. Once again produced by Bob Ezrin and who had a hand in songwriting, even playing piano and keyboards on certain tracks, no wonder the band referred to him as the sixth member of Alice Cooper.

Opening with a killer riff from Glen Buxton, the title track became a summer staple across schools and became the signature song for the original band. Not much to say about this song that has not already been said a thousand times, except as a kid and even to my teens we would blast this song on the last day school for years.

Amazingly despite the all excellent songs on this disc Alice (the band and the man) rarely revisited these songs on stage after the end of the tour supporting this album, why that is I have no idea.

This album seems to be bassist Dennis Dunaway's baby, the band member that both Alice and Ezrin called the musical anchor to Alice Cooper. 'Looney Tune' written by Alice and Dunaway features a killer bassline and some cool interplay between all the band members, especially between the rhythm section of Michael Bruce, Dunaway and drummer Neal Smith. Bob Ezrin's string arrangement layered underneath add to the heaviness rather then distract from it.

Guttercat vs. The Jets- Is Alice's satire of one of his favorite movies 'West Side Story' and seems to have been written with the stage in mind. Again the track is dominated by the superb work of Dunaway and Smith.

Blue Turk- Is my favorite song on the album, it is Alice and the boys take on jazz, except done Alice Cooper style. Anchored once again by a kick ass bassline by Dennis Dunaway played on both a stand up bass and your basic bass guitar overdubbed into the mix. Neal Smith does drumming shuffle in the song, featuring nice guitar soloing done in a different style then we are accustomed from Glenn Buxton and Michael Bruce, accented by Alice's best vocal and cool horn arrangements by Ezrin.

My Stars-written by Alice and Bob Ezrin is cool song and was the first time that Alice brought in good friend Dick Wagner to ghost over a solo and lead parts that Buxton was having a difficult nailing, Wagner was uncredited on the original release. The keyboard parts are played by Michael Bruce.

I have a feeling that 'School's Out' the album may have started as a concept album of sorts that was suppose to deal with the high school experience but the band abandoned it, because this song 'Public Enemy No. 9' lyrically is Alice's list of injustice's he has had to suffer at the hands of teachers

"Alma Matter' written by drummer Neal Smith deals with a false sense of nostalgia, as someone who is looking back at his high school years as the best of life.

the albums ends with 'Grand Finale' an instrumental that lives up to its title, where Alice and boys throw everything they have to the track and so shamelessly rip off Leonard Bernstein, that Alice gives him a songwriting credit, this would be the first and at the time of this writing the only time Leonard Bernstein has received any sort of songwriting credit from a heavy metal artist.

Not a huge fan of the album aside from 'Gutter Cats vs The Jets' and 'School's out'. 3/5

I need to revist this album. Been awhile sincle I've given it a spin. From what I recall, I liked it very much though. The band was on a roll at this point. Starting with Love it to Death, they released a slew of rock solid albums, this being one of them.

'Billion Dollar Babies' released in 1973 this would become Alice Cooper's most successful album. The album hit #1 in several countries, and Alice Cooper became one of the biggest bands in the world.

Once again produced by Bob Ezrin, this album would produce radio staples, huge hits and also proved to be the beginning of the end. The band's increasing jealously that Alice the man was receiving the lion share's of the attention was beginning to fray at the band's chemistry, and Glen Buxton's substance abuse problem became so bad, that the band brought in Lou Reed boys Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter to ghost for the guitarist on several tracks, which ones remain unknown since they were able to duplicate Buxton's style perfectly.

The album opens with 'Hello Hooray' one of the few covers Alice has ever done, the song was originally recorded by Judy Collins, and is a perfect opener, this song became the opening song for the tour and a hit for the band.

Raped and Freezing follows which is Alice's role reversal on sexual harassment and the band sounds like they are having a blast, the song is driven by the killer basslines of Dennis Dunaway who always seems to stand out from the band.

With the Watergate scandal about to break wide open and the Presidential election campaign kicks off in 1973, Alice could not resist doing a send up of the entire election sales pitch the voter gets thrown at them, and in the process the band create a classic track with 'Elected' Alice recorded his vocal while starring at himself in a huge mirror attempting to see himself as a candidate for higher office.

'Billion Dollar Babies' is based entirely on Neal Smith's drum beat and features Donovan trading lead vocal duties with Alice, one of my fav Alice tunes.

