Alice Cooper - Trash

Details :

• Year of release : 1989
• Label : Epic 45137
• Review format : CD

1987’s Raise Your Fist And Yell, written by Alice along with guitarist Kane Roberts and on one track bass player Kip Winger, had enabled the two sidemen to launch solo careers to varying degrees of success, yet hadn’t elevated Alice Cooper to the level of stardom he felt he deserved. The solution for the follow up album then, 1989’s Trash, was to call in melodic rock hit machine Desmond Child and produce an album of well polished rock aimed squarely at the MTV market.

The first fruits of this collaboration were the hit single and album launcher Poison. Hugely successful on both sides of the Atlantic, indeed securing a number 2 hit single in the UK, it returned Alice to the fore-front of the rock scene gaining cover attention and over here ensuring a sold out Arena tour with Great White and Britney Fox in tow. Still a fine song despite years of overplaying it is however a considerable distance away from his early 70s high points and the kind of makeover previously only successfully achieved by the likes of David Coverdale with Whitesnake.

Unfortunately, rather than being a stand-out commercially successful pre-cursor to the album is ended up also as the highlight of an opening salvo of tracks that today sound formulaic, calculated and quite badly dated. Spark In The Dark, House Of Fire and Why Trust You are all similar paced songs that are from pretty much the same template and were aimed solely at achieving radio play and album sales rather than secure any artistic goals. House Of Fire sounds particularly contrived to my ears and for the person who in earlier incarnations produced the likes of the haunting Only Women Bleed or the superbly observed Elected to serve up this is more than disappointing. I’m almost relieved when a change of pace heralds the rock ballad.

Only My Heart Talking isn’t a slow song of the Alice of old however. The cold b-movie horror themed observations of previous slower moments such as the likes of ‘Dwight Fry’ or ‘The Black Widow’ is replaced by smooth, lighter waving polish of late 80s power balladry. So similar to Aerosmith’s post-reformation chart hits that’s its no surprise when Steven Tyler turns up on backing vocals and if I recall correctly, guests in the video as well.

Strangely Bed Of Nails does seem to capture some of that classic Alice Cooper nastiness however. Whether its the sinister flavour of the introduction or the potential S&M interpretation of the lyrics that hints at the Cooper of old that does it I’m not sure but I’ve always liked this song. The guitar sounds loud and driving, Alice is of course in fine form vocally and although obviously the proud owner of the type of commercial production prevalent of the period its a good hard rocker and a good level above that trilogy of tracks that followed Poison at the top of the album. This Maniac’s In Love With You also appears to try something a little different too and on review came over better than I remembered again with some very decent guitar work.

Title track Trash is however, quite horrible. Cod-sleaze rock aimed aimed the Motley Crue market it’s poor fare and from an artist with a canon of works that includes sleaze defining songs like Muscle Of Love and Is It My Body? it’s particularly disappointing.

If there was ever any doubt about the market this album was aimed at then the inclusion of a Cooper/Child/Bon Jovi/Sambora co-written composition removes it. To be honest Hell Is Living Without You is actually one of the albums better songs, benefiting perhaps conversely by having two artists who would have been influenced somewhat by early Alice Cooper perhaps swaying it away from the overly commercial, but on the grander scale of his complete catalogue it registers some way from the top. The party rocker I’m Your Gun draws the album to a close and given it’s such a poor song there is quite an element of relief as the disc grinds to a halt and silence reigns.

Aside from a couple of moments the overriding thing that definitely is in this albums favour is that after playing it through, the desire to reach for that superb 1974 compilation Alice Cooper’s Greatest Hits is almost too great to resist!

Summary : Despite having some great memories from when this album came out, including catching the fine live show at the NEC during the support tour it’s aged badly and is an album I rarely reach for these days. Formulaic rock of typical Desmond Child proportions it’s decent enough late 80s commercial metal but fares badly when compared either to earlier, initial Alice Cooper Band output or even to later works like Brutal Planet, Dragontown or The Eyes Of Alice Cooper. Like the Bruce Dickinson debut Tattooed Millionaire featured a couple of weeks ago it appears a blatant, although successful, bit of hit chasing.

If You Listen To One Track Listen To : Bed Of Nails

Score: 2/5

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Promo video clip for “Bed Of Nails”…