Dear Alice Cooper™,
I watched your new Fuse interview video on the YouTubes today. First, I would like to sincerely congratulate you on being able to have enough music industry clout still that someone wants to film your opinions on things. After so many years, that is a genuine accomplishment, especially since you have not had a Top 10 American chart hit since 1987, and chose to title your 2011 Top 25 album, Welcome To My Nightmare 2, after a record you made in 1975. Let me now provide a link to your Fuse video for our dear Internet readers:
Alice Cooper Slams Lumineers and Mumford & Sons
I would first like to state that I am not at all a fan of the Lumineers or Mumford & Sons; totally and utterly not my thing. I agree in some sense with you that these are not "rock 'n roll" bands, but that's not really important. I would like to remind you that you, also, are not "rock 'n roll," and never have been. You, my eyeliner-wearing-and-black-hair-dyed friend, are an entertainer, rather than the outcast rebel soul you attribute to "real" rockers. There is no shame in this, really. You can stand proudly with fellow theatrical successes KISS, Marilyn Manson, and Madonna at the bank doors, carrying on the age-old traditions of vaudeville and traveling freak shows, while carrying out bags of cash from gape-mouthed proles. You are all successful "rock stars," but it's only because you understood that showmanship and manufactured rebellion fills a societal need, providing a safety vent for frustrated "normal" people. It's harmless fun. No one really believes for a second that you are all that scary and dangerous.
I remember "the chicken incident" and all the gory theatrics back in the day. It certainly got you the attention you needed. People love that stuff! You wrote some good singles, too -- "School's Out" and "Eighteen" and "Elected" and "No More Mr. Nice Guy" are well-written teen anthems, and were appreciated by me as something more fun to listen to on AM radio than, say, "You're Havin' My Baby." But, hey, you also wrote "Only Women Bleed," which should cause you to cringe in shame forever. Anyway, my point is that you definitely wrote some fine pop hits, smartly capitalizing on youthful angst, and not so much pulling from your own golf-playing, born-again, Conservative reality, despite your painful flirtations with the predictable "rock 'n roll" drug and alcohol addictions.
In this video, you once again know how to play to your audience: mostly aging white males who, instead of needing to brofist about their crummy high school principals, now need to whine about "those damn kids" and how they are all weak and entitled losers. If those youngins would just eat meat and drive big gas-guzzling trucks pretending that is outlaw behavior, then everything would be fine!
I would also like to remind you that the most uncool, aging thing EVER to do is to whine about the younger generation and how you don't "get" them, and how you are so much better and cooler than them. And name-checking Foo Fighters and Green Day as "real" rockers? Holy living crap.
Game over, sir. Tee up.
© Copyright 2008- Marianne Spellman