Fans of Alice Cooper are somewhat spoiled for choice, book-wise, with the great man’s highly entertaining autobiographies (Me, Alice and Golf Monster) at the top of a fairly lengthy list. It’s a shame, then, that the real selling point here – an emphasis on the band Alice Cooper – should be somewhat veiled by a title and cover picture very much focused on the frontman’s solo career.
That’s a small gripe, though. Dave Thompson’s book is a well-researched, absorbing read which benefits hugely from the prominence given to the group and its 70s heyday. Alice Cooper the “shock rocker” is an entertaining Grand Guignol performer but, despite the arrival of the seminal New York Dolls, Alice Cooper the band was arguably the US’s only real contribution to the chart-friendly phenomenon of glam rock – and what’s more, they were far more subversive than Cooper the solo artist.
Thompson is especially good on the band’s early background and the sometimes disharmonious relationships within it, while Michael Bruce, Glen Buxton and Dennis Dunaway finally receive some long-overdue credit.
