Alice Cooper - Dragontown
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CD Details
Artist: Alice CooperEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2001-10-09
Music Label: Spitfire
Soundtracks:
- Triggerman
- Deeper
- Dragontown
- Sex, Death And Money
- Fantasy Man
- Somewhere In The Jungle
- DisGraceland
- Sister Sara
- Every Woman Has A Name
- I Just Wanna Be God
- It's Much Too Late
- The Sentinel
Music reviews of Dragontown
Music Review: A Worthy Follow-Up to "Brutal Planet"
Rating: 4 Stars
Having abruptly sprung back to life like some psychokiller in a horror movie with "Brutal Planet," Alice raised the bar once again on what he was capable of still putting out. With "Dragontown" he continues his Renaissance with another 12 variously relentless servings of music.
"Triggerman" starts things off with a character study of a hitman. To me, not the world's most interesting essay, musically or lyrically, one can still not expect to find anywhere but in Alice a line like "I'm pure non-entity." Highly energetic, and well put together, this song just never grabbed and made me glad I'd plunged into Alice's mad world again.
"Deeper," by contrast, made me grateful. As a deep, down-tuned death shuffle comes churning out, Cooper spins out an uncharacteristically mysterious story about what seems to be an metaphorical death spin. In any case, the down-tempo sizzling guitars throughout here sound just fantastic--great wall of sound, mixed together toughly with occasionally choir-like lushness. Whatever the song seems to be about specifically, if nothing else, it serves as a passage to the next song. Going down ...
"Dragontown" manages to summon up something of a sense of epic--the opening, eastern-influenced guitar lines are reminiscent of "Scarlet and Sheba" from "Dada." Meanwhile, it gradually becomes apparent that this is a tour through something like Hell, where characters from "Brutal Planet" now reside, including of course Alice. It would appear, somewhat, as if justice (or at least retribution) is being dished out. Alice Cooper "Goes to Hell" all over again, though in a much less playful, much more deadly serious vein.
"Sex, Death, and Money" is about ... well, you know, but with Alice at the helm of the lyrics, the first image (of someone offended by obscenity in the media) is countered by the second verse, which shows our moralist arrested for indecency. Ha! Meanwhile, the sleazy, sawing guitars, with tough reverb effects, are especially crunchy good stuff. And in general, there is a much wider range of basic guitar sounds here--not nearly so monochromatic as on "Brutal Planet."
The ironically named "Fantasy Man," is actually about the opposite of a fantasy man, who rattles off a list of all the culturally refined things he's not. This is definitely social commentary more in the "I love America" vein than "Wicked Young Man". The music, meanwhile, is fairly serious, thumping along--in particular the guitar solo (there seem to be many more guitar solos on this disc compared to "Brutal Planet") crisply warbles its way out to good effect.
In "Somewhere in the Jungle," which is one of the musically more ripping songs on the disc, Cooper comments upon the inhumanity of tribal warfare in Africa. If he'd not already tackled environmentalism, more or less, with "Eat Some More" on "Brutal Planet" this might seem like an especially off-topic effort. However that may be, the layered details of the guitar work and music seems to make serious, or overcomes, any chance of this seeming kitschy.
Yes, with "Disgraceland," that's Alice doing a nasty send up of the King, to the musical tune of Stray Cats meets heavy metal. I'm no fan of Elvis, but this basting of the King is awfully mean-spirited. Yep. In terms of the album, it's a bit of an unfortunate novelty, even if it is at least another story about an inhabitant of Dragontown. But it serves as good set up to the next song.
"Sister Sara" seems to rely upon the same personnel as for the song "Brutal Planet" with Sara being a fallen nun this time around. The music is particularly heavy here, and the lyrics (told from the standpoint of the demon who caused Sara to fall) are especially mean-spirited. Yet another tale of someone in Dragontown.
"Every Woman Has a Name" somehow seems even more out of place than the ballad found on "Brutal Planet," although it is also a stronger song. Other than being a baffling interlude in the flow of this album, the song of course shows Alice's more lyrical side--as if to make certain for anyone who might confuse the characters of his lyrics for him.
An apt warning, perhaps, considering that "I Just Wanna be God," has the devil stepping forward to let us all know what he wants. The vocals here are particularly well delivered, especially when the devil asks, "Why can't I be God" (In fact, the interplay of the guitars and the entire chorus really gets in the blood). And the music, which isn't the grindingest on the album, is a satisfying contrast with the mellowness of the previous song.
"It's Much Too Late" is a kind of pleasant, pop rock irony-tale about a nice guy who winds up in Hell. Certainly in a much different register than the rest of the album, with a slight shiver of country running through it, it seems like a sort of opposite of "Give the Kid A Break".
"The Sentinel" ends things on a final heavy and psychotic note, as the subject of the song gives us a glance into the mind of a suicide bomber. Cooper very savvily blends together east and west: "There's something disturbin going on in my turban / I'm home, home on de-range. / I feel my meditation going on so deep within / While my medication's kicking in". Mania and craziness are not limited to either side.
A more varied album than "Brutal Planet," this variation also means some sacrifice of the intensity on the other disc. It also means this one is more "interesting." I realize that "The Last Temptation" is said to be a part of a trilogy here, but musically "Brutal Planet" and "Dragontown" seem more like a kind of revisitation of "Welcome to my Nightmare" and "Goes to Hell", with both pairs of albums featuring darker, more unnerving material on the former, and a certain relieving irony or perhaps nothing more than the social coziness of Hell on the latter. In any case, this disc is definitely worth the money. You might be more prone to program out a song here than on "Brutal Planet," but by contrast it seems like this disc would be more listenable more often.
Description of Dragontown
With well thought out songs paving the way, 'Dragontown' leads you down a nightmarish path into the mind of rock's original conceptual storyteller. Alice's deranged, tormented mind serves as your tour guide into a place that is bitter cold and conversely swimming in furnace blasting heat. A 2001 Spitfire Records release.Marilyn Manson may have stolen some of Alice Cooper's thunder a few years back, but there is more to this old rock warrior than smeared mascara and ripped tights. The third and final chapter to his rock morality series finds Cooper unfurling more grim tales of life before the apocalypse, and with the same wit, ferocity, and genius that we first saw in his 1971 classic, Killer. On the Coop's 25th album, he's eschewed most of his comic shtick and self-parody of years past, employing a harder, guitar-saturated industrial sound that can compete with the best of agro rockers, such as Korn and Rob Zombie. And while there aren't any teen anthems like "Eighteen" or "Under My Wheels," lurking on the disc, "Mr. Fantasy," his paean to self acceptance, comes close, as Cooper's menacing cartoon voice thunders, "I don't read books / I don't French cook or stroll around in galleries / I hate opera / I hate Oprah / Don't fill my head with poetry." Listeners will be aghast when Cooper serves up sacred cow in "Disgraceland" as he croons in a flawless Elvis Presley imitation that the fallen king ". . . ate his weight in country ham / Killed on pills and broken dreams," and proves once again that this city ham still has what it takes both to shock and rock. --Jaan Uhelszki
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