Alice Cooper

Alice Cooper's sophomore album, 1970's Easy Action, has more in common with the ornate art rock of Pretties for You than Billion Dollar Babies' glitzy classic rock. Cooper himself even croons about eating ice cream cones on the breezy "Shoe Salesman." However, "Return of the Spiders" and "Lay Down and Die, Goodbye" are two of the band's most all-time vicious jammers, looking toward Alice Cooper's golden era, which wouldn't begin until the release of the following album, Love It to Death.

Pretties for You had its pseudo-decadent and -psychedelic charms, and so does this, only not as many, which makes very few indeed--"Mr. and Misdemeanor" (featuring Lucky Luciano and Kenny Passarelli) and a junkie shoe salesman to balance off all the tuneless singing, tuneless playing, tuneless tunes, and pseudo-musique concrete. (Grade: C)