Welcome to My Nightmare
| Welcome to My Nightmare | ||||
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Cover art by Drew Struzan
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| Studio album by Alice Cooper | ||||
| Released | March 11, 1975 | |||
| Studio | Soundstage, Toronto; Plant East, Electric Lady and A&R Studios, New York | |||
| Genre | Rock, hard rock, art rock | |||
| Length | 43:19 | |||
| Label | Atlantic | |||
| Producer | Bob Ezrin | |||
| Alice Cooper chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Welcome to My Nightmare | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
| Rolling Stone | (mixed) |
| Robert Christgau | B− |
Welcome to My Nightmare is the eighth studio album by Alice Cooper, released in March 1975. This was Alice Cooper's first solo album (all previous Alice Cooper releases were band efforts), and his only album for the Atlantic Records label. The ensuing tour was one of the most over-the-top excursions of that era. Most of Lou Reed’s band joined Cooper for this record.
It is a concept album; the songs, heard in sequence, form a journey through the nightmares of a child named Steven. It inspired the Alice Cooper: The Nightmare TV special and a worldwide concert tour in 1975, and the Welcome To My Nightmare concert film in 1976. A sequel, Welcome 2 My Nightmare was released in 2011.
The cover artwork was created by Drew Struzan for Pacific Eye & Ear. Rolling Stone would later rank it ninetieth on the list of the “Top 100 Album Covers Of All Time”. The remastered CD version adds three alternate version bonus tracks. Famed film actor of the horror genre Vincent Price provided the introductory monologue in the song "The Black Widow". The original version of “Escape” was recorded by The Hollywood Stars for their shelved 1974 album “Shine Like a Radio”, which was finally released in 2013.
Welcome to My Nightmare received generally mixed reviews upon release. Dave Marsh of Rolling Stone called the album “a TV soundtrack that sounds like one. The horn parts are so corny you might imagine that you’re listening to the heavy-metal Ann-Margret.” He noted the absence of the original Alice Cooper band, stating, “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.” He concluded by saying that it “is simply a synthesis of every mildly wicked, tepidly controversial trick in the Cooper handbook. But in escaping from the mask of rock singer which he claimed he found so confining, Cooper has found just another false face.”
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Wikipedia