Alice Cooper — Billion Dollar Babies (50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)
Qobuz reissue review (March 2024)
There are aficionados and champions of Alice Cooper’s many albums and eras. Some fans insist that Easy Action is one of the most criminally underappreciated records of the rock era, while others feel that Killer is the most rockin’ album in the band’s entire catalog; heck, there are folks out there who vociferously advocate for the wild charms and unexpected pleasures of Cooper’s solo “blackout era” of the early ’80s (and those folks are not wrong!). However, one thing that is widely agreed upon is that Billion Dollar Babies is Alice Cooper (the band) at the peak of its powers. The commercial sheen — and success — of its predecessor, School’s Out, is seamlessly fused here with relentless, riff-fueled propulsion, decadent arrangements (brass band on “Elected”? Sure!), some of Cooper’s most wittily deranged lyrics to date, and, of course, fantastic production from Bob Ezrin, who masterfully balanced all of the band’s disparate elements. Babies is where commercial, creative, and critical success convene, and the result is not just a ’70s rock masterpiece, but also that rarest of things: a ’70s rock masterpiece that still manages to yield surprises. While packed with radio staples — the title track, “Elected,” “No More Mr. Nice Guy” — and canonical classics (“Raped and Freezin’,” “I Love the Dead”), there are also eyebrow-raising numbers like “Unfinished Sweet” (spaghetti western meets fuzzbox freakout meets rock opera) and “Mary Ann” (a sweet piano ballad that turns on an unexpected plot twist) that reiterate that, despite their success on the charts, Alice Cooper was still a delightfully transgressive band. The track lineup on this 50th anniversary “Trillion Dollar” deluxe edition slightly expands on 2001’s reissue. A 1973 Texas show featured earlier is rounded out with two additional, non-BDB songs from the concert, and the selection of outtakes is now accompanied by four single edits of album tracks. This edition also brings with it a warm, dynamic remastering that delivers on the original mix’s maximalistic approach, making this the definitive rendition of a classic.
