The Sound Of A – Alice Cooper

This song is something of a hybrid. Written by original band member Dennis Dunaway and old Vincent back in the pre-Zappa records days there are threads dating back to the sixties. It didn’t surface for fans to hear until AC released the (better than it has a right to be at this stage of the game) 2017 album Paranormal.

So here we are with source material that’s pre-post-everything Alice, Pre-Wayne’s World Alice, pre-pop metal 80’s Alice, pre-new wave clone Alice, pre-drunken blackout Alice, Pre-70’s Teen Sensation Alice and Pre-Garage Rock Alice.

We’re back in Easy Action, Pretties For You territory. Not a mine I ever thought the 21st century revivalism would go searching in for gold. This is a bit of a nugget.

The Sound Of A is atmospheric and can conjour the mood of the creepy otherness the original Alice Cooper show would have invoked. It’s slightly proggy, a bit Velvet Underground, a bit Halloween ghost story. Art rock from the 60’s with 21st century production.

Back in those Pretties For You days the band recorded an album of material at the infamous ‘Chicken Throwing’ Whiskey A Go-Go show. This collection of challenging avant guard noises parading as songs was released yonks later by loads of different labels under various names to turn a quick buck on the name when picked up by curious fans.

That recording has been released as Ladies Man, Nobody Likes Me, Science Fiction and most ironically of all The Legend of Alice Cooper. Sometimes they change the cover, the song titles and or the running order around no matter what they do, it’s an awful record. Two of the songs on the version I had weren’t even Alice Cooper singing them so I guess there’s a bit of another band that were on that night in there too.

Why am I telling you this? We’ll The Sound Of A comes from that era. But has been reworked to a state where it might be a fitting farewell single from the band America loved to hate.