![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/alice_cooper_fti1.jpg\")
Alice Cooper (the individual born Vincent Furnier, not the band) was a notorious carouser and a founding member of the Hollywood Vampires softball team\/drinking club. Cooper was part of the ragtag and debauched collective of idle rich rock stars who frequented Los Angeles bars and clubs; that motley crew also included \u2013 at various times and to various degrees \u2013 Harry Nilsson, Keith Allison, Ringo Starr, Micky Dolenz, John Lennon, Jesse Ed Davis and others.<\/p>\n
But as the \u201870s wore on, the excesses of that era began to recede into the past; most of the Hollywood Vampires cleaned up their act and\/or faded from view. For his part, Cooper \u2013 who had jettisoned the group from whom he took his name in late 1974 \u2013 continued with a solo career, and embarked on the first of several rehab programs (he\u2019d eventually succeed in conquering his addictions by the 1980s). His time spent in a sanitarium in New York would provide fodder for the songs on his 1978 LP From the Inside<\/i>. Working primarily with longtime Elton John lyricist Bernie Taupin, Cooper crafted a collection of songs for his 11th<\/sup> album, released in November \u201878.<\/p>\n Having left behind for good (or at least until some brief latter-day reunions) the band\/group approach of albums like School\u2019s Out<\/i>, for From the Inside<\/i> Cooper enlisted the aid of the Elton John Band (sans Elton) and a coterie of crack L.A. session players. Among the latter were bassist Leland Sklar, Toto\u2019s Steve Lukather and Steve Porcaro and producer\/keyboardist David Foster. Also on the instrumental side, longtime associate and lead guitarist Dick Wagner cowrote most of the music with Cooper.<\/p>\n The songs on From the Inside<\/i> don\u2019t exactly sound like Elton John tunes, though straightforward keyboard sounds are liberally scattered across the album. \u201cFrom the Inside\u201d sets the tone for the record; it\u2019s a first-person narrative sung from the point of view of one of the asylum\u2019s inmates (so to speak). A chugging, disco-influenced beat propels the song forward, and a memorable chorus with massed backing vocals (credited on the sleeve as \u201cThe Totally Committed Choir\u201d) feels radio-ready enough; it has more in common arrangement-wise with the showbizzy nature of 1975\u2019s Welcome to My Nightmare<\/i>.<\/p>\n \u201cWish I Were Born in Beverly Hills\u201d is an uptempo power rocker that feels very much like a rewrite of Elton\u2019s \u201cThe Bitch is Back.\u201d Cooper\u2019s vocals are occasionally lost in the mix. The ballad \u201cThe Quiet Room\u201d aims for the vibe of \u201cOnly Women Bleed,\u201d and finds Cooper singing \u2013 at least in the verses \u2013 in a crooning style; that approach is far more effective than one might expect. Some interesting synthesizer flourishes enliven the arrangement.<\/p>\n \u201cNurse Rozetta\u201d is one of the new instances in which From the Inside<\/i> takes a lyrical approach similar to earlier macabre-style Cooper tunes. The song has a feel that would have fit nicely within the context of The Rocky Horror Show<\/i>, though \u2013 as with most all of From the Inside<\/i> \u2013 Cooper\u2019s humorous bent is largely absent.<\/p>\n Marcy Levy \u2013 co-composer of Eric Clapton\u2019s \u201cLay Down Sally\u201d \u2013 engages in a duet with Cooper on \u201cMillie and Billy.\u201d It\u2019s difficult to imagine fans of the raw, rocking style of hits like \u201cI\u2019m Eighteen\u201d and \u201cNo More Mr. Nice Guy\u201d going for this sort of proto-\u201cIslands in the Stream\u201d fare. Judged out of context and solely on its own merits, the tune is more successful; the string arrangement is simple yet effective.<\/p>\n \u201cSerious\u201d turns the rocking quotient up, and the song \u2013 written by a committee of Cooper, Taupin, Foster and Lukather \u2013 seems to be aiming for hit single status (though it was never released as such). \u201cSerious\u201d is one of the better songs on From the Inside<\/i>, but \u2013 perhaps showing Foster\u2019s fingerprints \u2013 it does sound suspiciously similar to the Foster-produced 1980 Tubes album The Completion Backward Principle<\/i>. (Notably, several Toto members took part in those sessions as well.)