RETRO: Alice Cooper, ‘Welcome to My Nightmare’ (1975)

Forty years ago this month, Alice Cooper released one of his most celebrated albums, Welcome to My Nightmare. Even for a fan like me, who wasn’t born at the time, this seems hard to believe. Was 1975 really 40 years ago? It’s even harder to believe when you consider that Cooper is still doing world tours every year and performing with even more energy than he did back then. But most of all, it’s hard to believe because the album simply doesn’t sound four decades old.

Welcome to My Nightmare was a huge landmark in Alice Cooper’s career; it was his first album as a solo artist. The previous seven albums, from 1969 to 1974, had all been offerings by Alice Cooper the band, which gave the singer formerly known as Vincent Furnier his name. There have been various reasons given over the years as to why the band went their separate ways, but they’re reasons I won’t go into here, as it all becomes very complicated when everyone involved has a different version of events. Whatever the circumstances, they led to Alice Cooper the man making the bold decision to forge ahead on his own.

It was a risk made easier by the presence of Bob Ezrin, who had produced the last five Alice Cooper band albums from 1971’s Love It to Death onwards. Ezrin helped the band achieve success by molding their distinctive sound, capturing the essence of what they were about on record, and he was someone Alice trusted and needed by his side. Ezrin also brought in a group of truly outstanding musicians to play on Welcome to My Nightmare, including guitarists Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter, who had both played with Lou Reed in his live band and on his 1973 album Berlin (which Ezrin also produced). Wagner and Hunter’s distinctive twin guitar sound became a key part of Alice Cooper’s arsenal over the next few years, both live and in the studio, and Wagner formed a songwriting partnership with Cooper.

It’s hard to think of a more ambitious solo debut than Welcome to My Nightmare. While the stage production that followed its release pushed the established Alice Cooper theatrics further than they had gone before, the album explored new musical avenues and was essentially a concept work, telling the story of a young boy’s nightmare.

The title track is a powerful opener, setting the scene perfectly. Its low-key intro and soft vocal have an air of eeriness which then gives way to a funk-like groove and horn section. Once we have been welcomed in, the Hunter and Wagner twin guitar sound comes to the forefront on “Devil’s Food.” a track which segues smoothly into “The Black Widow,” featuring a vocal cameo from horror movie legend Vincent Price. A hero of Cooper’s, Price agreed to play the part of the museum curator. His creepy monologue about the killing powers of the black widow spider is a highlight of the album and never fails to send chills down your spine.

The tone changes on “Some Folks,” which sounds like it could have come straight from a Broadway musical. The brass section, not to mention the guitar playing, is fantastic. Following that is one of the big successes of the new Cooper/Wagner songwriting team: the hit single “Only Women Bleed.” A song about a woman in an abusive relationship (and not about menstruation, as many mistakenly believed at the time), it was also the very first Alice Cooper ballad. Its popularity prompted Cooper to include a ballad on almost every album he has done since.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj2LD5mBdTQ

After all that tugging at the heartstrings, it’s back to the rock again with “Department of Youth,” described by Cooper as the track that seems most out of place within the context of the nightmare. But it’s such a good song that it just had to be included. Indeed, its riffs wouldn’t have sounded out of place on a punk album a couple of years later. It even name-checks Donny Osmond.

Cooper was never averse to causing outrage and horror among the parents of America, and we can only imagine what they thought of “Cold Ethyl,” a catchy rock number which deals with the delightful topic of necrophilia. For those of us with a sense of humor, it’s anything but disturbing, and it remains a highlight of Cooper’s live set to this day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DJKd7y3ISc

The next three tracks, “Years Ago,” “Steven,” and “The Awakening” focus on closing the story. “Steven” is a particularly dramatic song, with brilliant orchestration and a childlike vocal from Alice, as the protagonist tries to wake up from his nightmare. It’s not a song you’d want to listen to alone in the dark. Lines like, “I must be dreaming, please stop screaming” leave a powerful resonance. The character is also referenced on subsequent Alice Cooper albums.

The closing track, “Escape,” is an up-tempo rocker which contrasts brilliantly with the opening of the album. You’ll notice that Kim Fowley has a writing credit; the original version appeared on the Hollywood Stars’ 1974 album Shine Like a Radio, which wasn’t released until 2013.

Welcome to My Nightmare was a huge success, though at the time of its release, it received mixed reviews. There were, and still are, those who couldn’t fathom the idea of the original band not being involved, and some believe the album lacks the “edge” of those band offerings. It didn’t seem to matter much to most people, though, as the majority of Alice Cooper fans have stuck with the man throughout his solo career. It’s fair to say that his subsequent releases in the ‘70s and ‘80s didn’t make quite the same impact as this one, but this ardent Cooper fan will stop just short of saying that the music went downhill, as I firmly believe there are plenty of underrated gems to be enjoyed from those albums (but that’s another story for another day).

In 2011, the album’s long-awaited sequel was released, the aptly titled Welcome 2 My Nightmare. It was well-received by most people, widely regarded by fans as Alice’s best work for a few years, and was also his highest charting album since 1991’s Hey Stoopid. It sounds modern while retaining the spirit of the original, using some of the same familiar musical motifs. But no matter how great it might be, you just can’t beat the original Nightmare. It proved that Cooper could go it alone, elevating him to the status of international rock icon, and opened up further musical and theatrical possibilities. If you only have one Alice Cooper solo album in your collection, this should be it.

Sarah Stacey

Sarah is a writer and aspiring radio producer from Ireland. She is obsessed with vintage music and comedy and sometimes feels like she was born in the wrong decade. When not writing or thinking up new ideas for radio shows, she spends her spare time playing guitar, going to as many gigs as possible, and watching classic British sitcoms.