Welcome to My Nightmare
Occupation
- Vocals: Alice Cooper
- Synthesizer, Keyboards, Guitar Fender Rhodes: Bob Ezrin
- Special Effects, Vocals: Vincent Price
- Electric and Acoustic Guitar, Vocals: Dick Wagner
- Electric and Acoustic Guitar: Steve Hunter
- Synthesizer, Keyboards, Vocals, Clavinet, Fender Rhodes: Josef Chirowski
- Bass: Prakash John
- Bass: Tony Levin
- Drums: Pentti " Whitey " Glan
- Drums: Johnny "Bee" Badanjek
- More
Welcome to My Nightmare is a concept album and also the first solo album by American musician Alice Cooper from the year 1975. Both the album as well as the published as a single song Only Women Bleed, Department of Youth and the title song could become successful in the American Billboard Charts place.
The cover artwork was done by Drew Struzan for Pacific Eye & Ear and was recorded in 1991 by Rolling Stone magazine in the list of " Top 100 Album Covers Of All Time".
Background
Welcome to My Nightmare was the first solo album after the breakup of the band of the same name. With the previous albums, the band Alice Cooper was a very successful rock band, according to critics questioned whether Alice Cooper can also build solo on this success. Dave Marsh of Rolling Stone placed accordingly in his review the question " was it him or them? " ( " It was he or she ?"). For the production of the album Alice Cooper sat down again at this point Bob Ezrin, who had already produced the band's albums.
The concept album Welcome to My Nightmare musically describes the nightmares of the protagonist Steven. The title track, Welcome to my Nightmare receives the phone and thus forms an introduction to the handset of the concept album, he is also a parody of the 1968 published children's book There's a Nightmare in My Closet by Mercer Mayer. Although best known for horror films film actor Vincent Price spoke the opening monologue for the song The Black Widow.
Title list
The original album Welcome to My Nightmare contained 11 items:
On the CD - revision published in 2002 three additional songs were added as bonus tracks:
Reviews and reception
Welcome to My Nightmare has been discussed by various critics and was the first solo album Coopers usually directly compared with the previous albums, especially the hit albums School's Out and Billion Dollar Babies. So Allmusic.com wrote, for example, that although most of the sharp edges of Alice Cooper's band with the resolution and the album was lost, Welcome to My Nightmare but the best solo album by Alice Cooper remains ( "While the music lost most of the gritty edge of the original AC lineup, Welcome to My Nightmare remains Alice's best solo effort " ). In their view, some pieces lose far away from the expected hard rock, at the same time, however, enough real rock left over ( "while some tracks stray from his expected hard rock direction, there's plenty of fist - pumping rock to go around" ). Especially the title song Welcome to My Nightmare is a disco - influenced, Some folks breathed as cabaret and Only Women Bleed described as a top 10 ballad ("The disco -flavored, album -opening title track would be reworked on the stage as more of a hard rock tune, while " Some Folks " dips into cabaret territory, and "Only Women Bleed" is a sensitive ballad did Became a Top Ten hit. " ), at the same time has Allmusic but also on Devil 's Food, The Black Widow, Department of Youth, Cold ethyl and also the epic Steven as a true hard - rock track down ( " But the rockers serve as the album 's foundation - " Devil 's Food, " " The Black Widow, " " Department of Youth, "and" Cold ethyl " are all standouts, as is the more tranquil yet eerie epic " Steven. "").
Dave Marsh of Rolling Stone certified Alice Cooper in 1975, although eighteen an admirable music that is thoughtful and complex than some of the basic Rock at School's Out and I'm, but at the same time lacks the ferocity and drive of Cooper's ligament, without which the gimmicks Alice Cooper flat and obvious ( "The music is admirably Performed, and it is more deliberate and complicated than the basic rock of " School's Out "and" I'm Eighteen. " But without the wildness and drive of the sound the Cooper troupe had, the gimmicks on which Alice the performer must rely are flat and Obvious. " ) Welcome to My Nightmare sounds in his view, as if it had been put together by people who barely knew each other and were brought together just for the occasion ( " sounds like a record put together by people who do not know each other very well and were Brought together for on occasion. " ) Overall, the quality have indeed increased, especially through the guitarists Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, the inspiration but lacked completely.
The operators of dreadcentral.com denote Welcome to My Nightmare as probably the best ever recorded "horror opera" ( "Welcome to My Nightmare album june just well be the greatest piece of horror opera ever recorded " )
Inspired by Welcome to My Nightmare was the Alice Cooper: The Nightmare TV special and the world tour in 1975 and in 1976 released concert film with the same title. In September 2011, appeared with Welcome 2 My Nightmare, the 26th album by Alice Cooper.