Against my better instincts, I have a real fondness for Alice Cooper. Their slasher-flick schtick and frontman Vincent Furnier’s right-leaning politics would normally be enough to put me off for good, but this band has the kind of grease in its wheels that I can get behind. In particular, ‘Generation Landslide’ (from their 1973 album Billion Dollar Babies) is a scathing take-down of institutionalized greed that has never rung more true.
The album cover is a garish faux-snakeskin wallet, and when Furnier isn’t hissing like an angry cobra, he’s growling like a cornered animal. “And I laugh to myself at the men and the ladies/Who never conceived of us billion dollar babies.” It’s easy to imagine the Wall Street fatcats who plundered the US economy, sitting in their penthouses and chuckling to themselves as they think something along those very lines.
The song describes the nightmare landscape of a decaying society – needles and poison and survivalist mothers huddled in basements with their children. It also features a some decent harmonica and a killer guitar solo. This was Alice Cooper’s over-the-top jab at spoiled rich kids, but 35 years later, the billion dollar baby stands as the perfect symbol of a subprime economy.
Listen: Generation Landslide
Tags: Alice Cooper, Billion Dollar Babies, Generation Landslide, Vincent Furnier
23 February 2009 at 12:49 pm |
I’ve always liked The Coop, too. This LP freaked my parents out a bit, what with its necrophilia (“I Love the Dead’) and thinly veiled pedophilia (“Billion Dollar Babies”) but that was definitely part of the appeal. And I don’t think one can underscore the influence of his shock rock, for better or worse.
23 February 2009 at 5:22 pm |
Awesome song. I rock it every time I have a long road trip in the car.
24 February 2009 at 9:13 am |
Against your better instincts…???
the AC band is the single greatest american rock band of all time!
no its not the stooges or the mc5 it ALICE COOPER FROM 68 To 74!!!!!!!!!!
FACT!
24 February 2009 at 9:49 am |
there is a huge difference between Alice Cooper and the Alice Cooper Group. the former was marginally talented; the latter was singularly spectacular.
ACG had a 4-lp run that holds its own against those of countless ‘bigger’ bands (stones, kinks & aerosmith come to mind).
hear, hear, devil dick. hear, hear.
25 February 2009 at 6:12 pm |
was lucky enough to see him live recently
So Great Still to this Day
GREATEST STAGE SHOW EVER