Alice Cooper

Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier) is an American rock singer, songwriter, and musician whose career spans more than four decades. With a stage show that features guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, boa constrictors and baby dolls, Cooper has drawn equally from horror movies, vaudeville and garage rock to pioneer a grandly theatrical and violent brand of heavy metal designed to shock.

Alice Cooper was originally a band consisting of Furnier on vocals and harmonica, lead guitarist Glen Buxton, Michael Bruce on rhythm guitar, Dennis Dunaway on bass guitar and drummer Neal Smith. The original Alice Cooper band broke into the international music mainstream with the 1971 hit "I'm Eighteen" from the album Love It to Death, which was followed by the even bigger single "School's Out" in 1972. The band reached their commercial peak with the 1973 album Billion Dollar Babies.

Furnier's solo career as Alice Cooper, adopting the band's name as his own name, began with the 1975 concept album Welcome to My Nightmare. In 2011, he released Welcome 2 My Nightmare, his 19th album as a solo artist, and his 26th album in total. Expanding from his original Detroit rock roots, over the years Cooper has experimented with many various musical styles, including conceptual rock, art rock, hard rock, New Wave, pop rock, experimental rock and industrial rock.

Alice Cooper is known for his social and witty persona offstage and is credited with helping to shape the sound and look of heavy metal. Away from music, Cooper is a film actor, a golfing celebrity, a restaurateur and, since 2004, a popular radio DJ with his classic rock show Nights with Alice Cooper.

In 2011, the original Alice Cooper band was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Alice Cooper has released 26 studio albums, 46 singles, 8 live albums, 21 compilation albums, 12 video releases, and an audiobook. Six of his studio albums have achieved platinum in the United States, while two have achieved gold. His first official release was Pretties for You (1969), while his latest studio album release was Welcome 2 My Nightmare (2011). Over his career, Cooper has sold well over 50 million records.

The classic Alice Cooper group line-up consisted of singer Alice Cooper (Vincent Furnier), lead guitarist Glen Buxton, rhythm guitarist Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway and drummer Neal Smith. Their first album Pretties for You (released in 1969) had a slight psychedelic feel.

Alice Cooper's "shock rock" reputation apparently developed during an unrehearsed stage routine involving Cooper, a feather pillow and a live chicken garnered attention from the press. Cooper claims that the infamous "Chicken Incident" at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival concert in September 1969 was an accident. A chicken somehow made its way onto the stage into the feathers of a feather pillow they would open during Cooper's performance and he picked it up and threw it out over the crowd, expecting it to fly away. The chicken instead plummeted into the first few rows occupied by disabled people in wheelchairs, who reportedly proceeded to tear the bird to pieces.

Despite the publicity from the Chicken Incident, the band's second album, Easy Action, released in June 1970, met with the same fate as its predecessor.&nbsp In the autumn of 1970, the Alice Cooper group teamed with producer Bob Ezrin for the recording of their third album Love It to Death. The single "I'm Eighteen", released in November 1970, which reached number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1971. Love It to Death proved to be their breakthrough album, reaching number 35 on the U.S. Billboard 200 album charts. Further singles included "Under My Wheels", "Be My Lover" and "Halo of Flies".

The summer of 1972 saw the release of the single "School's Out". It went Top 10 in the US, was a #1 single in the UK, and remains a staple on classic rock radio to this day. The album School's Out reached #2 on the US charts and sold over a million copies. In England, Mary Whitehouse, a well known campaigner for values of morality and decency, succeeded in having the BBC ban the video for "School's Out" and Member of Parliament Leo Abse petitioned Home Secretary Reginald Maudling to have the group banned altogether from performing in the country.

In February 1973, Billion Dollar Babies was released worldwide and became the band's most commercially successful album, reaching #1 in both the US and UK. "Elected" which inspired one of the first MTV-style story-line promo videos ever made for a song. This was followed by two more UK Top 10 singles, "Hello Hooray" and "No More Mr. Nice Guy", the latter of which was the last UK single from the album; it reached #25 in the US.

