Great Rock Albums of the 70s: Alice Cooper- Welcome to My Nightmare

Wtih the release of the new Alice Cooper album, "Welcome 2 My Nightmare," I felt it was only appropriate for me to visit the original "Welcome to My Nightmare" album, which was released back in 1975. It also helped me to choose which of the great Alice Cooper albums to feature on here. Back in the 70s, Alice put out some classic memorable albums such as "School's Out," which was the first Alice Cooper album I ever heard. There was also "Billion Dollar Babies" and "Goes to Hell." But it is this memorable classic rock album that I am visiting here.
What makes "Welcome to My Nightmare" so great? The opening title track gives you the answer. The song "Welcome to My Nightmare" is one of the best concert opening songs in history. With Alice's vocals behind it, the song reaches out and grabs you by the throat and says, "You're gonna listen to me." One reason I was glad he opened with that song when I finally got to see him live in 1988. As far as the album goes, the title track sets the stage and draws the listener in to not only listening to the entire album, but loving it as well.

Track Listing:

1. Welcome to My Nightmare

2. Devil's Food

3. The Black Widow

4. Some Folks

5. Only Women Bleed

6. Department of Youth

7. Cold Ethyl

8. Years Ago

9. Steven

10. The Awakening

11. Escape 

Another great item I really like on the album is the vocal by Vincent Price on the track "The Black Widow." It takes a good song over the edge to make it great. Forget Michael Jackson and "Thriller," Alice Cooper had the idea first and does it a lot better, although I could be a bit biased here.

 

Personnel:

Alice Cooper- vocals

Bob Ezrin- Synthesiser, arranger, keyboards, vocals

Vincent Price- Speical effects, vocals

Dick Wagner- guitars

Steve Hunter- guitars

Joseph Chirowski- synthesiser, vocals, keyboards, clavinet

Prkash John- bass

Tony Levin- bass

Pete "Whitey" Glan- drums

Johnny "bee" Badanjek- drums

One of my regrets when writing "Rock And Roll Children" was the book was set during the mid 80s when Alice Cooper had nearly faded into obscurity through heavy drinking. That is why he only gets a brief mention in the book. What the characters didn't know was that Alice Cooper was a major influence on many of the great metal bands of the 80s and it was albums such as this one that made it so.

Next post: Heart- Dreamboat Annie

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