This is my fourth Alice Cooper review in the past twelve, and after this one I will have reviewed every one of his studio albums from 1977 through 1991. And I'm still only halfway through his collection. Crazy.
Disc 355 is...Zipper Catches Skin
Artist: Alice CooperYear of Release: 1982
What’s Up With The Cover?: A tightly typed selection of lyrics from the songs on the record. Ordinarily, this would be pretty lame, but the small smear of blood, along with the album's title make it deliciously evocative. Besides, the alternative picture from the liner notes would not have been much better:
I call this picture "The Thin White Drunk."How I Came To Know It: This is one of the last Cooper albums added to my collection, because for years I didn't know it existed. I think about four or five years ago I was digging through some vinyl and found this. I didn't buy it on vinyl, but it got me searching for a copy on CD, which I found shortly thereafter.
How It Stacks Up: By now you will have tired of reading it, but I have all 26 of Alice Cooper's studio albums. This is not top tier, but I enjoy it and I'd rank it around 16th, just a notch ahead of "Flush The Fashion" and "Special Forces."
Rating: 3 stars.
On my first time through the CD Odyssey, I did it in chronological order, which I enjoyed. I avoided it this time around by randomly rolling them, partly on the advice of my friend Karen, and partly because I didn't want to be writing successive reviews about the same artist. There's no avoiding it this time, however. "Zipper Catches Skin" is the immediate follow up to "Special Forces."
From 1980-1983 Cooper put out four albums, all of which he recorded blind drunk: "Flush The Fashion," "Special Forces", "Zipper Catches Skin", and "Dada." I've reviewed them all, and far and away "Dada" is the best (check it out way back at Disc 18). The other three I tend to lump together as inspired but flawed.
This describes "Zipper Catches Skin" well. The songs have promising hooks never fully developed and tragico-comical lyrics (thanks, Polonius) that needed a sober rewrite.
By 1982, only a few remnants remained of Cooper's expirements with New Wave arrangements. "I Like Girls" strays into pop territory, but in the main "Zipper Catches Skin" is a return to a more traditional Alice Cooper rock sound. I also think he improves the production on this record after a couple of sub-par efforts. That said, it could have used Bob Ezrin's brilliance.
The best song on the album is the first one, "Zorro's Ascent," a song sung from the perspective of that famous fictional freedom fighter. The song finds him lying dying in the streets, defiant still, and refusing priestly benedictions for the afterlife because as he puts it, "for I am the fox and I go where I like." The song is complete with sword swishes worked into the music and is delightfully silly.
"Make That Money (Scrooge's Song)" is another winner, this one about selling out. Cooper is an artist that could easily be accused of selling out, but I think first and foremost he is an entertainer. For all of his counter-culture appeal, Cooper wants to be liked; it is his characters that he wants you to despise, and the Scrooge in "Make That Money" is easy to hate.
The heavier rock sound on this record was welcome, and the riffs on songs like "Make That Money" really find a nice groove. Beyond that, the songs are innovative, but unfocused, which apart from the miracle exception of 1983's "Dada" was an unavoidable side effect of the booze in Cooper's system, during this time.
Lyrically, my favourite song is an odd pick, "No Baloney Homosapiens." In the song, Cooper muses aloud what aliens might be like. He welcomes first contact ("feel free to drop in anytime") but his chief concern is that they not eat us. Then he appeals to alien sympathy, and things get even more ridiculous:
"Just 'cause you got more ears and eyes
That just gives you more places to cry
And acutely hear the moans and sighs
Of the relatives of the people you disintigrated."
This is the kind of esoteric topic Rush would cover, but Cooper strips it of any shred of gravitas. It may be a guilty pleasure, but "No Baloney Homosapiens" entertained me, which is all Alice would've wanted.
The lyrics to "I Better Be Good" are so dirty that I'll eschew publication, but if you're not easily offended, go ahead and look them up. Just don't look them up in the liner notes of the CD, because the lyrics there are not only incomplete, they're often incorrect. They were transcribed by some woman named Linda Hennrick, and the effort is truly awful. It is particularly awful, given that the lyrics to most songs are part of the frickin' cover!
Not every song is great on "Zipper Catches Skin" but even the lesser tracks are listenable, with one exception. That would be "I'm Alive (That Was The Day My Dead Pet Returned To Save My Life)." Yes, that is the title of the song, and no, it is not nearly as interesting as it should be.
"Zipper Catches Skin" is not well regarded, even among die-hard Cooper fans that otherwise embrace "Flush The Fashion" and "Special Forces." I can't understand how those two records are always put ahead of this one and "Dada" but it won't happen on my blog. I enjoyed this album - another winner from one of my favourite artists. That said, I sincerely hope I roll something else next time.
Best tracks: Zorro's Ascent, Make That Money, No Baloney Homosapiens
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