Alice Cooper Top Songs Chart Singles
Leanne Wittlin
"School's Out" is a song first recorded as the title track of Alice Cooper's fifth album. It was released as the album's only single on April 26, 1972. "School's Out" was Alice Cooper's biggest international hit and it has been regarded as their signature song[1] and reached number seven on the Billboard Hot 100, number three in the Canadian RPM 100 Singles chart, number two on the Irish Singles Chart and number one on the UK Singles Chart.
Cooper has said he was inspired to write the song when answering the question, "What's the greatest three minutes of your life?". Cooper said: "There's two times during the year. One is Christmas morning, when you're just getting ready to open the presents. The greed factor is right there. The next one is the last three minutes of the last day of school when you're sitting there and it's like a slow fuse burning. I said, 'If we can catch that three minutes in a song, it's going to be so big."[3]
Cooper has also said it was inspired by a line from a Bowery Boys movie. On his radio show, Nights with Alice Cooper, he joked that the main riff of the song was inspired by a song by Miles Davis.[4] Cooper said that guitarist Glen Buxton created the song's opening riff.
The lyrics of "School's Out" indicate that not only is the school year ended for summer vacation, but ended forever, and that the school itself has been literally blown up. It incorporates the childhood rhyme, "No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks" into its lyrics. It also featured children contributing some of the vocals. "Innocence" in the lyric " ... and we got no innocence" is frequently changed in concert to "intelligence" and sometimes replaced with "etiquette." The song appropriately ends with a school bell sound that fades out.
Later performances saw Alice Cooper incorporate parts of the first verse of "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2", a song by Pink Floyd (also about school, and produced by Bob Ezrin) into "School's Out".
"School's Out" became Alice Cooper's first major hit single, reaching number seven on the US Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart and propelling the album to number two on the Billboard 200 pop albums chart. It was the highest-charting single for the Alice Cooper band, and its number-seven peak position was matched only by "Poison" among Cooper's solo efforts. Billboard ranked it as the number-75 song for 1972.[5] In Canada, the single went to number three on the RPM 100 Singles Chart[6] following the album reaching number one.[7] In Britain, the song went to number one on the UK Singles Chart for three weeks in August 1972. It also marked the first time that Alice Cooper became regarded as more than just a theatrical novelty act.
Some radio stations banned the song from their airwaves, stating that the song gave the students an impression of rebelliousness against childhood education. Teachers, parents, principals, counselors, and psychologists also shunned the song and demanded several radio stations ban the song from ever being played on the air.
"School's Out" was ranked number 326 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.[9] In 2009 it was named the 35th best hard rock song of all time by VH1[10] and the song appeared on the TV show American Idol in 2010. The Guardian placed it as number 3 on its list of "The 20 best glam-rock songs of all time."[11] In 2018, Ian Chapman and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette have called it a "glam rock anthem."[12][13] Nick Talevski has called it a "hard rock anthem" on his book Rock Obituaries: Knocking On Heaven's Door.[14] The Independent named the song at tenth in the list "Gold Dust: Glam rock's top 10 singles."[15]
Crediting Alice Cooper for the success of Trash is a little like thanking Lee Lacocca for a good Chrysler. Both guys get lots of help. Just check out the thank-you's gracing Cooper's Desmond Child-helmed latest album. Save for Brad Whitford, every...
Those eerie, spooky things that go bump in the night will 'shake, rattle, and roll' as one of the greatest showmen, the ghoulish Alice Cooper comes to haunt an Irish audience for the first time at Belfast's King's Hall next Wednesday. ...
After years in the wilderness, ALICE COOPER learned to take the trash out and become a Billion Dollar Baby again. Anita Winslow spoke to him about returning to find a sea of imposters and imitators. LAST YEAR SAW several cartoon characters...
Walking into this place during the Front's third song is tike stepping into their first MTV video: the stained glass is glowing, the band are gyrating, and there's no audience in sight. Okay, I'm exaggerating: there are people in the building, but everyone's butts are firmly packed on their comfy chairs. Vocalist Michael Franano is not happy with this state of affairs. 'Make some f**king NOISE, people!" he exclaims at regular intervals. And it's a show worth making some noise for. ...
In 1967, while peace, love and flower-power were ruling, an American high school band called Alice Cooper made horror a fashion. The band's image was deviant, their songs anti authority and their live act bizarre....
