ALICE COOPER: ​HEY STOOPID! BY MARK CASELL

Alice certainly wanted to party with his friends on the 1991 album, Hey Stoopid. Accompanying the Cooper band, Ozzy Osbourne was there to grab a microphone, Nikki Sixx thumped Bass, and guitars were passed between Slash, Steve Vai, Vinnie Moore and Mick Mars. However, the largest contribution saw Joe Satriani hammer his Ibanez on five of the twelve tracks as well as providing backing vocals alongside Ozzy on the title track.

During the early-nineties, I wore the true colours of the metalhead, and as a fifteen year-old permanently plugged into a Sony Walkman, I bought the Hey Stoopid single, helping it reach Number 4 in the UK charts. Impressed with the B-sides “Wind-Up Toy” and “It Rained All Night”, I needed the album for my fast-growing CD collection. So heading into Our Price, the only record store in town, I snatched a copy from the shelf and saw those big names credited. It cost me something like two-weeks’ wage as a paperboy.

Incidentally this album and so many others of that time, proved more important than my GCSEs (my results are evidence of this).

Following the hit of its 1989 predecessor, Trash, this latest album had much to live up to. But it fell short of album sales in comparison. I am fully aware that the eighties oozed cheesy rock, ridiculous hair and bandanas, but I do wonder if Hey Stoopid’s low chart rating was because a third of the album contains a bit too much stilton.

For me, four incredibly whiffy songs pull it down the ranks, four cheesy-stilton hummers: “Love’s A Loaded Gun”, “Burning Our Bed”, “Might As Well Be On Mars” and “Die For You”. Seriously, they’re so damn cheesy it upsets me:

Oh, oh, oh, you can hold my heart for ransom.
But you’ll never own my soul.

However, there is much to love about Hey Stoopid. The title track for instance is a brilliant opener, and there’s “Feed My Frankenstein” which saw fame in the 1992 movie Wayne’s World. Other belters are “Hurricane Years”, “Little By Little,” and “Dirty Dreams”, each with some cracking riffs. Most of which can be attributed to those fine party-goers already mentioned. And I must say, these particular tunes all contain a more inspiring level of lyrical value. Finally, we have the twelfth track “Wind-Up Toy” and by far my favourite. It’s atmospheric with Alice’s voice perfectly stacking up the creep factor as he tells us:

All my friends live on the floor, tiny legs and tiny eyes.
They're free to crawl under the door. And, and someday soon so will I.

The early-nineties brimmed with as much cheese as the eighties, and inevitably Hey Stoopid did not escape, yet the album as a whole whiffs just a little. It’s a fine album with some incredible tunes featuring some incredible names. I often play it… although may end up skipping the odd track or two.

BIO:
MARK CASSELL lives on the south coast of England with his wife and a number of animals, and is the author of the bestselling supernatural novel The Shadow Fabric. Primarily a horror writer, his steampunk, dark fantasy, and sci-fi stories have featured in numerous reputable anthologies and zines. His jobs have included baker, laboratory technician, driving instructor, and actor. As a familiar face on the UK convention scene, Mark sells his books as well as his photographic art. For more about his work, please visit www.markcassell.co.uk.

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