Published on Oct 19, 2001
Shocking…before I even listened to this album, I assumed it
would follow in the footsteps of the other inconsistent early 80’s
releases by Alice Cooper, but no! This is a hidden gem…the
ultimate Alice Cooper cult album! And I say cult because very few
people have bought or listened to this album…despite its high
quality, it was totally ignored by consumers upon its release in
1983…along with
Special Forcesand
Zipper Catches Skin (the two previous studio works), this
album was a complete commercial failure. I guess the mainstream was
so sick of the uneven material in addition to the unpredictable
genre hopping and strange image makeovers that characterized the
previous few years, that they didn’t want to give this album a
chance, which is a total shame, for
Dada unexpectedly turns out to be one of Cooper’s finest
albums, and his best 80’s record by light years.
Anyways, first of all, the sound and production are excellent,
as well as the song writing, and I’m sure the fact that Alice got
Bob Ezrin once again to produce this record had a lot to do with
it…it’s all very fresh, interesting stuff, and the old Alice is
back here, growling and actually even singing again!
Ezrin also brought back the multi-instrumental bombast that he’s
so good at, this time incorporating heavy use of electronic
equipment like synths, keyboards, and sequencers, but it is used
very well without being cheesy (unlike
Special Forces). There isn’t actually any live drumming on
this album at all; it’s all done with programmed beats and drum
machines, but it surprisingly sounds fine. The punk rock leanings
of the last few albums are completely gone, and even though it’s
not a “soft” sounding album, you won’t find any hard guitar rock
here at all.
Even the creepy, dark subject matter which we loved and missed
has returned! Definitely the darkest, eeriest album since
Welcome To My Nightmare…in fact I would go so far as to
say that this is the undiscovered 1980’s version of that classic
70’s Cooper milestone.
Alice tackles very broad territory here lyrically, with the
lyrics being superbly written, oozing with the sarcastic, dark
humoured cynicism, clever wordplay with double meanings, oblique
observations from society’s edge, witty parody, and unsettling
gothic horror that he is known for. The first song, “Dada” is
pretty much a creepy gothic sounding instrumental song using
virtually only electronic instruments…pretty cutting edge for
1983, and it makes quite the ominous prelude to the rest of the
album with a heartbeat style ummm, beat, and distorted echoey drum
smashes along with a cheesy horror movie style electronic organ
melody while buried in the background you can hear a strange
conversation between Alice, who sounds like an old man, and what I
think is Bob Ezrin, pretending to be some kind of
therapist…nutty, wouldn’t ya say?
“Enough’s Enough” is a pretty bitter stab by Alice towards a
father figure…I’m assuming that he’s portraying a character
because in the interviews I’ve seen, he’s always spoken highly
about his own dad. Could he be revisiting Steven, the twisted
character central to
Welcome To My Nightmare‘s theme? Who knows? It’s quite a
lovely song, with a unique kind of stop-start feel to the guitar
riffs and interesting drumming, which is strange since usually drum
machines tend to be very monotonous. I love the theatrical sounding
choruses…great melodies and production giving it the necessary
feel of grandeur. Very dark lyrics.
“Former Lee Warmer” is a dark, scary ballad (hmmm, is there a
trend here?). For me, this is the standout track of the album, and
one of the finest of Alice’s career. I’ve always loved Alice’s soft
ballads, but I really wish he wrote more darker sounding ballads
like this one. His vocals and personality absolutely shine on this
track. And as if the awesome creepy melody wasn’t enough, the
instrumentation and arrangements are godly; there is so much
variety just within this one song, with a tinkling piano,
appropriate use of keyboards, synthesized (but not hokey sounding)
flutes and horns, acoustic guitar, a bit of electric riffing around
the solo, and timpani! The diversity of this intricately composed
song is amazing, and worthy of being in a fine stage musical. The
haunting melody and twisted lyrics about an incapacitated old man
who’s totally reliant on others are bound to make a lasting
impression on the listener…Alice’s songwriting hadn’t been this
strong in years.
“No Man’s Land” is a very strange, yet hilarious song about a
psychotic killer who works as a mall Santa during the day. I’ll
tell ya, leave it up to Alice to come up with stuff like this!
“Scarlet and Sheba” sees our loveable ghoulish storyteller back in
sleaze mode as he shares with us a fine tale of decadence about
having a threesome with two dominatrixes. Once again, the dynamics
of the music are fantastic. Mechanical sounding beats and a
mesmerizing Eastern flavoured electronic melody will transport you
straight into a Turkish harem, while the verses and choruses sound
like theatrical dance pop, if you can imagine that!
I know I said before that “Former Lee Warmer” may be the album
highlight, but it would certainly have to share that light with “I
Love America”. The sheer brilliance of this parody of the typical
culture of middle class America cannot be conveyed strongly enough.
(Sample lyrics: “I love that mountain with those four big heads / I
love Velveeta slapped on Wonderbread / I love a commie…if’n he’s
good and dead, yup / I love America / I love Old Glory and homemade
pie / I think them Russkies should be sterilized / I love my
chicken Kentucky Fried / …Finger Lickin’ Good! / I love
America”.)
Now, if you laughed just reading that, Alice’s performance will
have you howling. He sounds like a white trash redneck! At one
point between verses he does a remarkable imitation of the
stereotypical hustling used car salesman on your local TV station.
And about halfway through, the song takes a sharp left turn by
going into a version of the “Battle Hymn Of The Republic”, complete
with cowboys and Indians sound effects. As you can clearly see,
when he’s hot he functions at a level much higher than we’re used
to seeing in mainstream rock. Simply genius.
“Fresh Blood” is also quite neat, a poppish, almost Duran Duran
style funky keyboard tune (complete with extensive female backup
singing) about a vampire in the big city…I could just picture the
video for this song if they had made one, with Alice stalking the
streets at night with a typical 80’s hair style (mullet of
course!), and wearing a short sleeved blazer with huge shoulder
pads and a skinny tie!
Dada ends with the depressing “Pass The Gun Around”, a
morbid tale and regretful look at wasteful lifestyles, from dawn to
dusk alcoholism (Alice himself was suffering a major relapse at the
time this album was recorded), non-stop television watching,
spending money on useless things, to one night stands.
This is Alice Cooper’s unknown classic. The subject matter
explored within is all the more disturbing due to Alice’s own
breakdown during this period. It’s dark, surreal and deadly close
to biographical. The whole album blends beautifully and is
incredibly well produced. The songs are all strong, and the music
is very inventive and diverse from beginning to end. Real eccentric
and creepy too. Even the synthesized tracks have a great punch
which had been lacking in his previous few albums.
Unfortunately, this lost treasure is destined to remain one of
those hugely overlooked classics of our time, unless you, the
reader, decide to make a difference!
Dada ranks as one of the funniest, scariest, enjoyable, and
amazing albums I own and it would make a great introduction to
Alice Cooper for anyone not too familiar with his work, especially
since it would be his last good album until the mid 90’s.
Dada is one disc that honestly deserves to finally be given
the spotlight. Definitely do not pass it up.