I was listening to some of my old Alice Cooper records the other day. Not Alice Cooper the born again Christian golfer but Alice Cooper the hard rock band. What struck me was how Progressive early Alice Cooper music actually was. Songs like Dead Babies and Halo Of Flies have very intricate and complex arrangements full of time changes and dynamics. If it wasn’t for the horror movie attitude and subject matter these songs would have been considered Prog Rock.
Alice Cooper didn’t appear to be a Prog band back when the Killer and School’s Out albums were recorded because it was the early Seventies which was the heyday of Progressive Rock. The overall level of musicianship and sense of experimentation was extremely high and even bands that were considered Southern Rock such as The Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd or even the Eagles would have extended solos and hit songs well over three and a half minutes long. A lot of the stylistic aspects of Prog Rock bands were instituted by rock and roll bands in general such as in the psychedelic era when most bands incorporated psychedelic sounds and lyrics even if they were a Soul band or a Country band, it was just the style at the time.
Paul McCartney’s song Band On The Run is five different, very different, pieces of music strung together. It is very unusual for a pop song and clearly influenced by bands like Yes and Genesis whose compositions seem more a musical exploration than the standard variation on a theme. Even the flip side of The Beatles’ Abbey Road album seems an attempt to mimic some of the Progressive Rock records by such bands as Jethro Tull or Pink Floyd that had whole sides as essentially one long composition.
For a genre that now seems to have been a flash in the pan and dated, Prog Rock has left us a musical legacy that most people don’t even really notice.
Alice Cooper didn’t appear to be a Prog band back when the Killer and School’s Out albums were recorded because it was the early Seventies which was the heyday of Progressive Rock. The overall level of musicianship and sense of experimentation was extremely high and even bands that were considered Southern Rock such as The Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd or even the Eagles would have extended solos and hit songs well over three and a half minutes long. A lot of the stylistic aspects of Prog Rock bands were instituted by rock and roll bands in general such as in the psychedelic era when most bands incorporated psychedelic sounds and lyrics even if they were a Soul band or a Country band, it was just the style at the time.
Paul McCartney’s song Band On The Run is five different, very different, pieces of music strung together. It is very unusual for a pop song and clearly influenced by bands like Yes and Genesis whose compositions seem more a musical exploration than the standard variation on a theme. Even the flip side of The Beatles’ Abbey Road album seems an attempt to mimic some of the Progressive Rock records by such bands as Jethro Tull or Pink Floyd that had whole sides as essentially one long composition.
For a genre that now seems to have been a flash in the pan and dated, Prog Rock has left us a musical legacy that most people don’t even really notice.
I never really liked alice, so I never bought any of his records ... same goes for ted nugent. Up until Welcome to my Nightmare, the musicianship was pretty poor. ( kinda like ted nugent )
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