Published on Oct 17, 2001
If 1980’s
Flush The Fashion toyed with new wave in a punky format,
then its follow up, 1981’s
Special Forces, saw Alice Cooper jump into new wave head
first, for a decidedly mixed affair.
The album certainly gets off to a strong start with the
excellent “Who Do You Think We Are”, an adrenalized uptempo rocker
with mean sounding punk guitar riffs and a sneering, almost machine
like Alice spouting lyrics about the chilling nature of special
forces units. For some reason in the early 80’s Alice started
addictively reading
Soldier of Fortune magazine (possibly inspired by the
attempted assassination on president Ronald Reagan in 1981?), which
I guess would go a long way to explain the military theme to a lot
of this album’s material, as well as Alice’s new look, a bizarre
combination of military style glam that I fear took more than a few
fashion tips from Adam Ant and Michael Jackson.
Ok, tracks two to five are so abysmal that I really had a tough
time sitting through them, and I simply cannot come up with an
explanation as to what went wrong. This batch of songs is not just
extremely poorly written, but even the production is a disaster.
Alice sounds bored, his vocals sound strained, and there are
absolutely no memorable hooks or melodies of any kind.
Normally at least the musicians would be able to keep things
respectable, but I fear that these individuals simply didn’t have
the talent to pull it off. The guitar riffs are as bland as can be,
and the sterile production steals whatever power they might have
had, making them sound like distant bees buzzing around behind a
wall. This, combined with very simple drumming (mostly a drum
machine), no discernable low end, off the wall nonsensical lyrics
that are neither funny nor insightful, and extremely dated sounding
cheap 80’s keyboards and synthesized effects (the use of electronic
handclaps just cracks me up) cause a dramatic nosedive in the
album’s quality and listenability.
These particular tracks all sound like recording session
throwaways that were tacked on to the album in a last minute bid to
fill up space…I mean, how else could you explain the inclusion of
a re-recorded version of “Generation Landslide” (from the classic
1973
Billion Dollar Babies album) in a tepid new wave style with
fake live audience sounds thrown in? This version adds nothing to
the original; in fact, it’s far inferior in every regard and only
serves to prove on record just how much Alice Cooper’s ability had
declined over the eight year span.
Fortunately I’m a pretty patient guy, and there is a miraculous
recovery mid-way through the disc. The sudden improvement in song
writing begins with “Skeletons In The Closet”. This is a slower
gothic sounding danceable pop number done completely with keyboards
and drum machines…it’s eerie and creepy in a funny way as well,
just the way we love Alice and it serves notice that maybe he
wasn’t totally washed up just yet.
“You Want It, You Got It” continues the drastic improvement, yet
again containing some very catchy hooks and amusing lyrics. The
music is strongly reminiscent of the Cars, with quietly chugging
guitars alongside prominently swirling keyboard riffs.
“You Look Good In Rags” is finally a more traditionally 70’s
hard rocking Alice song with an animated vocal performance and
vintage lyrics of humourous social commentary. A wonderfully
melodic yet gritty punkish guitar riff song drives the song
along…pity that it’s stolen almost note for note from Blondie’s
late 70’s hit “Atomic”.
“You’re A Movie” is possibly one of the kookiest songs Cooper
ever recorded, and while it’s undeniably cheesy, the lyrics are
beyond hilarious, and I absolutely love it. It’s quite possibly the
best track on
Special Forces. Just imagine Alice talk-singing about the
boredom of perpetual victory from the perspective of a cocky
military general in a very arrogant, nose-in-the-air manner with a
slight British inflection along to danceable Cars/Devo style new
wave keyboard pop! It’s unbelievably funny, catchy, and definitely
unique in the Alice Cooper canon.
The album ends with “Vicious Rumours” and once again, it’s a
pretty solid, fast, hard rocking garagey song with deliciously
demented lyrics.
In closing, I think to better convey the militaristic theme he
was exploring with
Special Forces, the album should have sounded a lot tougher
than it does. It’s swimming in electronic keyboards, synthesizers,
and drum machines, which I suppose are another way of emitting the
cold, emotionless atmosphere central to an authoritarian mood.
However, the tepid production and mix are certainly a major
cause for the album’s lack of firepower, and I’m convinced that
this is one album that would benefit tremendously from a remix and
remaster treatment. That having been said, there’s still a few
songs on here that blow, and they’re all in the first half for some
reason, making for a very strange flow to the album. For the first
time since Alice Cooper’s 1969 debut
Pretties For You we have a batch of terrible songs on one
album with
Special Forces, but thankfully there’s enough good stuff
later on that makes up for it and brings it back from the brink of
complete mediocrity, but nevertheless this is far from a classic
album, and would be of interest to hardcore fans only.