Bmiler This is quite a bit different from the Alice Cooper that made him/them famous (as the band before 1975 was called Alice Cooper, not just Vincent Furnier). What you get here is heavy psych. Pretties For You was released on Frank Zappa's Straight label, and thanks to Zappa, some humor and quirky elements can be found here, even if Zappa never produced the album, there's a slight Zappa influence amongst the heavy psych. The back cover shows the band looking like a glam rock band circa 1972 (Alice Cooper himself wearing a dress but the facepaint hadn't yet been established), so that's actually pretty ahead of its time there, although the music is pretty much of its time for 1969. "Apple Bush", for example shows the quirky side, while "Fields of Regret" is more serious heavy psych. Plus you get "Reflected" which was later rerecorded in 1972 and released as a single as "Elected" (and ended up on Billion Dollar Babies the next year). The album isn't looked too fondly of, which is too bad, given I happen to like psych music, and this album happens to deliver. While the regular fan starts with Love it to Death, for obvious reasons, it's the beginning of Alice Cooper the shock rock artist, here it's Alice Cooper still trying to get his/their feet wet, and actually it's better than many will let you believe. "Levity Ball" is a great song, although the sound quality is pretty awful (it was a live recording), actually the original LP isn't that great sounding (I own the original LP on the orange label that says "Straight" on top in a curved fashion), and sometime I think that's the reason for the low rating. So another one of those underrated albums that I actually quite enjoy!

Warthur Alice Cooper the band was no more, but Alice Cooper the frontman was still going strong, and Welcome To My Nightmare is probably the best of his "solo" albums. Although his bandmates had gone, and with them the sense of genuine filth that clung to the edges of classic albums like Billion Dollar Babies, Alice had kept custody of Bob Ezrin after the divorce, and Ezrin was able to get some session musicians together to wheel out some hard glam rock that at least superficially resembles the band's old sound, plus a few guest spots like Vincent Price offering a classic monologue on The Black Widow.

It's certainly a well-polished spectacle, and Cooper has been riffing on the general ideas developed here intermittently ever since - see not just the misguided idea of producing an actual sequel to the album, Welcome 2 My Nightmare, but also the Along Came a Spider album, which took the imagery of The Black Widow and essentially expanded it into a serial killer-themed concept album.

But as lyricalsly evocative and competently produced as the album is, there's something about it which leaves me a little cold every time. It just feels a little bit calculated - a little too slick, a little too polished, a little too absent of the rough edges and out-of-left-field departures the band brought to the table. The cover art here is particularly apt - this is Alice Cooper cleaned up and made ready for prime time, and thus the danger feels nullified, rendered safe and tame by the campy flair of it all. This is a matter of taste, of course, but it remains consistent no matter how often I give the album a fair chance.

siLLy puPPy Definately not Alice's best. Upon first crushing riffage it immediately sounds like a ripoff of Rammstein, especially on the “Sehnsucht” album. The last song “Cold Machines” starts off ripping off “The Beautiful People” from Marilyn Manson. The songs on this album are ok, but this is ALICE COOPER. They're supposed to be more than ok, right? I mean even the stuff in the 80s may have been playing keep up with the new game in town but at least the songs were catchy and the lyrics were clever. On this album it simply feels like Alice is trying a little too hard to be relevant in an ever changing musical landscape and instead of trying to find some relevant life experiences to bring forth a new surge of creativity he seems to be trying to borrow here and supplement there from the well that has already sprung forth much more talented acts for this kind of sound. Nice try Alice but this one just lacks sincerity, integrity and worst of all, anything that grabs my attention.

The Truth An odd record, yeah, but it's fun to listen to when you think of what it eventually gave birth to.

Pretties For You, the Alice Cooper band's first record, is at times childish but it never fails to stun every once in awhile. Sure there are some really duds Living, but there are truly a bunch of psychedelic tunes that leave a nice impression on the listener. These include Levity Ball, Changing Arranging and (eventually re-recorded as Elected) Reflected. Heck, even the almost satirically dramatic intro the record Titanic Overture is a fun song.

There are some really great moments on Pretties For You and although better things are yet to come, it should not be ignored. It shows an Alice Cooper that was never fully seen again, only remnants of it.

Zappa's influence on their tripped-out noodling is apparent which makes it entertaining to say the least. The only thing that's really missing is a performance of Nobody Likes Me.

Warthur Dragontown is, for all intents and purposes, Brutal Planet part 2 - there's even regular lyrical references to ideas and characters established on that album. If you hated Brutal Planet and thought it preachy, condescending, and an unconvincing update of Cooper's sound, you won't like this one; if you loved Brutal Planet and thought it was a genius use of pop-industrial influences to bring Cooper's sound up to date, you'll love Dragontown.

And if, like me, you thought Brutal Planet was a decent enough album and certainly preferable to Cooper's pomp rock concept albums of the late 1970s or his glam metal style of the 1980s and 1990s, but at the same time hardly worthy of the groundbreaking masterpieces the original Alice Cooper band put out from Love It To Death to Billion Dollar Babies, you'll find Dragontown to be entertaining and ultimately disposable.