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OK - I know that many people have attempted to trash this album. Rule 1 - you can't try to compare it to Billion Dollar Babies or Welcome To My Nightmare. It's the band's DEBUT, and they were feeling out their way! Produced by Frank Zappa for his Straight Records label, PRETTIES FOR YOU hints at the delightfully demented future of Alice and the band. It off-puts you right at the beginning by starting with "TITANIC OVERTURE" which really sounds as though it came from the original film about the sinking ship. The track is played on a mellotron and is an ominous "overture" that glances back to Alice's beloved classic horror movies, ending with a snippet of a piano piece that may or may not have always been part of the track itself. Then you have sound effects - bugs, a warbling bird (?!), and lots of other creepy crawlies in "10 MINUTES BEFORE THE WORM", which has a snippet of a song following the sound effects. So, 2 tracks are past and neither of them is a real song....hmmmm.....I like this band already! However, immediately, with "SING LOW SWEET CHEERIO", Alice Cooper is in force, with a sad acoustic guitar based tune that presages the future gloomier tunes in the Cooper catalog. One thing about this album you will need to adjust to - there are NO RULES when it comes to how instruments are panned in the stereo field - some of them swing wildly all over the spectrum, left to right, and there is no certain standard as to how any particular song is "required" to sound. Commerciality was thrown out the window early in this album's production - yet I love its freshness. You can really experience the band as they start to feel out the way they would eventually sound. Other highlights on the record for me are "Living", "Fields of Regret", the hilarious "Today Mueller", and of course the one everybody talks about, "Reflected" which later became "Elected" on Billion Dollar Babies in its final lyrical form. Anyway - if you really have an open mind and like to experience everything an artist creates in their career, PRETTIES FOR YOU is a great addition to the Alice Cooper collection. If you don't have an open mind, buy yet another greatest hits collection and listen to the same 5 songs that the radio stations play. The next album, "EASY ACTION", gets more commercial than this one but still retains the experimental quality of this first record. Enjoy!!Read full review
Early Alice is my favorite
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: New
I liked this 1st Album released by the band Alice Cooper. Wanted to re-live the days of the late 1960's early 1970's.
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