VIA PRESS RELEASE | North London independent label Floating World, through their Retroworld reissue division, are thrilled to announce the Friday, June 11th 2021 release of Three Temptations of Alice, a double CD set that yokes together three albums by Alice Cooper—namely Trash (1989), Hey Stoopid (1991) and The Last Temptation (1994).
Trash marked a real commercial resurgence for Alice Cooper when it was originally released, off the back of the global smash hit single, “Poison.” Produced by Desmond Child, Trash was the first album for his new recording home, Sony / Epic, and the label’s faith was rewarded with a million-selling set.
Hey Stoopid featured guest slots from the likes of guitarists Slash, Steve Vai, and Joe Satriani, as well as Nikki Sixx and Mick Mars of Motley Crue. The inclusion of the latter pairing, given the Crue’s legendary penchant for excess, is somewhat ironic, given that the title track is a plea for rockers NOT to self-destruct (Ozzy Osbourne, no stranger to a bit of excess himself, features on the track).
Unfortunately, without the production input of Desmond Child (who does however contribute to the writing of a couple of songs), it doesn’t quite have that winning mix of the commercial and the cutting. It’s not without its moments, however; “Feed My Frankenstein”—co-written by Zodiac Mindwarp, has the Vai / Satriani guitar axis working effectively, and “Love’s A Loaded Gun” lacks nothing in drama and punch.
The third album to feature here, 1994’s The Last Temptation, is a return to Cooper’s thematically-linked albums, such as Welcome to My Nightmare. As such, it marked a break with the feel and tone of its’ two predecessors. By then, the “Hair Metal” wave that had partly fuelled Cooper’s return had ran out of steam, and Grunge was firmly in the ascendant, with the emergence of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden—whose Chris Cornell co-writes two of the songs here.
To Cooper fans of longstanding, who perhaps didn’t warm quite as much to Trash and Hey Stoopid, it was a welcome return of the conceptual angle, the album featuring a reprise of the character named Steven, who Cooper had introduced on Welcome to My Nightmare, with Cooper playing a sinister Showman / Ringmaster / Carnival huckster. Indeed, the writer Neil Gaiman parlayed the album into a three part comic book. The Last Temptation is regarded by Cooper diehards as one of his finest works, but commercially it failed to reprise his more recent success.
In 2021, Alice Cooper released a new album, Detroit Stories, which has garnered some fine reviews. Three Temptations of Alice is a timely reminder of an earlier critical and commercial high water mark for this veteran of Shock Rock.
