Published on Oct 14, 2001
Well, well, well! What do we have here? Just when it seemed that
the good old Alice was going down the tubes (he flirted with death
due to his alcohol addiction prior to recording this album), he
made a big comeback in 1978 with this spectacular record. In every
respect, it is one of his best albums, and as far as talented,
compelling songwriting goes, this has to be one of the finest
albums of the 70’s.
At some point after
Lace And Whiskey (his 1977 release) he went into rehab for
being a drunkard, but hilariously, he wound up staying in a mental
institution! He was the only one in there for substance abuse;
everyone else was a complete nut case that had committed horrible
acts. Not like Alice is perfectly sane though!
Anyways, it was while he was at this institution that he wrote
this concept album which is bristling with strange, derranged
characters…all the songs are about actual experiences he had and
people he met there. Lyrically, this is such an entertaining and
fascinating album, and the patented creepiness is back as
well…lots of material about psycho killers, insanity, booze,
celebrity, and downright sleaze. This is one of those brilliant
concept albums that engulfs you in the world of the storyteller, in
this case the wonderful Alice, whose lyrics on
From The Inside just might be the finest of his career.
There’s a reason why he’s been referred to as the Edgar Allan Poe
of rock; I personally don’t think he’s quite that bleak or
humourless, but there is an undeniable Poe influence in a lot of
his work.
The opening song (the title track) is an excellent rock tune
that immediately confesses his alcoholism and the problems that
ensued. It starts with a piano riff over a disco beat (again!!),
but this is not some cheesy, disposable disco tune…it has hard
driving galloping guitars and the old Alice sneers and growls are
back; it definitely has a dark edge to it. Before I go on, I should
mention that this was the first album for quite a long time that
Bob Ezrin did not produce, but it doesn’t really show… the
production is top notch, and very detailed, courtesy of David
Foster. Another interesting note is that Bernie Taupin, the man
behind the lyrics of many Elton John songs, assisted Alice here,
but you can definitely tell that it’s still Alice who handled the
bulk of the material.
“The Quiet Room” is a very poppy, mainstream, commercial ballad
that’s very melodic, well written and performed, but on first
appearance comes across as an overtly slick, typically 70’s
sounding soft rock tune designed for radio…until you listen to
the lyrics. It is written from the perspective of a nut confined to
a room with rubber walls. I swear, the effect is both hilarious and
chilling at the same time, and only a man with Alice Cooper’s
imagination could really pull something off like this. Simply
brilliant.
“Nurse Rozetta” is also one of my personal favourites…you just
gotta hear the lyrics, they’re hilarious! It’s a fantasy about some
hot nurse who treats the patients in the funny farm, and in no
subtle terms does Alice express what emotions ummm, errr, swell, in
him upon seeing her. Not just that, but it’s also got a real groove
to it…this may be a real stretch, but I’d swear that during the
verses it sounds like Alice is rapping, but this seems impossible
because rap music did not enter the mainstream consciousness until
1979. So, it seems pretty unlikely that the world’s premier shock
rocker, who happens to also be a white male from the midwest, would
have even known of its existence in 1978, but hey, stranger things
have happened, no?
I should also mention that for the first time on an Alice album
there is a fair bit of use of keyboards in the background…yep,
those 80’s were just around the corner, and the first trickles of
the “new wave” electronic sound which was about to explode at the
time certainly have a very noticeable presence on
From The Inside. In fact, there is barely any hard rock on
this album at all. There’s a number of soft ballads, a few poppy,
sonically upbeat rock songs, and the rest are quirky mid-tempo
tracks with a slight disco/new wave feel. In fact, a friend of mine
suggested that a lot of the arrangements and sounds of this album
reminded him of Supertramp, which I suppose in a strange way might
be true to some extent, but I couldn’t help but feel insulted by
the comparison.<g>
“Millie And Billie” is a very commercial sounding duet with some
chick that somehow reminds me of that disco duet Elton John did
with Kiki Dee, “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.”. Upon first listen, it
can be disheartening to hear a menacing shock rocker embrace such a
mellow sound, but the lyrics truly are twisted and humourous, and
the songwriting is so damn superbly catchy that after a while it
hardly seems to matter.
I think with this record Alice tried to show yet another
dimension as a performer and writer, that of the soft rock/ballad
variety (yet with his patented twist), and in my opinion he
succeeded brilliantly. Any arrogant Elton John (and the like)
worshipping snob who has never taken an artist of Alice Cooper’s
nature seriously needs to look no further than From The Inside for
hard evidence that he could write songs seemingly effortlessly in
any style he chose, easily up there with the best in the
business.
“Serious” is another great, almost frantic, rock song…it
ALMOST turns into a hard disco number, but it just teases with
that…it deals with alcohol abuse, something he certainly was
quite the authority on, as heard in lyrics like: “All of my life
was a laugh and a joke, a drink and a smoke, and then I passed out
on the floor…again and again and again and again and
again!!!!”;
The big hit here was “How You Gonna See Me Now”… possibly
another ballad?? You can bet yer ‘lil ass on it. Hmmm, this was the
FOURTH STRAIGHT hit ballad for him, diametrically opposed to the
garage rock teen anthem hits of the early 70’s. But why fix
something that ain’t broke, eh? This soft piano/keyboard ballad
seems to have a real heartfelt, longing quality to it, with the
lyrics written in the form of a letter to his wife, just praying
that things will be the same when he comes home again. Have a
hankie ready.
The album ends on the demented song “Inmates (We’re All
Crazy)”…an epic song, with lots of tempo shifts and different
parts, and as the last songs on Alice’s albums usually end with
great fanfare, this one is no exception. Booming orchestral parts,
huge choirs, and all the other nifty things are present, and they
are accompanied by twisted, black humour lyrics! The song is about
as theatrical as they come, and would have fit in perfectly on his
awesome
Welcome To My Nightmare album.
You would think with this successful creative and commercial
comeback, not to mention new found sobriety, that Alice Cooper
would continue the momentum right into the 80’s, but he was soon to
hit the low point of his career.
So, to summarize,
From The Inside remains one of the great concept albums in
rock history, and it’s biographical theme brings you directly into
the mind of Alice himself and the experiences he went through in
his darkest hour. The lyrics are among Alice’s most inspired, and
the range of emotions he drags you through is a treat. Musically
it’s probably one of the poppiest and least heavy albums of his
career, and this is probably the only thing I can fault about
it…for a glimpse into a horrific experience for three months in a
nuthouse, the album sounds strangely upbeat and commercial, and
even the few songs that rock out seem a bit tame, especially
considering his earlier output. But, as I said earlier, I do
believe this was intentional, just to show the naysayers that he
could be what the mainstream considers a “serious” artist, and to
this day he maintains that he adores every last song on here.
Fortunately though, the lyrics are quite twisted in vintage
Alice fashion, and combined with the surprisingly mellow sound,
this gives the album a strange kind of wolf-in-sheepskin feel. I
just think it would have made a more powerful impact had it been a
bit darker and beefier. Still a solid rating though for the
excellent songwriting, and the last really essential Cooper album
worth owning until the mid 1990’s.