ALICE COOPER
Dirty Diamonds
The tracks on the veteran rocker’s latest studio album fall into two distinct categories. The first features tracks that can be described as being pretty straightforward rock songs. For instance, the album kicks off in fine rocking style with Woman Of Mass Distraction, a song with some great guitar riffs which is slightly let down by the rather poor pun in its title. Elsewhere, the proceedings motor along quite nicely with the likes of You Make Me Wanna, Zombie Dance and Your Own Worst Enemy. Six Hours has a laid-back, bluesy feel that builds to a satisfying climax when the guitar solo kicks in at the end. In contrast, Pretty Ballerina is driven along by an almost delicate sounding keyboard riff. Its interesting blend of instrumentation makes it one of the highlights of the album.
The second category of songs feature a similar musical style to the first, but they are distinguished by lyrics that concern some fairly oddball characters. For me, it’s the songs in this latter category that are the more interesting. For example, Perfect is the story of a woman who can sing (or thinks she can sing) in private, but who’s voice falls apart at the karaoke bar. This song could almost be an anthem for those deluded, talentless souls who ritually humiliate themselves on Pop Idol and X Factor.
Sunset Babies (All Got Rabies) is a nicely twisted song. On first listening, it appears to have some fairly clichéd rock’n’roll lyrics about “hanging out with chicks”. But listen closer and you realize that things are not quite what they seem, and then the penny drops at the end of the song when you realize that Cooper is actually singing about his dog. The closing line “And now I’ve got to put that old girl down” gave me a good laugh when I first heard it.
The Saga of Jesse Jane is the tale of a wedding dress-wearing, transvestite truck driver who ends up in jail for gunning down some rednecks in a roadside diner. The masterfully written lyrics tell Jesse’s story, with the man himself delivering the punchline “Some day I’m going to make someone in here a hell of a wife” from his prison cell.
Driven along by a nu-metal riff, the lyrics to Steal That Car are a neat twist on the pop cliché of stealing a girl from another man, except of course that the object of Cooper’s desire is “a Chevy or a Ford”. This is followed on the album by Run Down The Devil, which sees Cooper wanting to make a hit’n’run victim of Satan. This distant cousin of Suzi Quattro’s Devil Gate Drive is another album highlight, and has a dirty low-slung guitar riff that positively slinks out of your loudspeakers.
The bonus track, Stand, has apparently divided many long standing fans because it introduces synthesizers and a rapper to augment Cooper’s sound. However, I think this is one of the more interesting tracks, if not musically the strongest track on the album. Cooper is clearly not afraid to introduce new elements into his music to bring his sound up to date, and it would be interesting to hear him continue in this vein.
While I’m not typically a fan of this type of music, I did found plenty to enjoy on this album. It is laced with a healthy dose of black humour, and the odd lyrical line will literally reach out and grab you with its wit even if you’re only granting it a casual listen.
The second category of songs feature a similar musical style to the first, but they are distinguished by lyrics that concern some fairly oddball characters. For me, it’s the songs in this latter category that are the more interesting. For example, Perfect is the story of a woman who can sing (or thinks she can sing) in private, but who’s voice falls apart at the karaoke bar. This song could almost be an anthem for those deluded, talentless souls who ritually humiliate themselves on Pop Idol and X Factor.
Sunset Babies (All Got Rabies) is a nicely twisted song. On first listening, it appears to have some fairly clichéd rock’n’roll lyrics about “hanging out with chicks”. But listen closer and you realize that things are not quite what they seem, and then the penny drops at the end of the song when you realize that Cooper is actually singing about his dog. The closing line “And now I’ve got to put that old girl down” gave me a good laugh when I first heard it.
The Saga of Jesse Jane is the tale of a wedding dress-wearing, transvestite truck driver who ends up in jail for gunning down some rednecks in a roadside diner. The masterfully written lyrics tell Jesse’s story, with the man himself delivering the punchline “Some day I’m going to make someone in here a hell of a wife” from his prison cell.
Driven along by a nu-metal riff, the lyrics to Steal That Car are a neat twist on the pop cliché of stealing a girl from another man, except of course that the object of Cooper’s desire is “a Chevy or a Ford”. This is followed on the album by Run Down The Devil, which sees Cooper wanting to make a hit’n’run victim of Satan. This distant cousin of Suzi Quattro’s Devil Gate Drive is another album highlight, and has a dirty low-slung guitar riff that positively slinks out of your loudspeakers.
The bonus track, Stand, has apparently divided many long standing fans because it introduces synthesizers and a rapper to augment Cooper’s sound. However, I think this is one of the more interesting tracks, if not musically the strongest track on the album. Cooper is clearly not afraid to introduce new elements into his music to bring his sound up to date, and it would be interesting to hear him continue in this vein.
While I’m not typically a fan of this type of music, I did found plenty to enjoy on this album. It is laced with a healthy dose of black humour, and the odd lyrical line will literally reach out and grab you with its wit even if you’re only granting it a casual listen.
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