Eight months after the bell rang the end of class with School is out, Alice Cooper confirms we need to take it seriously Billion Dollar Babies. A work that celebrates its 50th birthday and proclaimed singer Vincent Damon Furnier king of “shock rock”.
On this album, released February 27, 1973, the American formation exploits human perversions and the macabre. The titles No More Mr. Nice Guy, Hello Hooray, Elected and I Love the Dead are the best known of this opus. Metal band Megadeth covered No More Mr. Nice Guy for the Shocker film soundtrack. Alice Cooper’s sixth album, Billion Dollar Babies, reached number one on the US, UK and Dutch charts. He will climb to second place in Canada. Billion Dollar Babies becomes the best-selling band from Phoenix, Arizona.
This work is Alice Cooper’s fourth album, produced by Canadian Bob Ezrin, who later worked with Aerosmith, Peter Gabriel, Kiss, Pink Floyd and Deep Purple.
A record
The tour following the release of this album will be terrific with sets and staging elements.
There are decapitated mannequins, blood, and a guillotine where the king of shock rock has his head chopped off. Groups try to put an end to this grotesque circus. This contributes to the popularity of the band around singer Vincent Damon Furnier.
Their 1973 64-date, 59-city tour of America broke the Rolling Stones record for grossing of $4 million.
“Billion Dollar Babies was our most decadent album. It reflected a time when people lived from limousines to luxury apartments and with the best of everything. We couldn’t believe people were paying us for this. We would have done it for nothing because we were just a garage band that was in the right place at the right time,” the famous singer said in an interview with Classic Rock magazine in May 2020. Billion Dollar Babies was one of Soundgarden’s favorite Chris Cornell albums.
“In high school on Fridays, the teachers would let us play our favorite albums. I never had the right to play this album and that had never happened before. I discovered then that rock music can scare people,” he said in a 1989 interview published in Spin magazine.