Published on Oct 3, 2001
Well, for me, this is one of THE essential classic rock albums
of all time. It marked Alice Cooper’s embrace of Detroit style
garage rock with a dark gothic undercurrent after two rather
experimental albums, and catapulted the band into the mainstream
spotlight upon its release in 1971 (quick side note: the album was
finally certified platinum in July 2001, after 30 years on store
shelves!).
So many great songs on here, and a bit more muscle in the sound.
They totally defined their career with this album. While the band
already had an outrageous reputation from their completely unhinged
(the infamous controversial chicken incident had already occurred
in Toronto, Canada, in 1969), they did not achieve commercial and
artisitic acclaim until
Love It To Death. And the man who was probably most
responsible for this breakthrough was fledgling producer “Toronto”
Bob Ezrin.
Together with the band, Ezrin crafted their unique sound, style
and image, virtually becoming a band member himself. Under his
guidance, the band completely scrapped the bizarre psychedelic
leanings they had before and adopted a much leaner, more straight
forward rock writing style. This resulted in
Love It To Death being saturated with a great pop
sensibility in a raw hard rock form… the brilliance of the album
is that it is filled with tuneful, memorable, and distinctive
melodies while embracing the dark, creepy lyrics and subject matter
that would define the pioneering shock rock that Alice Cooper would
master and become notorious for over the next 10 year period.
Along with the British band Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper at that
time virtually created “dark” rock music which eventually spawned
numerous genres such as heavy metal, punk, industrial, and gothic
in various incarnations, many years down the road, but it wasn’t
just the music alone; the very appearance of Alice the man himself
(by this time nobody called him Vincent Furnier anymore, except
maybe his mom, and he officially changed his name to Alice Cooper
in 1972) has literally spawned an entire culture…every single
black clad, black make-up wearing, and black dyed haired kid in
society, whether they consider themselves goths, metalheads,
rivetheads, or anything else, owe a great debt to Alice Cooper for
forging that path in the world of fashion and style whether they
realize this or not, and whether they are willing to admit this or
not.
The true talent of the Alice Cooper band really shone on this
album in it’s strong songwriting and musical prowess. There is not
a single weak song on here…it’s Alice in truly fine form. The
opening track, “Caught In A Dream”, shows right away that the
listener is in for a totally different experience than on the first
two albums…it’s a very melodic uptempo rocker with excellent
playing all round.
The second song, “I’m Eighteen,” was their first smash hit and
really propelled the band into superstardom with this infectuous
anthem. It really struck a chord with alienated teenagers by
wonderfully celebrating the spirit of youth and its anxieties, and
has become one of the defining rock ‘n roll tunes of all time.
Other stand out tracks include “Hallowed Be My Name” which made no
secret of the band’s desire to be superstars and embrace the myth
of celebrity; “Second Coming” which tackled the always
controversial subject of religion in the vintage
creepy-button-pushing-shit-disturbing-yet-with-humour-and-wit style
that we love Alice for; “Black Juju”, a haunting, epic would-be
goth voodoo anthem long before the goth rock movement surfaced in
the late 70’s; “The Ballad Of Dwight Frye”, which is a humerous,
yet disturbingly creepy song about Dwight Frye, who was an actor
who played very bizarre roles in horror films in the 30’s and 40’s,
and finally, “Sun Arise”, an unexpectedly poppy cover song to end
the album and confuse the listener, and knowing Alice’s macabre
sense of humour, I’m sure that is the exact effect he was aiming
for.
An excellent album in every respect, and considered by many to
be the first REAL Coop album. Awesome, gritty, raw, garagey, catchy
riffs on every song…if you dig MC5, Iggy and the Stooges, and
other similar bands in that vein, then you’ll find quite a bit to
like here, except that I think the Alice Cooper material is more
diverse and interesting than most bands, of any era. It could have
been a touch heavier in spots and had better production, but
otherwise
Love It To Death is a near masterpiece.