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Alice Cooper
Trash
Epic

Alice Cooper
Pretties For You
Enigma Retro

Alice Cooper
Easy Action
Enigma Retro

"The people who dig groups like Ten Years After now are going to be washed up in two years. They're just going to be like old married couples." — Alice Cooper, 1970.

Will 1989 mark the triumphant return of Alice Cooper? Could the hippie anti-Christ himself really be creeping up on the 20th anniversary of the Reebok Nation? Not bloody likely. Today the whole notion of "shock rock" seems quaint or absurd, and Alice Cooper's been washed up for so long that he's now unrecognizable. On Trash, the most perverse (and subversive) teen idol in the history of rock manages to reinvent himself as Jon Bon Jovi's horny but good-natured uncle Vinny.

"Building a house of fire, baby, building it with out love." Alice bleats "House of Fire" nicely and the super-tooled guitar chorus kick in right on time. Producer Desmond "Rogue" Child sure knows what he's doing when it comes to AOR sludge, but what the hell is Alice Cooper doing? Love songs, nothing but love songs. When he finally gets around to Hell, it's defined as "living without your touch" ("Hell Is Living Without You"). For anyone familiar with the music that Alice Cooper built his bad reputation on, Trash isn't shocking, it's bizarre — like hearing Barry White sing about snakes and dead babies.

Not that Alice Cooper is any sort of hallowed figure, his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is about as likely as Rare Earth's or Mungo Jerry's. However, recent reissues of the original Alice Cooper band's first and second LPs — recorded for Frank Zappa's Straight label in '69 and '70, before the group moved to Detroit and absorbed the Stooges/MC5 influence whole — demonstrated just how much respect he deserves.

Pretties For you and Easy Action document the transformation of a border-line-competent garage band into a tigh, rocking unit whose lead singer oozes personality out of every pore not blocked with mascara. Pretties provides a steady low-fi psychedelic buzz, it's giggly marijuana-discovery music. Easy Action shows the band's considerable songwriting skills blossoming alongside the Coop's confused persona on wonderful cuts like "Refrigerator Heaven," "Return of the Spiders," "Laughing At Me" and "Mr. & Misdemeanor."

"Here's new pretties for you," sings Alice at the beginning of Easy Action, "Nobody likes me, but we adore you." Here in 1989, it's not surprising then Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora agreed to guest-star on Trash; Alice Cooper was a populist in his prime, too, hated by critics and loved by fans. At the very least, he did outlive Ten Years After. But the kids who dig bands like Bon Jovi now are like old married couple already. American teenagers chew their heroes like bubblegum, and Alice Cooper's stuck to the bottom of the desk. School's out, forever.