ALICE COOPER — Welcome To My Nightmare (review)

ALICE COOPER — Welcome To My Nightmare album cover Album · 1975 · Hard Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
Warthur
Alice Cooper the band was no more, but Alice Cooper the frontman was still going strong, and Welcome To My Nightmare is probably the best of his "solo" albums. Although his bandmates had gone, and with them the sense of genuine filth that clung to the edges of classic albums like Billion Dollar Babies, Alice had kept custody of Bob Ezrin after the divorce, and Ezrin was able to get some session musicians together to wheel out some hard glam rock that at least superficially resembles the band's old sound, plus a few guest spots like Vincent Price offering a classic monologue on The Black Widow.

It's certainly a well-polished spectacle, and Cooper has been riffing on the general ideas developed here intermittently ever since - see not just the misguided idea of producing an actual sequel to the album, Welcome 2 My Nightmare, but also the Along Came a Spider album, which took the imagery of The Black Widow and essentially expanded it into a serial killer-themed concept album.

But as lyricalsly evocative and competently produced as the album is, there's something about it which leaves me a little cold every time. It just feels a little bit calculated - a little too slick, a little too polished, a little too absent of the rough edges and out-of-left-field departures the band brought to the table. The cover art here is particularly apt - this is Alice Cooper cleaned up and made ready for prime time, and thus the danger feels nullified, rendered safe and tame by the campy flair of it all. This is a matter of taste, of course, but it remains consistent no matter how often I give the album a fair chance.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Metal Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

Deviance Deathcore
ASHES INTO BLOOD
Buy this album from MMA partners
Equilibrium Atmospheric Sludge Metal
BESRA
Buy this album from MMA partners
Tension Between Rot And Genesis Sludge Metal
ANTHESIS
Buy this album from MMA partners
Recycle Brain Crust Punk
C.P.G
Buy this album from MMA partners
Cartography Of The Mind Deathcore
TETHERED
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

Besra – Unsullied (Music Video)
BESRA
Bosh66· 10 hours ago
Tethered - Breathe (Official Video)
TETHERED
Bosh66· 1 day ago
Saltwound - Walking The Blade (OFFICIAL VISUALIZER)
SALTWOUND
Bosh66· 1 day ago
Saltwound - The Negative (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)
SALTWOUND
Bosh66· 1 day ago
Saltwound - Drowning feat. Taylor Barber (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)
SALTWOUND
Bosh66· 1 day ago
More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed