Billion dollar babies
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| Alice Cooper studio album | |||||||||
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Publication |
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admission |
1972-1973 |
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| Label (s) | Warner Bros. Records | ||||||||
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Format (s) |
CD, LP |
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Title (number) |
10 |
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running time |
40:51 |
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Studio (s) |
Various |
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Billion Dollar Babies is the sixth studio album by Alice Cooper and was released on February 25, 1973. It is one of Cooper's most commercially successful albums and reached number 1 on the charts in the United Kingdom , the United States and the Netherlands .
Emergence
According to Neal Smith, Billion Dollar Babies can be traced back to the song Caught in a Dream from the 1971 album Love It to Death . The first recordings took place in Greenwich , Connecticut . In order to generate certain voice effects and echoes, microphones were used to go through rooms of different sizes and also to record in a greenhouse. Further recordings took place in London , England , where Donovan was involved in the recording of the song Billion Dollar Babies and took over the vocals with Cooper.
Due to Glen Buxton's drug problems, guitarists Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter were hired for the studio recordings, as well as Mick Mashbir for the tour following the release.
According to Cooper himself, Chuck Berry was one of the main inspirations for the album. When he first heard songs like Nadine or Maybellene , he realized that they were telling a story ( "When I first heard something like 'Nadine', or 'Maybelline' I understood those songs told a story." ). Telling stories within three and a half minutes has always been his goal. The songs should be funny, sometimes not funny, but instead dramatic ( "I always wanted to write three-minute stories that were funny, or maybe not just funny, but also dramatic. The idea was to compact everything into three minutes, which is really hard to do. " ). The title of the album came about due to the unexpected success that the band had within a short period of time. Cooper commented: "How could we, who lived in the basement of the Chambers Brothers in Watts two years earlier , be the best band in the world that people threw the money out of the window for." ( "How could we, this band ." that two years ago was living in the Chambers Brothers' basement in Watts, be the No. 1 band in world, with people throwing money at us. " )
Track list
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Chart positions Explanation of the data |
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- Hello Hooray (Rolf Kempf) - 4:15
- Raped and Freezin ' ( Alice Cooper , Michael Bruce) - 3:19
- Elected (Cooper, Bruce, Glen Buxton, Dennis Dunaway, Neil Smith) - 4:05
- Billion Dollar Babies (Cooper, Bruce, Smith, Reggie Vinson) - 3:43
- Unfinished Sweet (Cooper, Bruce, Smith) - 6:18
- No More Mr. Nice Guy (Cooper, Bruce) - 3:06
- Generation Landslide (Cooper, Buxton, Bruce, Dunaway, Smith) - 4:31
- Sick Things (Cooper, Bruce, Bob Ezrin ) - 4:18
- Mary Ann (Cooper, Bruce) - 2:21
- I Love the Dead (Cooper, Ezrin) - 5:09
In 2001 the album was re-released as a deluxe edition with additional songs.
- Hello Hooray (Live) (Kempf)
- Billion Dollar Babies (Live) (Cooper, Bruce, Smith)
- Elected (Live) (Cooper, Bruce, Buxton, Dunaway, Smith)
- I'm Eighteen (Live) (Cooper, Bruce, Buxton, Dunaway, Smith)
- Raped and Freezin '(Live) (Cooper, Bruce)
- No More Mr. Nice Guy (Live) (Cooper, Bruce)
- My Stars (Live) (Cooper, Ezrin)
- Unfinished Sweet (Live) (Cooper, Bruce, Smith)
- Sick Things (Live) (Cooper, Bruce, Ezrin)
- Dead Babies (Live) (Cooper, Bruce, Buxton, Dunaway, Smith)
- I Love The Dead (Live) (Cooper, Ezrin)
- Coal Black Model T (Cooper, Dunaway)
- Son of Billion Dollar Babies (Generation Landslide) (Cooper, Bruce, Buxton, Dunaway, Smith)
- Slick Black Limousine (Cooper, Dunaway)
Success and reception
Billion Dollar Babies is one of Alice Cooper's most successful albums. It reached number 1 on the album charts in the United States, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. In Germany the album climbed to number 9 and stayed in the charts for a total of 28 weeks. The success of the previous album School's Out (number 3 in the German charts) could not be repeated, but Billion Dollar Babies is still one of only three albums by Alice Cooper that was able to achieve a top 10 position in Germany. In Austria the album rose to number 4 and lasted a total of 16 weeks. In addition, the album reached number 4 in Australia . In Canada , the album rose to number 71 on March 10, 1973, reached its highest position on April 28, 1973 at number 2 and stayed in the charts for a total of 39 weeks. The album reached another top 10 position in Norway, where it rose to number 6 and stayed in the charts for 16 weeks.
The album has sold more than a million times to date. It achieved gold status shortly after its release and finally platinum status on October 13, 1986.
Greg Prato rated the album 4.5 / 5 stars. He called it one of the best Alice Cooper albums and a rock classic. For Jason Thompson, Billion Dollar Babies is Alice Cooper's best album as a band. Robert Christgau gave the album a B + grade and saw Alice Cooper's most coherent work in it.
trip
After the album was released, the band embarked on the trillion dollar babies tour. They played 64 concerts in 59 cities within 90 days. The stage shows were characterized by Cooper's outfit with false blood stains in the genital area, by tearing apart dolls and attacking mannequins with a giant toothbrush. In total, over 12 tons of material were used for the stage shows. Including thousands of mirror parts and sparklers, as well as countless light bulbs, whips and axes.
Web links
- Babies trillion dollars at Allmusic (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b theofficialcharts.com: Chart positions in the United Kingdom
- ↑ a b allmusic.com: Album placement in the United States
- ↑ a b dutchcharts.nl: album placement in the Netherlands
- ↑ a b gibson.com: Alice Cooper's Billion Dollar Babies: Gibson's Classic Album of the Month ( Memento of the original from June 11, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Scott Stanton, The tombstone tourist: Musicians , p. 296
- ↑ chron.com: Houston Chronicle: Alice Cooper ready to bring mayhem to Houston
- ↑ Charts DE Charts AT Charts UK Charts US
- ↑ allmusic.com: Title list of the deluxe edition
- ↑ collectionscanada.gc.ca Chart entry Billion Dollar Babies ( Memento of the original from December 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ collectionscanada.gc.ca Top placement in Billion Dollar Babies ( Memento of the original from December 25, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ norwegiancharts.com: Album placement in Norway
- ↑ riaa.com: Billion Dollar Babies Platinum Status
- ^ Allmusic.com: Review by Greg Prato
- ↑ popmatters.com: They Don't Write 'Em Like That Anymore
- ↑ robertchristgau.com: Consumer Guide Reviews
- ↑ James Curtis, Rock Eras: Interpretations of Music and Society, 1954-1984 , p. 257, Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1987.
