It’s not that Alice Cooper has been ignored or slighted in any way. The 1970s hard-rock megastar has sold some 50 million albums, and he remains a popular live attraction (if not the arena-filling act he once was). And he’s enshrined in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which presumably confers some degree of immortality on the 78-year-old entertainer who, on Oct. 31, returns to Atlantic City for a perfectly timed performance at Tropicana Atlantic City.
But it says here that the man born Vincent Furnier has been, and continues to be, shortchanged reputation-wise; it can be argued that Cooper is no garden-variety rock god, but one who has been as important to the popular culture of the past half-century or so as anyone and yes, that means anyone.
Let’s start with his greatest contribution:
When Cooper and his original band were germinating in Phoenix, Arizona, the rock-music world had drawn some rigid and ostensibly immutable lines. It was the Woodstock Era — the late ’60s/early ’70s — and the music of the baby boom generation wasn’t intended solely for entertainment purposes. Instead, it was the generational flag, and as such, it had to be, in word and deed, a total rejection of the music — and show business — of what is respectfully known as the “Greatest Generation.”
To the boomers, the show biz their parents (and grandparents) consumed was a symbol of everything that they insisted was wrong with America: Pop music — and entertainment in general — wasm at best, inconsequential and, at worst, offensive, what with its emphasis on sentimentality, artifice, insincerity, spectacle and schmaltz. If you wanted to matter to Woodstock Nation, you had to “keep it real” and strive for “relevance.”
And then, along came Alice.
In a universe that fetishized jeans, T-shirts and fringed leather vests, Cooper chose for his stagewear a rhinestone-studded leotard. He not only wore makeup, but deployed it to create a purposely non-human visage.
While there was an ascending class of first-generation classic-rockers (e.g. Mick Jagger, Roger Daltrey, Rod Stewart) who incorporated a degree of flamboyance into their live presentations, Cooper took rock showmanship to never-before-imagined heights, integrating into his take-no-prisoners hard-rock program an opera’s worth of props and devices, including a straitjacket and guillotine, which were utilized in songs about mental illness, violent death and other aspects of the dark side of humanity.
Of course, those and other items were used in cartoonish, over-the-top sequences in which Cooper unambiguously articulated the all-in-fun nature of his act.
He likewise brought to rock outlandish costumes and ornate staging before David Bowie, KISS, Madonna, Beyonce, Lady Gaga and so many others for whom extravagant, sensory-overloading staging was and is an integral part of their brands.
Or, to put it another way, it was Alice who brought traditional show business to rock ‘n’ roll.
A gender-bending pioneer
Apart from the aesthetic aspects of Cooper’s career, there’s his ahead-of-his-time (if likely unintentional) activism on behalf of alternative lifestyles.
Cooper was undeniably an early sexual-identity disruptor. Though his music was undeniably macho, because of his stage name, he was gender-bending at a time when homosexuality wasn’t even universally legal in the United States.
Not to overstate the case, but it can be argued that Cooper added, in a small-but-significant way, to society’s tolerance and acceptance of the LGBTQ community.
That is certainly enough for Cooper to have earned the gratitude and respect of the pop-music universe and society in general. But as they say on infomercials: Wait! There’s more!
A ‘hairy’ progenitor
It was about midway through his Thanksgiving Saturday, 2019 set at Ocean Casino Resort when it hit me: Cooper’s brand of swaggering, high-volume and hook-laden guitar-based rock was the sonic template of every 1980s and ’90s “hair band” (the sub-genre’s practitioners also took visual cues from him and his various backing bands). And while that format isn’t necessarily remembered altogether fondly today, it was a type of music beloved by millions in its time. And Alice was its spiritual father.
And his reach extends beyond hair metal: Let’s not forget the notorious Marilyn Manson was nothing more than a Gen-X copy of Cooper.
This is not to suggest Alice Cooper belongs on a Mount-Rushmore-of-rock alongside Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan and The Beatles. But if a fifth individual or band were to be considered for that august group, “Auntie Alice” would deserve to be a serious part of the conversation.
This is why his Halloween gig at Tropicana is more than just another AyCee casino set by a classic-rock favorite. It’s also the opportunity to see in person an individual who can legitimately be celebrated as a true pop-culture game-changer.
For tickets, go to ticketmaster.com.
