Welcome to My Nightmare
| Welcome to My Nightmare | ||||
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| Alice Cooper studio album | ||||
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Publication |
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admission |
1975 |
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| Label (s) | Atlantic Records | |||
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Format (s) |
CD, LP, MC |
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Title (number) |
11 (+3) |
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running time |
43:29 |
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Studio (s) |
Various |
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Welcome to My Nightmare is a concept album and also the first solo album by the American musician Alice Cooper from 1975. Both the album and the singles Only Women Bleed , Department of Youth and the title track were successful in the American Billboard charts place.
The cover artwork was done by Drew Struzan for Pacific Eye & Ear and was included in the list of "Top 100 Album Covers Of All Time" by Rolling Stone magazine in 1991 .
background
Welcome to My Nightmare was the first solo album after the band Alice Cooper broke up. With the previous albums, the band was very successful as a rock band, so critics asked themselves whether Alice Cooper could also build on this success solo. Dave Marsh from Rolling Stone asked accordingly in his review the question “was it him or them?” (“Was it him or her?”). For the production of the album, however, Alice Cooper relied again on Bob Ezrin , who had already produced the band's albums.
The concept album Welcome to My Nightmare musically describes the nightmares of the protagonist Steven . The title song Welcome to my Nightmare welcomes the listener and thus forms an introduction for the listener of the concept album, it is also a parody of the children's book There's a Nightmare in My Closet by Mercer Mayer , published in 1968 . The film actor Vincent Price , best known for horror films , spoke the opening monologue for the song The Black Widow .
Track list
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The original album Welcome to My Nightmare contained 11 tracks:
- Welcome to My Nightmare ( Alice Cooper , Dick Wagner ) - 5:19
- Devil's Food (Cooper, Bob Ezrin , Kelley Jay) - 3:38
- The Black Widow (Cooper, Wagner, Ezrin) - 3:37
- Some Folks (Cooper, Ezrin, Alan Gordon ) - 4:19
- Only Women Bleed (Cooper, Wagner) - 5:49
- Department of Youth (Cooper, Wagner, Ezrin) - 3:18
- Cold Ethyl (Cooper, Ezrin) - 2:51
- Years Ago (Cooper, Wagner) - 2:51
- Steven (Cooper, Ezrin) - 5:52
- The Awakening (Cooper, Wagner, Ezrin) - 2:25
- Escape (Cooper, Mark Anthony, Kim Fowley ) - 3:20
On the new CD version released in 2002, three additional songs were added as bonus tracks:
- Devils' Food (Alternate Version) - 5:13
- Cold Ethyl (Alternate Version) - 2:56
- The Awakening (Alternate Version) - 4:20
Reviews and reception
Welcome to My Nightmare has been reviewed by various critics and as Cooper's first solo album it was usually directly compared with the previous albums, especially the hit albums School's Out and Billion Dollar Babies . For example, Allmusic.com wrote that although most of the sharp edges of Alice Cooper's band were lost with the breakup and the album, Welcome to My Nightmare remains Alice Cooper's best solo album (“While the music lost most of the gritty edge of the original AC lineup, Welcome to My Nightmare remains Alice's best solo effort ”). In their opinion, some tracks get lost far away from the expected hard rock , but at the same time enough real rock remains ("while some tracks stray from his expected hard rock direction, there's plenty of fist-pumping rock to go around"). The title song Welcome to My Nightmare in particular is described as disco-influenced, Some folks has a cabaret-like touch and Only Women Bleed is described as a top 10 ballad (“The disco-flavored, album-opening title track would be reworked on the stage as more of a hard rock tune, while "Some Folks" dips into cabaret territory, and "Only Women Bleed" is a sensitive ballad that became a Top Ten hit. "), but at the same time Allmusic also points to Devil's Food , The Black Widow , Department of Youth , Cold Ethyl and also the epic Steven as real hard rock tracks ("But the rockers serve as the album's foundation -" Devil's Food, "" The Black Widow, "" Department of Youth, "and" Cold Ethyl "are all standouts, as is the more tranquil yet eerie epic" Steven. "").
Dave Marsh from Rolling Stone certified Alice Cooper's admirable music in 1975, which is more well thought-out and more complex than the basic rock in School's Out and I'm Eighteen , but at the same time it lacks the ferocity and drive of the Cooper band, without which the gimmicks by Alice Cooper flat and obvious ("The music is admirably performed, and it is more deliberate and complicated than the basic rock of" School's Out "and" I'm Eighteen. "But without the wildness and drive of the sound the Cooper troupe had, the gimmicks on which Alice the performer must rely are flat and obvious. ") Welcome to My Nightmare sounds in his opinion, as if it was put together by people who hardly knew each other and were only brought together for the occasion (" sounds like a record put together by people who don't know each other very well and were brought together for an occasion. ”) Overall, the quality has increased, especially thanks to the guitarists Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner , however, the inspiration is completely lacking.
The operators of dreadcentral.com describe Welcome to My Nightmare as probably the best "horror opera" ever recorded ("Welcome to My Nightmare album may just well be the greatest piece of horror opera ever recorded")
The Alice Cooper: The Nightmare TV special as well as the worldwide tour in 1975 and the concert film with the same title, released in 1976, were inspired by Welcome to My Nightmare . In September 2011, Alice Cooper's 26th album, Welcome 2 My Nightmare , was released.
supporting documents
- ↑ Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Album Covers , list from November 14, 1991 issue.
- ^ A b c Dave Marsh: Alice Cooper, Welcome To My Nightmare Rolling Stone Reviews, April 24, 1975.
- ↑ a b c Welcome to My Nightmare at Allmusic (English)
- ↑ Charts UK Charts US
- ↑ Alice Cooper to Give Broadway Nightmares? dreadcentral.com, February 22, 2010.