Album Review: Alice Cooper, "Hey Stoopid"


With Trash resurrecting his career, the king of the nightmare world returns (again!). Featuring 12 cuts, Hey Stoopid boasts a powerful sound track to the forthcoming world tour. You should have all heard the title track by now and you'll no doubt be chanting its OZZY-assisted chorus.

The gore is surprisingly kept to a minimum, only "Dangerous Tonight and the ZODIAC-MINDWARP-penned "Feed My Frankenstein" approach the horror of yore. The latter leaves scope for the large stage production ALICE is famed for, while featuring a fine line in poetry:
"I am a hungry man but I didn't want a pizza/ I'll blow down your house, then I'm gonna eat ya."
Seems like it's burgers all round then!

"Love's a Loaded Gun," "Burning Our Bed," and "Die For You" hint at -- ahem, smack you in the face with -- the assumption Alice may have had a traumatic romantic split recently. More interesting is the fact that Dick Wagner earns a writing credit on "Might As Well be on Mars," the intro of which being akin to "Only Women Bleed," where, as elsewhere, on "Windup Toy," Stephen from the Nightmare album is revisited. Glad to report then that the call was successful, as Steve is as demented as ever.


The list of guest musos may be impressive - JOE SATRIANI, SLASH, STEVE VAI, and OZZY - but these luminaries should not overshadow the contribution of the Cooper band and in particular ex-Y&T man Stef Burns, whose guitar parts are exemplary. The only minus point is "Snakebite," a meer rehash of "Poison." A blemish on an otherwise finely produced and executed record.

Grade A-

Joe Mackett
Riff Raff
August 1981

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