Alice Cooper

★★★

Three Temptations From Alice RETROWORLD. CD

Alice’s Trash, Hey Stoopid and The Last Temptation albums corralled on a 2-CD set.

Released in 1989, Poison was hell-bent on becoming Cooper’s first Top 10 single since 1977’s You And Me, hence the recruitment of hairmetal-affiliated writer Desmond Child to help commercialise Alice, much as he’d helped commercialise Aerosmith circa Dude (Looks Like A Lady). With its cod-horror verses and telegraphed chorus, Trash’s Poison reached Number 2 in the UK, but the heavy friend guest-list and co-writer credits had perhaps lost focus by 1991’s Hey

Stoopid, wherein Feed My Frankenstein featured Steve Vai, Elvira: Mistress Of The Dark and a writing credit for Zodiac Mindwarp. The jewel here is 1994’s The Last Temptation, with its conceptual nod to 1975’s Welcome To My Nightmare. On TLT, Alice regained his Detroit edge and made another great single, the disgruntled, disenfranchised yoof anthem Lost In America.