HEAVY MUSIC HISTORY: Billion Dollar Babies – Alice Cooper

There was a time in the early 70s where shock value was the only value. After all, any publicity is good publicity, no? Enter ALICE COOPER with their sixth album Billion Dollar Babies. Written as a response to the success the band experienced after the release of 1972’s School’s Out, this was an attempt to expand the band’s appeal to a much wider audience.

Most bands would have approached that with a more radio-friendly ethos. Not ALICE COOPER. As shock rock ruled the roost, the crowned king took to his depraved throne and became ruler of all he surveyed. With themes covering dental fear, horror, and sexual harassment, Cooper (vocals) himself would say the idea behind this album was to exploit the idea people have their own sick perversions.

ALICE COOPER seemed to hit the proverbial nail on the head as Billion Dollar Babies would reach Number One in both the UK and the US before being certified Platinum by the RIAA.

The material spanning the near 41-minute runtime capitalised on the theatrical value of ALICE COOPER and indulged in excess. Teaming up with producer Bob Ezrin once more, the band would construct the record across three locations; New York City, Greenwich, Connecticut, and London. Though the excess would come to a fever pitch at Morgan Studios in London as Cooper would reflect upon in an interview with quoted by Dig!: “In fact, T. REX, DONOVAN, HARRY NILSSON, RINGO STARR, and KEITH MOON are all on that album somewhere, but none of us know where, because the session was so drunk.”

Though this is not where the controversy would spawn. I Love The Dead pushed the boundaries to breaking point with its theme of necrophilia. An atmospheric anthem about making sweet love to the dearly departed rightly drew attention. While the band emphasised the song was tongue-in-cheek and not indicative to any sexual misconduct, not all found the joke very funny. The most famous being Labour MP Leo Abse who would launch a campaign against Cooper during a speech, stating: “I regard his [Cooper’s] act as an incitement to infanticide for his sub-teenage audience. He is deliberately trying to involve these kids in sado-masochism. He is peddling the culture of the concentration camp. Pop is one thing, anthems of necrophilia are another.” Abse’s tirade would garner the support of fellow censorship supporter Mary Whitehouse who and both would attempt to ban ALICE COOPER from entering the UK. Though this uproar fed into the Barbra Striesand effect; if information is being kept away from us, we will naturally want to discover and spread this information… which is essentially what fuelled Billion Dollar Babies’ success.

It wasn’t only on UK shores where the censorship was running rife. SOUNDGARDEN’s Chris Cornell cited Billion Dollar Babies as being one of his favourite records of all time. Sitting down with Spin Magazine in December 1989, Cornell would relish in the memory of being unable to play his record of choice in junior high saying “It was then I knew that rock ’n’ roll could scare the fuck out of certain people.”

Scare people it did as Billion Dollar Babies would hit the road in the US. What is a tour if not a chance to be ostentatious and theatrical? ALICE COOPER took that to the limit as they would hire magician James Randi to design the effects for the show. Randi would oversee many stunts throughout the show, including the beheading of the vocalist via guillotine on a nightly basis – a trick still used to this day. Richard Crouse would state in his book Big Bang, Baby: Rock Trivia that two stage trucks would transport props such as: “a dentist drill, four whips, a surgical table, six hatchets, 33,000 program books, 300 dolls, 22,000 sparklets, 58 mannequins, 280 spare light bulbs, 1,000 patches, 6,000 mirror parts, 14 bubble machines, 28 gallons of bubble juice, and 250,000 packages of bubble bath”. Those props would allow the depraved ringmaster of the show to attack mannequins, tear apart dolls, and wear costumes with fake blood stains at the crotch. That may be tame by today’s standards but ALICE COOPER walked so that the bands of today could run.

The band would go on to break a box office record previously held by THE ROLLING STONES by scheduling 64 shows in 59 cities in 90 days. It has been reported that revenue from the tour was expected to be around $20 million yet would only achieve $4 million but that has yet to be proved.

It’s safe to say Billion Dollar Babies was a resounding success for the fans. But how would it fare critically? Robert Christgau of Creem Magazine hailed this as ALICE COOPER’s “most consistent album” despite its lack of a standout song. PopMatters’ James Thompson would praise the album, calling it “arguably the original Alice Cooper Group’s best album”. Not all were so favourable however as the 2004 Album Guide from Rolling Stone would rate it two and a half stars, branding songs such as I Love The Dead as “predictable”.

As it stands today, Billion Dollar Babies has been placed on many lists of albums to listen to before people die. In terms of live shows, this is the second most represented album among setlists, sitting behind only 1975’s Welcome To My Nightmare. While there may have been no “smash hit” songs from the catalogue, Billion Dollar Babies is a masterclass in how to dominate the world of shock rock for years to come.

Billion Dollar Babies was originally released on February 25th, 1973 via Warner Bros. Records.

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