Ian Chapman

Experiencing Alice Cooper (eBook, ePUB)

A Listener's Companion

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Experiencing Alice Cooper: A Listener's Companion takes a long overdue look at the music and stage act of rock music's self-styled arch-villain. A provocateur from the very start of his career in the mid-1960s, Alice Cooper, aka Vince Furnier, son of a lay preacher in the Church of Jesus Christ, carved a unique path through five decades of rock'n'roll. Despite a longevity that only a handful of other artists and acts can match, Alice Cooper remains a difficult act and artist to pin down and categorize. During the last years of the 1960s and the heydays of commercial success in the 1970s, Cooper's groundbreaking theatricality, calculated offensiveness, and evident disregard for the conventions of rock protocols sowed confusion among his critics and evoked outrage from the public. Society's watchdogs demanded his head, and Cooper willingly obliged at the end of each performance with his on-stage self-guillotining. But as youth anthem after youth anthem - "I'm Eighteen," "School's Out," "Elected," "Department of Youth"-rang out in his arena concerts the world over and across airwaves, fans flocked to experience Cooper's unique brand of rock. Critics searched for proper descriptions: "pantomime," "vaudeville," "retch-rock," "Grand Guignol." In 1973 Cooper headlined in Time magazine as "Schlock Rock's Godzilla." In Experiencing Alice Cooper: A Listener's Companion, Ian Chapman surveys Cooper's career through his twenty-seven studio albums (1969-2017). While those who have written about Cooper have traditionally kept their focus on the stage spectacle, too little attention has been paid to Cooper's recordings. Throughout, Chapman argues that while Cooper may have been rock's most accomplished showman, he is first and foremost a musician, with his share of gold and platinum albums to vouch for his qualifications as a musical artist.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury eBooks US
• Seitenzahl: 232
• Erscheinungstermin: 12. März 2018
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781442257719
• Artikelnr.: 50932603

Autorenporträt

Ian Chapman is a senior lecturer in music and convener of the performing arts degree program at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. He has written or co-written nine books to date on a variety of topics relating to popular music and popular culture. Chapman is also a freelance motivational speaker who specializes in the transformative power of the performing arts, drawing upon techniques practiced by artists such as David Bowie that can be used both on the stage and in everyday life to develop self-empowerment and self-confidence.

Inhaltsangabe

Chapter 1: New Freaks on the Block: Pretties for You and Easy Action
1969 & 1970 Chapter 2: The Halcyon Years of the Alice Cooper Band: Love it to Death
Killer
School's Out
Billion Dollar Babies
Muscle of Love
1971-1973 Chapter 3: Alice Dreams Alone: Welcome To My Nightmare
1975 [US#5 UK#19] Chapter 4: Confessions from the Heart of the Monster: Alice Cooper Goes to Hell
Lace and Whiskey
From the Inside
1976-1978 Chapter 5: The Demise of Alice Cooper: Flush the Fashion
Special Forces
Zipper Catches Skin
DaDa
1980-1983 Chapter 6: The Worm that Turned: Constrictor
Raise Your Fist and Yell
Trash 1986-1989 Chapter 7: Taking Stock again in the 1990s: Hey Stoopid
The Last Temptation
1991-1994 Chapter 8: 'The Coop'
Post-millennium: Brutal Planet
Dragontown
The Eyes of Alice Cooper
Dirty Diamonds
2000-2005 Chapter 9: The Resurrection: Along Came A Spider
Welcome 2 My Nightmare
2008
2011 Postscript Selected Listening