Artist: Cooper, Alice
Label: MCA Records
Release: 1986
In 1986 we finally got Cooper’s comeback, with huge expectations and in true eighties style. It had been only three years since the previous record, but a lot had happened in between, like another round of treatment for alcoholism. Alice returns to the music scene with a big splash at his new label MCA and introduces the world to a new Cooper. Everything looked very promising, from the big promo push to the hit single He’s Back (The Man Behind The Mask), which also ended up on the soundtrack for the horror flick Friday The 13th 6 – Jason Lives, for which he cooked up another great tune, Hard Rock Summer, proper hard rock, short and fast, but sadly it didn’t make it onto the new record, called Constrictor (the original title was Awake Of The Snake). The title ties back to Cooper’s past, when he used his hobby – snakes – at his live shows. The cover was something new too, marked by a fresh logo whose motif fits the lyrics and his style. Despite the initial buzz, it didn’t last long, since the album never really took off commercially, but the concerts on the tour The Nightmare Returns were the exact opposite: a real money maker and a feast for the eyes.
The record has ten hard rock tracks, some really good, some just average. Among the better ones (the majority) are the eighties classic Teenage Frankenstein and of course He’s Back, and that’s all that got any commercial spotlight, even though there are other excellent rock tracks like Crawlin’, Life And Crimes Of The Party, World Needs Guts, Give It Up, Thrill My Gorilla, Great American Success Story and Simple Disobedience. They’re all built very similarly and are classic eighties hard rock with a Cooper touch that gives them their own identity. The odd one out on the record is Trick Bag, which is actually the original He’s Back with different lyrics, but it can’t hold a candle to the other tracks. That’s the album’s only minus, since we end up with two songs with (almost) the same musical backing. The original He’s Back was too heavy for the film suits, as they put it, so a milder version made it onto the record, while the original later ended up, together with Hard Rock Summer, on a box set.
The album is a turning point in Cooper’s career, where he clears plenty of hurdles and also caves in a little to the commercial world, but it’s still an excellent album with a string of great hard rock tracks, even though the critics weren’t all that positive.
Lineup
Alice Cooper – vocals
Kane Roberts – guitar
Kip Winger – bass guitar
Donnie Kisselbach – bass guitar
David Rosenberg – drums
Kane Roberts – keyboards
Production
Beau Hill & Michael Wagener
Tracklist
1. Teenage Frankenstein
2. Give It Up
3. Thrill My Gorilla
4. Life And Crimes Of The Party
5. Simple Disobedience
6. World Needs Guts
7. Trick Bag
8. Crawlin’
9. Great American Success Story
10. He’s Back
Album length: 36:41
