Song of the Day: Hello Hooray by Alice Cooper

I've been on an Alice Cooper kick for the last couple of weeks. I don't know how this happened but up until recently I never paid him much attention. Then one day I listened to "I'm 18" and I don't know, finally figured out that's such a great song, I'm sort of ashamed to just now be noticing it. 

On Patrick's advice, I downloaded a couple of albums (School's Out and Billion Dollar Babies). I haven't paid much attention yet to School's Out because I was kind of instantly sucked into Billion Dollar Babies (which is funny because I know "Billion Dollar Babies" was written about the success of "School's Out"). My favorite song right now is "Hello Hooray."

I mean, I'm not sure if this song was written ironically to go with the whole theme of the album, because you can listen to it that way, or you can just listen to it as a great song. I do love his sense of humor, and this song in particular is just so fun. "I feel so strong!"

And, the guy can sing, which I also never really thought about. He's doing his fair share of screaming, but there are moments when he sounds like a totally different person (I've been trying to confirm if that's even him singing on the song "Mary Ann" - when I first heard it I thought some Paul McCartney had somehow gotten on my iPod. I was all, HEY. HOW DID THIS PAUL MC CARTNEY GET ON MY IPOD?).

Anyway, there you go. "Hello Hooray" is the song of the day. Give it a listen.

Note: somebody told me that Alice was a conservative (and frankly, I don't really care) but according to Wikipedia, he doesn't believe in mixing rock and roll with his personal beliefs. This story (from Wikipedia) makes me so happy:

Although he originally tended to shy away from speaking publicly about his religious beliefs, Cooper has in recent years been quite vocal about his faith as a born-again Christian. He has avoided so called "celebrity Christianity" because, as Cooper states himself: "It's really easy to focus on Alice Cooper and not on Christ. I'm a rock singer. I'm nothing more than that. I'm not a philosopher. I consider myself low on the totem pole of knowledgeable Christians. So, don't look for answers from me."

When asked by the British Sunday Times newspaper in 2001 how a shock-rocker could be a Christian, Cooper responded "Drinking beer is easy. Trashing your hotel room is easy. But being a Christian, that's a tough call. That's real rebellion!"

Throughout his career, Cooper's philosophy regarding politics is that politics should not be mixed with rock music. He has usually kept his political views to himself, and in 2010 said "I am extremely non-political. I go out of my way to be non-political. I'm probably the biggest moderate you know. When John Lennon and Harry Nilsson used to argue politics, I was sitting right in the middle of them, and I was the guy who was going 'I don't care.' When my parents would start talking politics, I would go in my room and put on The Rolling Stones or The Who on as long as I could to avoid politics. And I still feel that way." On occasion he has spoken out against musicians who promote or opine on politics, for example in the run-up to the 2004 presidential election, he told the Canadian Press that the then crop of rock stars campaigning for and touring on behalf of Democratic candidate John Kerry were committing "treason against rock n' roll." He also added that upon seeing the list of musicians who supported Kerry, "if I wasn't already a Bush supporter, I would have immediately switched. Linda Ronstadt? Don Henley? Geez, that's a good reason right there to vote for Bush."

Having recently invoked Don Henley myself, I'm so glad to see that Alice and I are on the same page. For some reason this makes me very happy.