Now we all have those moments where we have seen something and
thought WOW!!! In my musical life, I have had a few of these. The first Top of
The Pops appearances by The Smiths, Boy George, Marc Almond and the very first
Alice Copper, way back in 1972 with School’s Out. What an anthem for every
school kid all over the world. After this explosive debut in the UK, Alice went
on to have a string of hits, Elected, No More Mr Nice Guy & Hello Hurray.
With hit albums, Schools Out, Billion Dollar Babies, Killer,
Welcome To My Nightmare, Alice was on a roll. He was a big global star with
sell out tours and hit albums. But Alice was harbouring a dark secret. His alcohol
abuse. The amount he drank during these years is now the stuff of legend and
with mates like Keith Moon, it was easy to see how he fell into this way of
life. God, he even went disco in 1977 with the album Lace& Whisky.
However, it came to a point where Alice had to go into
rehab. So he signed himself into a sanatorium in New York. He came out sober
and used his experiences in the sanatorium to create one of the best albums of
his career. Now everybody knows of the rocking Alice but this album showed a
different side to his music. He enlisted the help of Elton John’s lyricist
Bernie Taupin and bandmates Dee Murray & Davey Johnston to create the
album. Alice used the people he met and the situations he experienced in rehab
to tell the story. Now Alice has always been able to write a killer ballad,
(See Only Women Bleed as an example)
and the lead-off single for From The Inside was also another
killer ballad. How You Gonna See Me Now
The album opens with From The Inside
But Alice could still rock it out when required and the album includes one of his best rockers in years.
The success of From The Inside reenergised Alice, although a wait
of three years for his next album, Flush The Fashion, didn’t help, although he
did have the monster single and album with Trash in 1989 which spawned the monster worldwide smash Poison, with the help of hit
songwriter & producer Desmond Child.
But I always go back to From The Inside as the album where we got
to glimpse the Real Alice Cooper. If only for a second.
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