Muscle of Love, released at the end of 1973, was to be the last studio album from the classic line-up, and marked Alice Cooper's last UK Top 20 single of the 1970s with "Teenage Lament '74".

In 1975, Alice released his first solo album, Welcome to My Nightmare which was a concept album that was based on the nightmare of a child named Steven, featuring narration by classic horror movie film star Vincent Price and serving as the soundtrack to Cooper's new stage show. "I Never Cry" was released in 1976 along with two albums, Alice Cooper Goes to Hell and Lace and Whiskey.

Cooper's albums from the beginning of the 80s, Flush the Fashion, Special Forces, Zipper Catches Skin and DaDa, were not as commercially successful as his past releases. In 1985, he appeared as guest vocalist on Twisted Sister's song "Be Chrool To Your Scuel". A video was made for the song, featuring Cooper donning his black snake-eyes make-up for the first time since 1979.

In 1986, Alice Cooper officially returned to the music industry with the album Constrictor. The album spawned the hits "He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask)", which was the theme song for the movie Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives and the fan favorite "Teenage Frankenstein". Raise Your Fist and Yell was released in 1987, as well as "Freedom".

In 1989, his career finally experienced a real revival with the album Trash, which spawned a hit single "Poison", which reached #2 in the UK and #7 in the US, and a worldwide arena tour. In&nbsp 1991, Cooper's 19th studio album, Hey Stoopid, was released. That same year also saw the release of the video Alice Cooper: Prime Cuts which chronicled his entire career using in depth interviews with Cooper himself, Bob Ezrin, and Shep Gordon.

In 1994, Cooper released The Last Temptation, his first concept album since DaDa. The album deals with issues of faith, temptation, alienation and the frustrations of modern life. This was to be Cooper’s last studio release for six years, though during this period the live album A Fistful of Alice was released. During his absence from the recording studio, Cooper toured extensively every year throughout the latter part of the 1990s.

During the 2000s, Cooper continued to tour extensively and released a steady stream of studio albums to favorable critical acclaim. During this period Cooper was also recognized and awarded in various ways: he received a Rock Immortal award at the 2007 Scream Awards; was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2003; he received ) an honorary doctoral degree from Grand Canyon University; he scooped the living legend award at the 2006 Classic Rock Roll of Honour event; he won the 2007 Mojo music magazine Hero Award; and fans twice tried to induct him into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The lengthy break between studio albums ended in 2000 with Brutal Planet. Brutal Planet was succeeded by the sonically similar and widely acclaimed sequel Dragontown followed by the 2003 release of The Eyes of Alice Cooper.

Dirty Diamonds was released in 2005 and became Cooper's highest charting album since 1994's The Last Temptation. In July 2008, Cooper released Along Came a Spider, his 25th studio album. It was Cooper's highest charting album since 1991's Hey Stoopid, reaching #53 in the US and #31 in the UK. The album, visiting similar territory explored in 1987's Raise Your Fist and Yell, deals with the nefarious antics of a deranged serial killer named "Spider" who is on a quest to use the limbs of his victims to create a human spider.

On December 15, 2010 it was announced Cooper and his former band would be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The official Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony took place March 14, 2011 where Cooper was inducted by fellow horror-rocker Rob Zombie.

Music Videos

 * (No More) Love at Your Convenience
 * Bed of Nails
 * Department of Youth
 * Elected
 * Freedom
 * Feed My Frankenstein
 * Gimme
 * Hey Stoopid
 * House of Fire
 * He's Back (The Man Behind The Mask)
 * Hello Horay
 * How You Gonna See Me now?
 * I Got a Line on You
 * I'm Eighteen
 * It's Me
 * Little Things
 * Lost in America
 * Love's a Loaded Gun
 * No More Mr. Nice Guy
 * Only My Heart Talkin'
 * Poison
 * School's Out
 * Teenage Frankenstein
 * Teenage Lament '74
 * Welcome To My Nightmare
 * You And Me