Alice Cooper - The Best Of Alice Cooper: Mascara & Monsters
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Alice CooperEdition: Music CD
Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2001-01-16
Music Label: Rhino
Soundtracks:
- I'm Eighteen
- Is It My Body
- Desperado
- Under My Wheels
- Be My Lover
- School's Out
- Elected
- Hello Hooray
- Generation Landslide
- No More Mr. Nice Guy
- Billion Dollar Babies
- Teenage Lament '74
- Muscle Of Love
- Only Women Bleed
- Department Of Youth
- Welcome To My Nightmare
- I Never Cry
- You And Me
- How You Gonna See Me Now
- From The Inside
- Clones (We're All)
- Poison
Free Music Notes for The Best Of Alice Cooper: Mascara & Monsters
Free Music Review: If You Can Only Give One Alice Cooper Collection, Make It This One
Hit: 5 Stars
Mascara & Monsters comprises 22 tracks covering Alice Cooper's career from 1971 to 1989. Its first 13 songs mimic the 1974 collection, Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits, the track lists are identical - with one exception, "Generation Landslide" is added in-between "Hello, Hooray" and "No More Mr. Nice Guy".
The Alice Cooper Group did seven studio albums. The first two, Pretties For You (1969) and Easy Action (1970), were not up to the standards of the later five. Thus the first 13 tracks on Mascara & Monsters comprise (as does the 12-track Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits) songs from the Coop's last five great hit albums as part of The Alice Cooper Group, before splitting off on his very successful solo career.
It wasn't until Love It To Death (1971) that The Alice Cooper Group had a real winner, represented here by two songs, "Eighteen" and "Is It My Body". We'd have to wonder at the validity of any Alice Cooper "best of" collection that did not include "Eighteen", even today an anthemic song of teenage anger and isolation.
Killer (later in '71) gave us "Under My Wheels", "Desperado" and "Be My Lover" - that last truly one of the funniest songs ever written about groupies.
School's Out (1972) puts only the title song onto M&M. However it's one of AC's all-time greats, following in the angry vein of "Eighteen".
Billon Dollar Babies (1973) gave us "Elected" spun off an old Pretties For You song titled "Reflected". With the lyrics slightly reworked to morph it from a song about wanting to see approval of yourself reflected in other people's eyes into wanting to become an elected official to stroke your own needy ego, it went from being almost ignored to becoming a hit. This album (its title a reference to money and fame turning The Alice Cooper Group into "billion dollar babies") puts five songs onto Mascara & Monsters, more than any other album: "Elected", "Hello, Hooray", "Generation Landslide", "No More Mr. Nice Guy" and the title track.
The Alice Cooper Group's last studio album, Muscle Of Love (1974), puts two songs on M&M, the title track and "Teenage Lament `74" (the latter featuring Liza Minnelli on background vocals, believe it or not). No band before, nor arguably since, has been so in touch with teenage angst as The Alice Cooper Group in the early `70s, no doubt partly because Alice at the time wasn't much past his teenage years himself.
Mascara & Monsters, unlike Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits, does not stop when Alice went solo but continues on. That leaves nine songs remaining to cover the next 14 years of AC's career, beginning with Welcome To My Nightmare (1975) through Trash (1989). How to cover such a large span of time in the career of a diverse, creative talent like Alice Cooper? The answer is to play it safe, giving us only his best and biggest hits from the '75-'89 time frame. That's not a complaint; this is a GOOD thing.
Welcome To My Nightmare is a concept album introducing the character of Steven (whom Cooper would revisit again and again throughout his career - Steven's most recent appearance was on 2008's Along Came A Spider). WTMN puts three songs onto M&M. "Only Women Bleed" is about a woman in an abusive marriage, and one of Cooper's biggest hits; "Department Of Youth" is more teenage anger; and the title track.
Alice Cooper Goes To Hell (1976) has only one song here but it's a biggie. "I Never Cry" went to #12 on the US charts. Alice has since stated on his radio show that "I Never Cry" was his biggest selling single (though he didn't make it clear what was his source for that info, you figure he'd know).
Lace And Whiskey (1977) also has one song, "You And Me". In contrast to everything else on the album, "You And Me" is a sweet little love song about a really functional relationship.
From The Inside (1978) is another concept album, inspired by Alice's stay in a New York sanitarium after checking himself in to detox from alcohol addiction. We have two songs from FTI, the title track and "How You Gonna See Me Now" which was based on a letter Alice wrote to his wife from inside the hospital, worrying how she'd react to him as a sober man - a person she had never really met before. It's arguably his most personal and sweetest song - another tune without which no "best of" Alice Cooper collection would be complete.
Flush The Fashion (1980) gave us "Clones (We're All)", a song about forced conformity. The weakest song here, in my ever-so-unbiased opinion.
Finally we skip ahead to Trash (1989), an album all about hot sex, and the joys and tribulations that can come from intensely sexual relationships. Hard to believe, with a topic like that, but Trash became one of Cooper's most popular albums (go figure), and the most successful single off it, "Poison", rounds out Mascara & Monsters.
If you had to give someone not yet familiar with Alice Cooper one CD to show them why we love this man's work so much, in my opinion Mascara & Monsters is your best choice. The 4-disc, 81-track The Life And Crimes Of Alice Cooper could be a bit overwhelming - besides much of its content falls into the "interesting for the hardcore fan but not particularly great in and of itself" category. And while Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits is a hell of a collection (it's one of those rare "best of" collections that actually is) because Mascara & Monsters contains everything on it, plus the larger hits from his later career, to my mind the latter collection has now supplanted the former.
The Best Of Alice Cooper: Mascara & Monsters Poster
An essential figure in any history of the American grotesque, son-of-a-preacher-man Vincent Furnier served as a missing link between Screamin' Jay Hawkins and Marilyn Manson. As Alice Cooper, he helped make the pop world safe for morbidity and makeup, scoring a bunch of hits and misses along the way. Mascara & Monsters serves up a fairly rote chronology of Cooper's '70s singles, with the occasional B-side and 1989's "Poison" (cowritten by mainstream hitmeister Desmond Child!) thrown in for good measure. As such, the album doesn't live up to its best-of billing. "Dead Babies," arguably the best track on Killer, loses out to "Under My Wheels," while the garage-rock glories of the band's first two albums are also conspicuously absent. On the plus side, "School's Out," "Elected," and "No More Mr. Nice Guy" still sound great. If you're looking for easy access to those and numerous lesser singles, this collection will do the trick. --Bill FormanClassic Rock Music CDs
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