The Best Of Alice Cooper: Mascara & Monsters

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
An essential figure in any history of the American grotesque, son-of-a-preacher-man Vincent Furnier served as a missing link between Screamin' Jay Hawkins and Marilyn Manson. As Alice Cooper, he helped make the pop world safe for morbidity and makeup, scoring a bunch of hits and misses along the way. Mascara & Monsters serves up a fairly rote chronology of Cooper's '70s singles, with the occasional B-side and 1989's "Poison" (cowritten by mainstream hitmeister Desmond Child!) thrown in for good measure. As such, the album doesn't live up to its best-of billing. "Dead Babies," arguably the best track on Killer, loses out to "Under My Wheels," while the garage-rock glories of the band's first two albums are also conspicuously absent. On the plus side, "School's Out," "Elected," and "No More Mr. Nice Guy" still sound great. If you're looking for easy access to those and numerous lesser singles, this collection will do the trick. --Bill Forman

Tracks:

I'm Eighteen
Is It My Body
Desperado
Under My Wheels
Be My Lover
School's Out
Elected
Hello Hooray
Generation Landslide
No More Mr. Nice Guy
Billion Dollar Babies
Teenage Lament '74
Muscle Of Love
Only Women Bleed
Department Of Youth
Welcome To My Nightmare
I Never Cry
You And Me
How You Gonna See Me Now
From The Inside
Clones (We're All)
Poison

Amazon.com

An essential figure in any history of the American grotesque, son-of-a-preacher-man Vincent Furnier served as a missing link between Screamin' Jay Hawkins and Marilyn Manson. As Alice Cooper, he helped make the pop world safe for morbidity and makeup, scoring a bunch of hits and misses along the way. Mascara & Monsters serves up a fairly rote chronology of Cooper's '70s singles, with the occasional B-side and 1989's "Poison" (cowritten by mainstream hitmeister Desmond Child!) thrown in for good measure. As such, the album doesn't live up to its best-of billing. "Dead Babies," arguably the best track on Killer, loses out to "Under My Wheels," while the garage-rock glories of the band's first two albums are also conspicuously absent. On the plus side, "School's Out," "Elected," and "No More Mr. Nice Guy" still sound great. If you're looking for easy access to those and numerous lesser singles, this collection will do the trick. --Bill Forman

Customer Reviews:

Alice Cooper CD.......2007-01-12

I am very pleased with the CD, it was a gift for my son. It had the three songs that he really wanted, and I didn't have to run from store to store to find it.

Welcome To My Nightmare.......2006-10-17

Alice Cooper is just the man. Simple as that. This is a very good album with 22 great songs. I love every track here and there are the classics that everyone knows. If you like Alice Cooper there are some outstanding lesser known tracks here that rock.

I LOVE THIS CD.......2006-09-21

My Favorite Tracks Are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22.

A MUST-HAVE FOR ANY COOPER FAN!.......2006-08-13

What can you say about the musical career of this guy Alice Cooper. You either loved his work or you hated it. He is a great performer either on stage or in a recording studio. His wide range of songs really shows in this collection. So much I started buying some of his other CD releases. Which by the way "Welcome To My Nightmare" is still a favorite. All the selections on this CD is worth the investment. A brilliant singer/songwriter/performer of the 70's & 80's. I remember hearing this story back on the week of June 2, 1973 when "No More Mister Nice Guy" was on American Top 40 with Casey Kasem. It started out as Alice was to meet with a record producer at a fine restaurant in midtown Manhatten. As Alice walked into the establishment he'd noticed people were staring at him pointing and snickering at him because, he was in full make-up and costume. And all through the meal a table close to him was being very rude towards Alice. So Alice and his party finished their meal first. When Alice got up to leave he walked over to the table stood beside of the guy that was the loudest, put his hand affectionately on his shoulder and said with great sincerity "Gee, it's great to see you again!" Then left the guy to the mercy of his friends. Anyway this is a must for any fan of Alice Cooper. "ENJOY!"

A standard compilation 3 1/2 stars.......2006-04-11

Let me say that I'm a huge Alice Cooper fan. I own 17 Alice Cooper studio albums and I like them all. Well some of them are very average thought. If you want only hits, this is for you. But if you want to hear real masterpieces, you don't find them here. Where the hell are Alice Cooper group masterpieces like Ballad of dwight fry, Dead babies, Sick things, Halo of flies and My stars? Only choices from Billion dollar babies and Trash are excellently made. Poison really is the best song on trash. I haven't heard Muscle of love, but there must be better songs than Teenage lament74 and Muscle of love. They are irritating.

Unlike many other reviewers I really like these ballads, but they are not best cuts on those albums. Why Go to hell,Wish you were here, It's hot tonight and Black widow didn't find their way into this compilation. I have critisized this compilation a lot, but it is by no means bad. 18 of 22 songs are good. The bad ones are Be my lover, Is it my body, Muscle of love and Teenage lament 74. Fortunately all songs are full lenght versions unlike on Definive and they are chosen from a really good era. It would be catastprophe to make compilation of his 80's material. My favourites are Welcome to my nightmare , School's out, I'm eighteen, From the inside and Billion dollar babies.

In my opinion Alice Cooper's hits are not his best songs and you should definately hear classics like School's out and Killer. This is one of his better compilations and pretty good place to start, but not a must have for a die hard fan. I hope Alice Cooper will release a 2CD compilation in the future that contains more than just hits. If you're looking for a good rock compilation, buy Rolling stones' Forty licks or Ozzy Osbourne's Essential. Those are better than this one.

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