<\/p>\n \u201cHow You Gonna See Me Now\u201d is From the Inside<\/i>\u2019s power ballad centerpiece. A nice enough committee-penned number, it\u2019s heavy on strings (Porcaro\u2019s synthesizer), piano and soaring \u201caahhhh\u201d backing vocals. Apparently those involved in the track were so enamored of the \u201czap\u201d sound Porcaro used on \u201cThe Quiet Room\u201d that they encouraged its use here as well.<\/p>\n \u201cFor Veronica\u2019s Sake\u201d is a grab-bag tune that draws form the Elton John Band\u2019s sonic style, vintage Cooper tunes and the showbizzy approach of Cooper\u2019s more recent material. The song itself isn\u2019t as interesting as its arrangement.<\/p>\n Perhaps befitting its relatively serious subject matter, From the Inside<\/i> is long on balladry. \u201cJacknife Johnny\u201d features gently picked guitar, splashes of female vocal harmonies and Cooper emoting earnestly. The churning gospel-flavored Hammond organ figures seem an odd choice when they first appear, but make more musical sense once Wagner\u2019s soaring guitar asserts itself. Everything about the song seems designed for stage performance, but \u201cJacknife Johnny\u201d was rarely (if ever) performed onstage.<\/p>\n The album closes with the heavily orchestrated \u201cInmates (We\u2019re All Crazy).\u201d Cooper begins singing in a whisper, punctuated by more orchestral flourishes and piano. The nursery rhyme feel of the chorus is in line with the theatrical nature of Cooper\u2019s work, and while the song itself isn\u2019t especially memorable, the arrangement is impressive, enlivening a standard-issue tune. The song \u2013 especially its final moments \u2013 is best enjoyed on a very loud stereo or through headphones.<\/p>\n Cooper\u2019s next album, 1980\u2019s stylistic left turn Flush the Fashion<\/i> would briefly reverse the downward sales trend, but it wouldn\u2019t be until the release of 1989\u2019s Trash<\/i> \u2013 by which time he truly had gotten clean and sober \u2013 that Cooper returned to chart prominence and critical appreciation.<\/p>\n For Cooper completists, From the Inside<\/i> remains a necessary purchase (especially in its original LP format, with clever and inventive packaging). Those whose tastes center around Cooper\u2019s early solo period will find much of the album enjoyable, though it pales in comparison to Alice Cooper Goes to Hell<\/i>, released less than three years earlier. But for those who wish to follow and understand Cooper\u2019s career arc, From the Inside<\/i> \u2013 lyrically solid, but featuring arrangements better than the songs they support \u2013 remains a noteworthy piece of the overall puzzle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Alice Cooper (the individual born Vincent Furnier, not the band) was a notorious carouser and a founding member of the Hollywood Vampires softball team\/drinking club. Cooper was part of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16281,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,65],"tags":[161],"class_list":["post-16280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rawk","category-review","tag-alice-cooper","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16280"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16285,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16280\/revisions\/16285"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/alice_cooper_fti2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/alice_cooper_fti3.jpg\")
It seems Cooper has few if any memories of making the album; most critical accounts suggest he\u2019s not missing much. From the Inside<\/i> was not a commercial success; its chart performance (#60 in the U.S.) was his poorest showing to date as a solo artist, and it was his least-selling album since the original Alice Cooper group released the non-charting LP Easy Action<\/i> in 1970. Of the two singles released from the album, \u201cHow You Gonna See Me Now\u201d did make the Top 40 (#12 U.S.) but a single of the title track failed to chart at all.<\/p>\n