'Unfinished Sweet' Alice explores one of my darkest fears, dentist, Once again Dennis Dunaway stands out and delivers a killer bassline. This song was a bit part of the stage show for this tour.

'No More Mr Nice Guy' is actually based on real life events, when Alice went visited his parents he went to church incognito and the Rev Smithy who in real life is a family friend, was on that day denouncing the evils of sin, he recognized Alice, while he did not punch him in the nose, Alice's mother was constantly being lectured to for who her son is, and this were certain lines in the song come from. Years later when Rev Smithy died, Alice was one of the attendees of the funeral.

Generation Landslide- Was the band's attempt at folk like the song, done Alice style, very cool lyrics and different side to the band.

Sick Things- A song I personally feel works better as a live song, along with 'I Love the Dead' both songs reveal live vehicles for their stage show.

'Mary Ann' a two minute song, hints at the direction Alice will take when he goes out on his own in the next couple of years.

The three bonus tracks are ok, and prove that Alice Cooper as a band wasted little time in the studio. 'Cool Model T' and "Black Limousine' are basically the same song. 'Son of Billion Dollar Babies' is an earlier version of "Generation Landslide'

The rest of the songs on the bonus disc are live cuts from the 1973 tour and the band must have really been comfortable with the album since 8 out of the 10 songs featured on the disc come from 'Billion Dollar Babies' Cool to have a live disc from this classic era of the Alice Cooper's career.

A defining moment for Alice. To me, Billion Dollar Babies sounds more like the man's solo efforts, than any of his previous band-work. It's an anwesome album, that's for sure!

I got this disc not too long ago from a genreous trader here, so I haven't spent as much quality time with it as I should have, but I do know it's another good one in the AC discography.

The pinnacle of Alice Cooper as a band IMO. Just the perfect album!

The 2-CD remaster is outstanding. The bonus disc is worth the price of re-buying the album alone.

great album

http://www.discogs.com/Alice-Cooper-Slick-Black-Limousine/release/424485

That song Slick Black Limousine was so hard to get, and I was sooooooo happy when a friend let me tape his copy.

Perhaps the original band's best album. All the songs are brilliant! 5/5

By the time this album was released in 1973 the band Alice Cooper was on the verge of collapse, and musical differences began to surface, with Alice wanting to continue the theatrical route they had established and three of the band mates, Michael Bruce, Dennis Dunaway, and Neal Smith wanted to take the band in a different direction both musically and image wise. Meanwhile guitarist Glenn Buxton once the most talented member of Alice Cooper had turned into a shell of himself, and as result he would barely contribute to the recording of this final album. The only reason he was not fired was because of the band's loyality to each other but this would prove to be short lived.

This album would prove to be the last of the band, and Bob Ezrin who acted as a sixth member of the band was less then impressed with the material the band had come up with and chose not to produce the album instead duties went to Jack Douglas and Jack Richardson.

The album opens with Big Apple Dreamin', a good but not great song and a bit mellower then excepted. Followed by a strong song 'Never Been Sold Before' a tale of prostitute who refuses to be pimped out anymore, and continues in the more standard rock fare which looking at the song credits, all five members are credited makes me wonder if this were songs composed as a comprise between Alice and the boys as far as direction the band should take.

'Hard Hearted Alice' is one of the first ballads attempted by the band and Alice himself, and the song really does not work, it is not a bad song but as far as ballads Alice has written this is not one of his stronger cuts.

'Crazy Little Child' is a cool song done in a New Orleans jazzy sort of run down gin joint style, with horns, lyrics of that tell story of a wanna be gangster

'Working up A Sweat' is a hidden Alice gem and 'Muscle of Love' the only song that Buxton appears on has a killer riff and was one of the few songs that was released as a single.

'Man with the Golden Gun' was an attempt to make the producers of James Bond film to use the song as theme song for the movie currently in production but this ploy did not work.

'Teenage Lament '74' is a semi ballad and featured Liza Minnelli on backround vocals. Very cool song and a successful attempt to write an anthem of sorts.

'Woman Machine' ends the album and honestly I have never cared for the song.

Once again Alice tapped Lou Reed axe slingers Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter to ghost on the majority of tracks, since Buxton was in no shape to record.

After a short successful tour the band quietly disbanded in 1974, miraculously they broke up on good terms, but it was the end of an era.

Not sure why this album gets a lot of hate. Every bit as good as 'Billion Dollar Babies'