Classicks

REVIEW: Alice Cooper – Classicks (1995)

ALICE COOPER – Classicks (1995 Sony)

Here’s a bargain basement perennial that you may have missed but might want to reconsider. If you like Alice Cooper — specifically the five year span of 1989-1994 — then this compilation is for you! If you collect Alice Cooper — specifically rare live tracks that have been released on VHS but mostly unavailable on CD — then this compilation is for you!

Classicks isn’t a particularly bad CD, but its limited focus means limited appeal.  Sony only had the rights to a smidgen of Cooper albums so they made due with what they had.  That meant the albums Trash, Hey Stoopid and The Last Temptation, and the home video Alice Cooper Trashes the World.  Of those releases, only The Last Temptation is really given any kind of critical acclaim today.

Classicks begins promisingly enough.  “Poison” is indeed a classic, thanks to that lush Desmond Child vocal production.  The hooks never stop, but “Poison” is the only bonafide classic on the Trash album.  Nothing else comes even remotely close, though “House of Fire” (written by Bon Jovi for New Jersey) has its moments.  Missing is the ballad “It’s Only My Heart Talkin'” with Steven Tyler cameo.

Hey Stoopid‘s guest-laden title track lead single was phenomenal, if not quite as awesome as “Poison” from Trash.  Hey Stoopid was a bit tougher in stature than Trash, and a couple more singles can be found here:  “Love’s a Loaded Gun” and the absolutely massive “Feed My Frankenstein”.  You can thank Wayne and Garth for that one; there is no other way that song was going to be a hit in 1992.  But it was, and you can quote every word of that Wayne’s World scene.  I know you can.

The material from The Last Temptation has stronger bones but not as many candy-coated hooks.  Three tracks total:  smoking first single “Lost In America”, ballad “It’s Me”, and the epic Chris Cornell duet “Stolen Prayer”.  While all three are good ones, “Stolen Prayer” is truly special.  Chris (who wrote the track with Alice) was in peak voice and when he lets it rip at the end, hold on!  An acoustic-electric classic, worthy of far more attention than it gets.

The rest of the CD contains live versions from Trashes the World, all oldies that Sony didn’t have access to otherwise.  The lineup here features some of the guys you saw in Wayne’s World, such as Al Pitrelli & Canadian Pete Friesen (guitars) and keyboardist Derek Sherinian.  Tommy Caradonna and the inimitable Jonathan Mover are the rhythm section for these tracks.  All tracks have those telltale 80s guitar accoutrements.  “Under My Wheels” is rendered a bit faster than usual, but the guitar solos shred.  Likewise with “Billion Dollar Babies”.  “I’m Eighteen” is slower and brooding.  Alice’s opening rap to “No More Mr. Nice Guy” is a gas, although the song’s played a little heavy handedly.  “Only Women Bleed” is reliable, and “School’s Out” is “School’s Out” is “School’s Out”.  “You better know this one,” as Alice says.

Tacked on at the end is Alice’s cover of “Fire” by Jimi Hendrix, not to be confused with his cover of “Fire” by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.  This B-side (to “Love’s a Loaded Gun”) wasn’t the best B-side available (that would be “It Rained All Night”) but at least it’s full of energy.  Whoever that is on guitar (Stef Burns?) rocks.

It’s obvious from the tracklist that this album was just Sony trying to cash in.  Cooper’s contract must have been up.  They tossed in the six live tracks to lure in any collectors who wanted them on CD rather than VHS.  Classicks can often by found brand new in the $5 range — pay no more than that.

2/5 stars

#788: Formerly Storemerly

GETTING MORE TALE #788: Formerly Storemerly

I visited an old store recently.  It was the first one I managed.  Well, not exactly.  I visited the location that replaced my old store, a few feet away from its original location in a strip plaza.  I hadn’t been in the moved and refurbished store before.  My first impression was that it felt smaller and cramped, but that could be just an optical illusion.  It could be physically smaller; or it could just have a lot more stock.

The store today includes a lot more DVD and Blu-ray content than before, which was always the goal.  I don’t really buy movies anymore so I skipped ahead.  When I go music shopping, I’m looking for music.  There was a small bargain bin, not as large as the old, but with the same old stock.  Need any Our Lady Peace?

There was a decent bin of used vinyl and this is where I spent most of my money.  Unfortunately, I cannot detail for you what I purchased as it’s all intended for Christmas gifts.  I can tell you that I bought some 12” singles and an interview picture disc.  The interview disc was way overpriced but the singles were cheap.  I also picked up Fleet Street by Fist on vinyl, a surprising find.  I always wanted the album with “Thunder In Rock”.  I paid $9.99 which is a bit on the high side for a copy in this condition.

The CD selection was a lot of same-old-same-old but there were a couple things I always meant to pick up.  One was Alice Cooper’s Classicks for $5.99.  24 years and I never bothered to pick up this compilation.  It’s good to have for the live tracks from the Trashes the World video.  A full Trashes the World soundtrack would be preferable, but I’ve waited long enough.  I knew they always have a copy or two in stock, and they did.

I was disappointed that the soundtracks section had been severely downsized.  Now, historically, soundtracks were one of our worst-selling sections.  It was always too large for the store, bursting at the seams with titles we had in stock for years and years, often in duplicate.  The solution shouldn’t have been to downsize it so severely, but to just get more selective about what to buy.  I did find one score, which was Jerry Goldsmith’s Star Trek: Insurrection for $6.99.  (I wish I didn’t sell my Goldsmith Planet of the Apes score back to the store for nothin’, back in the day. I’m trying to expand my own soundtracks section.)  They could have a great soundtracks section, they just need someone who knows their soundtracks to recalibrate the CD master list.

The store was clean, but I spotted a couple problems that only an ex-manager would see.  These things would have gone down as red X’s if it was the old bosses inspecting me.

  1. Ace Frehley filed under Kiss. That’s fine for most stores, but not the way we did things.  We specifically gave most solo artists their own section so we could be more organised than the competition.  We could only file an artist under their main band if their solo career was minor, or if only one album was in stock.  Otherwise that artist needed their own header card.  Otherwise you’re going to run into filing problems — I know from experience!  Staff are going to file Frehley under both “Misc F” and “Kiss” unless they make a Frehley header card…which we had before…I know because I made it.  Perhaps the rules have changed since the changing of the guard.
  2. Big Brother and the Holding Company filed under Cheap Trick. The album is called Cheap Thrills, hence the mistake.  We used to put this one under the Janis Joplin header card; she was their lead singer.  It’s the one with “Piece of My Heart” on it, Janis’ biggest hit.  It’s always been a problem getting this album filed correctly.  It used to end up lost and forgotten under “Misc C”.  But if you file it under Janis, it sells right away.

Hard to imagine the store getting so lax on filing.  Remember Record Store Tales part 127?

I enjoyed my visit, with some good buys and a couple overpriced records.  It was good to see they were so busy, just like the old days.   Filing is still a problem, just like the old days!  I wonder how that manager does on their surprise store inspections?  Better than I did, I assume!