music & movies
ALICE COOPER Detroit Stories
Coop revisits his birth city and forges a late-life classic.
Spearheaded by I’m Eighteen, Alice Cooper’s ‘Love It To Death’ in 1971 laid glowering templates for hard rock, glam and punk, shot with cinematic thrills, TV-eye narratives and tough Detroit attitude.
Although coming of age in Phoenix before Alice Cooper manifested in LA, the man himself is from the Motor City, its outcast grit in his DNA. After LA proved too laid-back, the emergence of the MC5 and Stooges called Alice back to his self-described “birthplace of angry hard rock”. With Alice transformed into rock’s spider-eyed baddie and his band drilled into shape by young producer Bob Ezrin, ‘Love It To Death’ ignited the huge success consolidated by Killer and School’s Out.
After his subsequent decades of turmoil and triumph, Alice returned to Detroit in 2019, celebrating balls-out Motor City rock with Ezrin, MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer, Detroit Wheels drummer Johnny ‘Bee’ Badanjek, bassist Paul Randolph and others on the ‘Breadcrumbs’ EP, on which originals like Detroit City 2020 were joined by badass garage covers of Bob Seger’s East Side Story and MC5’s Sister Anne.
The EP has now been expanded with the same core squad into Alice’s 21st solo album. ‘Detroit Stories’ is his most concise bolt of precision-tooled heavy rock in 50 years, enhanced by Ezrin’s robust production and Alice on lethal form, vocally and lyric-wise.
Instantly stunning from the opening salvo of Lou Reed’s Mitch Ryder’s strutting 1971 version its blueprint, and piledriving at getaway-car velocity (opening line: ‘I just got outta feral Chuck Berry chug, self-explanatory and Motor City roll-call Cooper’s lyrical flair hot-wires the monolithic into a glorious anthem of urban collapse. Bitingly-relevant wry Detroit nihilism rakes and grainy basement chug. humps Stooges-style gutter blues. oddly evokes jaunty sunshine pop. honours Detroit’s soul pedigree with backing chorale and Motor City horns garnishing its strutting funky groove. becomes Alice’s semi-spoken survival ballad. The ‘Breadcrumbs’ covers provide worthy touchstones.
