Band:	Alice Cooper
Album:	Love It To Death
Style:	Hard rock, Glam rock
Release date:	March 1971

01. Caught In A Dream
02. I'm Eighteen
03. Long Way To Go
04. Black Juju
05. Is It My Body
06. Hallowed Be My Name
07. Second Comin'
08. Ballad Of Dwight Fry
09. Sun Arise [Rolf Harris cover]

This is Alice Cooper in his/their element. This is where Alice Cooper is at home: the truest, most genuine, and most honest sound of all the many styles and genres that Alice the man has embodied over his 50 years as a performer, and proof of what Alice the band could accomplish with its prodigious musical talent on full blast.

Alice Cooper, whether in band or individual form, has always had a unique talent for capturing the confusing cocktail of contradictions and emotions that torments the young people of every generation. This knack for sympathetically encapsulating the downsides to youth remains one of the greatest lessons, if perhaps one of the more implicit ones, that Alice has imparted to the heavy metal scene, and it has also kept him relevant through so many generations and stylistic shifts. Consequently, Love It To Death journeys through multiple styles and feelings, bringing to bear on multiple fronts the indefatigable spirit and talents of one of history's greatest musical ensembles: Glen Buxton, Michael Bruce, Dennis Dunaway, Neal Smith, and Alice himself, then still known as Vincent Furnier.

The album opens with "Caught In A Dream," quite simply a quintessential rock and roll song. With Alice's characteristic rasp and Buxton's instantly-recognizable guitar leading the way, Love It To Death pushes through classic after classic. From the frenetic proto-punk of "Long Way To Go," the desperate "Second Coming," and the thoroughly creepy, hellish odyssey that constitutes "Black Juju," Alice Cooper can truly do no wrong. Every song brings its own distinctive personality, each capturing some different moment in time and discrete aspect of the troubled mind.

By the time I turned 18 (which was admittedly not that long ago), "I'm Eighteen" had already reached its 41st birthday. Through generation after generation of 18-year-olds, that song has not lost one iota of its meaning or strength. "I'm Eighteen" is that very special, very rare manner of song that has transcended the boundaries of music or culture to become eternally relevant to human society; Alice will continue to sing it until it becomes "I'm Eighty," and its beauty will never dim.

"The Ballad Of Dwight Fry" joins "I'm Eighteen" as the album's predominant offering. With a soulful piano intro bleeding in from "Second Coming," the song slowly chronicles its subject's descent into madness. It builds through layers of pain and anguish, descending into an intense but focused chaos that remains one of the high points of Alice's career. This masterpiece ends all too soon, flowing into a cover of Rolf Harris's "Sun Arise" that fittingly and happily lays to rest the adventure that was Love It To Death.

Not every band achieves something that could legitimately be called a "magnum opus." In fact, in 140 reviews over five years, I have avoided using the phrase entirely. Alice Cooper has been lucky (but mostly brilliant) enough to produce multiple such albums, but even after all this time, whether considering the discography of Alice the band or Alice the man, this album stands in a very unique position. This album is undoubtedly a masterpiece of the highest caliber - and I, for one, Love It To Death.