The story of Alice Cooper's first solo record

Alice Cooper - American singer and songwriter. He is considered king genre shock rock. Through his work as a musician. expanded The singer released his first solo album in 1975. In 1975, the singer released his first solo album "Welcome To My Nightmare"which will then be used to create a grandiose. show featuring the actor Vincent Price.

Group 

В 1964 from the ashes of the band "The Nazz." (previous names were The Earwigs, The Spiders) formed. "Alice Cooper Band". В composition The band consisted of Vince Fournier (the same Alice Cooper, vocalist), Glen Buxton (guitarist), Michael Bruce (keyboardist), Dennis Dunaway (bassist) and Neil Smith (drummer). About, why Vince got himself pseudonym Alice Cooper, the musician recounted the following:

"People came to our speeches and they thought that because I was the lead singer, я and there is Alice Cooperthe head of our gang. After that, the name Alice took root and I started calling myself that."

Initially, not everyone reacted favourably to the band's work. People embarrassed external kind bands, particularly Alice Cooper himself. Despite this, the Alice Cooper Band attracted the attention of a music producer and composer Frank Zappaand she's signed an agreement with his label "Straight.". Their debut album "Pretties For You" was ignored by listeners, but after the 1969 Toronto show, the band was mentioned in all the newspapers because of the "the chicken incident". Alice told me:

"I don't know how the chicken ended up on the stage. For some reason I thought he could fly, so threw his in a crowd. He found himself in the front rows, where they were sitting invalids. It's easy to imagine the effect it had furore".

Later, the group began to work with Bob Ezrinand it was with him that the Alice Cooper Band was able to achieve success. The songs "Killer.", "School`s Out" и "Billion Dollar Babies" were number one on all sorts of charts. Every performance the band was egregious and daring: the musicians were committing outrageous tricksand they brought it to the stage boa constrictors etc. Because of their scandalous behaviour, the collective soon developed a problems. Clip to the song "School's Out" was banned from the BBCthe British Home Secretary has been asked by the Home Secretary forbid musicians to perform in the country. Conflicts begin to arise within the band. According to Alice:

"Each of us wanted to try our hand at solo career. But seriously we didn't think about disbanding the Alice Cooper Band, but in the end, the band still disintegrated".

Solo album

Cooper's starting to think about writing music album. It is important to note that by the time "Welcome To My Nightmare" was released Alice Cooper was already one of the most famous rockers all over the world. On the record he decided to work with Bob Ezrin. Alice himself will say the following about him:

"Bob - genius. He can hear things that normal people can't hear. His contribution to Welcome To My Nightmare. invaluable. We wouldn't have made it without him."

Central elements of the album are the main concept Alice: the songs are about nighttime nightmaresthat suffer from child named Stephen. The musician has always dreamed that the album would be not just a set of songs, but a theatre by the production. The musician confesses:

"I've always wanted to make the kind of album that you can create a stage album out of as well show. The whole idea was to make him soundtrack to a film or a play. I think we did it well."

A musician's idea supported famous horror film actor Vincent Pricewho agreed to be the narrator for the album. His voice was known and associated with horror films. The musicians realised that they wanted to create an additional effect stories, histories. Voice Vincent fit in perfectly with the album and became the album's highlight. The actor even took part in a television special issueto celebrate the release of "Welcome To My Nightmare".

The album was released on the label "Atlantic." in February 1975. The cover artwork for it was created by Drew Struzan. "Rolling Stone" would later place his work ninetieth on its list of the "100 Greatest Album Covers of All Time". On the American channel. ABC was broadcast "Alice Cooper: Nightmare."in which the musician played Stephen and Vincent Price played the spirit. The film won an award "Emmys." and was later released on video cassette and DVD.

"Welcome To My Nightmare" was ambiguously perceived by the public. For example, Dave Marsh from "Rolling Stone" called the album "television soundtrack."sounding the same. In his opinion, parties the French horns were very uniform. Robert Christgau"the doyen of American rock critics", on the contrary, praised the album. favourably: "he's not that bad - no worse than the rest". And the biographer Greg Prato thought Welcome To My Nightmare was Alice Cooper's best work. Here's what myself Alice speaks of his brainchild:

"For a first solo album, it's very good start! We realised everything I wanted. The album popularand that means we did it right."

Since the release of "Welcome To My Nightmare," it has become the most submitted album on Alice Cooper's live setlists. It is the last record from which all the songs were performed live. Building on Alice's music, 1976 would be the . made a film with the same name. And even though he's suffered failure at the box office, the work was later recognised classic.