The idea of marrying splatter and music and theatre is a great thing to do, but the song has to stand on its own. If it can't, without all the effects, don't do it. It's the music itself that makes it come alive....
Alice Cooper once tried, and failed, to borrow those snappy Nixon-era White House guard uniforms. His patriotism hasn't flagged, as his new duds evince. Cooper also has a new album, "Trash," with high-toned guests, Jon Bon Jovi and two members of Aerosmith. For old fans: vintage discs "Pretties For You" and "Easy Action" are available again....
Alice Cooper was, unfortunately, a pop-culture prophet in the mid-1970's. Long before MTV, he realized that rock could be treated as a theatrical spectacle, and he anticipated slasher movies by putting his hard-rock songs behind blood-splattered, Grand Guignol vignettes. For audiences that wanted jokey titillation, Mr. Cooper became the tasteless entertainment of choice, and every so often he'd come up with a well-made hit single. At his best, songs like "School's Out" and "Eighteen," he could probe taboos and summon a spirit of nihilistic anarchy, though he was usually better on concept than on follow-through. But he couldn't keep topping himself, and by the end of the 1970's, while Mr. Cooper had become a regular on the game show "Hollywood Squares," punk-rock and heavy metal had stolen his thunder....
In addition to the six quid entrance fee, Alice Cooper fans seeking admission to his Thanksgiving Night (November 24) Marquee show had to bring along a bin liner-sized bag of freshly gathered London litter, to be deposited in a Westminster Council dustcart parked up outside the venue. ...
The Alice Cooper phenomenon is about to hit Britain once again. Only this time it's different. This time Alice Cooper is riding atop a hit album ('Trash'), his first for over a decade, and these days that tends to make the world a better and brighter place....
"I love the old Hollywood stunt," says shock rocker Alice Cooper of his decision to promote his album Trash by storming through various American cities aboard a garbage truck. A poetic idea, perhaps, but the plan hit a snag in one Texas town when officials vetoed the loan of a truck. "Can you imagine?" Cooper asks. "Is that the absolute insult of all time? They thought that me being inside their trash truck would be, like, bad for their image." The town finally relented and gave Cooper use of the truck - but only after he forked over a cool million in insurance. "I guess they were afraid we'd get it dirty," he says. Cooper is on tour in support of the album - which was recently certified platinum - and, although he says the current show is less theatrical than past outings, he hasn't abandoned all his old toys: The guillotine, he says, is back by popular demand. ...
Alice Cooper (vocals), Glen Buxton and Michael Bruce (guitars), Dennis Dunaway (bass), Neal Smith (drums). Maybe not every 'classic' Cooper fanatic's favorite, yet the definitive Cooper album in terms of money, acclaim and most important of all ..... er ..... Money. In a bulgin' snakeskin sleeve, the American dream in the shape of a decayin' apple pie is force-fed to the greedy. The horror is the reality, as the lyrics on the title-track splinter bone more effectively than any model guillotine....
Alice Cooper is back!! Yes the master of mayhem, the mercurial merchant of gratuitous gore will be unleashed another maliciously molten meisterwerk this summer. The as-yet-untitled album will be ready for worldwide release in May and Alice has engaged the superlative talents of Desmond Child as co-writer and producer. Child is the man responsible for mega-hits enjoyed by such acts as Kiss, Joan Jett and Bon Jovi. Indeed, members of the Bon Jovi band actually guested on a couple of the new Alice tracks, laid down at Bearsville Studios in Upstate New York. However, whether these will eventually emerge on the album is yet to be determined....
Alice Cooper, shocking and rocking since the '60s, is having the last laugh on everyone in the music business who though he was gone for good. With his strong new entry in the Top 20 (Trash), Top 10 hit single ("Poison"), and major tour on tap, the now...
Godfather of gore Alice Cooper is currently mixing his new album. Entitled 'Trash', with producer Desmond Childs in New York. The album will be released on the Epic label, and although no release date has been lined up yet, late May or early June looks likely. Alice has personally chosen the albums ten songs from 40 that were available. This means that only one of the three songs Bon Jovi penned for him will be used, and similarly only one of three by Kane Roberts. A spokesman for Alice's management told Mayhem: "Alice has picked the songs purely by how good they sounded. The direction is less gore, more MOR!"...
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