#162
by Aaron Conte
by Aaron Conte
April 28 1980
Alice Cooper
Flush the Fashion
Genre: Rock
Allen’s Rating: 2 out of 5
Aaron’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Reviewed by Aaron Conte
In 1980, Basquat was being brought to the art world for the first time. Marge Bouvier (Boo-Vee-ay) had just begun dating Homer Simpson, and Vincent Furnier (Fern-yay) was finally off the booze, in favor of the new amazingly non-addictive cocaine! He was thirty-two years old, looked seventy-two and was not about to become America's rock and roll dad.
Vinny had spent the last decade becoming one of the most recognizable, and some say (not me) most influential musicians in the world.
Better known as "Alice Cooper", he was figuring out where to go next as many who became best selling artists in the seventies were also doing when the eighties reared its radio killing digital head.
"Flush the Fashion" really should have been his lucky number thirteenth album, and I say it was, but remember, Alice had done seven records with/as The Alice Cooper Band before going solo as Alice Cooper in 1975. He had already made "School's Out", "Billion Dollar Babies", "Under My Wheels", "No More Mr. Nice Guy", and who can forget, "Only Women Bleed". Time for a change indeed.
Assuming he saw the skinny ties coming for him, my guess is the album title, scrawled into what appears to be flesh, is a direct statement of opinion from the man responsible for KISS, and Marilyn Manson.
Trading long hair, bondage gear and black bleeding eye make up for a decidedly more terrifying look, he mixed up a blend of old geisha, World War Two, and mental patient for this albums tour. Leaving the beer behind but saving the cans to smoke cocaine from is my guess. A ravaged yet still maniacal and caged animal he was singing/sneering about wanting to be himself ("Clones"), being out of circulation ("Talk Talk"), a hostage in a city of creeps ("Model Citizen"), the reds by the bed of the suicide star ("Pain"), frightened of the real world ("Leather Boots") and many other grim facts that if you google the lyrics to the track "Grim Facts" will run your blood cold.
Alice held onto his ability to creep you out with song, but lost the ability to decide if he was making a rock and roll record or not. "Clones" is the big single from this album. Written by David Carron, an obscure singer songwriter, it's a very catchy mix of ELO, Gary Newman and The Muppet Show.
Roy Thomas Baker, who up until this point was famous for producing all the Queen albums, every album The Cars had, and one record with Lemmy (Hawkwind), really runs Alice through the new technology. Most of the time it works, but when it fails, it's horrible ("Leather Boots" may as well be a tune The Rubinoos sold him), and "Model Citizen", while being a great song for Alice Cooper, really smells like some old Mother's of Invention (Zappa) song. Which, spoiler alert, makes sense here considering when Alice was brand new, he was signed to Zappa's label and guided by him for a short time.
I want to make sure that you, dear reader, know how important Alice Cooper was to legions of rock stars (hyperbole noted) coming at us strong since 1974. This is a good album. A strong grade of B from a guy struggling to keep his head above water in a black sea of metal machine music. It is a fast half hour of insight to what he was going through after a decade of touring, pioneering, drinking and hospitalizing. This isn't the record he made after being institutionalized, that's "From the Inside" made right before this one, and different review all together.
"Flush the Fashion" gets right to the point, with a bought radio hit and a strong attitude that reminds us, Alice Cooper is still alive and well as 1980 begins. Dad went on a long business trip to the Far East! He came home with a new investment portfolio, one of these huge new fangled cellular phones (that works in the car!) and scratches on his back. Still creepy after all these years.
https://open.spotify.com/album/2tivwwko3vqzzICWw3G9oB?si=CKql7TXmQbWCTh_LhoH0rg
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