Mascara & Monsters: The Best of Alice Cooper (CD - 2001)

The Alice Cooper Group: Alice Cooper (vocals); Michael Bruce (guitar, keyboards, background vocals); Glen Buxton (guitar); Dennis Dunaway (bass, background vocals); Neal Smith (drums, background vocals).

Producers include: Bob Ezrin, David Foster, Michael Wagener, Desmond Child, Jack Douglas.

Compilation producers: David McLees, Brian Nelson.

Includes liner notes by Jeffrey Morgan and Alice Cooper.

Personnel: Michael Bruce (guitar, keyboards, background vocals); Glen Buxton (guitar); Dennis Dunaway (background vocals).

This is a one-disc distillation of the four-disc box set THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF ALICE COOPER, and as such represents the cream of the shock-rock legend's output. The earlier songs (1970 to 1974), featuring the original lineup, are classic rock & roll.

Managing the difficult feat of being both clever and commercially accessible, these songs were of course a huge influence on the late-'70s punk rock that followed (Johnny Rotten auditioned for the Sex Pistols by singing along with Cooper's generational anthem "I'm Eighteen"). The later material here, from "Only Women Bleed" to "Poison," is just as well crafted--Cooper performs with a combination of irony and malevolence that a certain Marilyn Manson no doubt studied long and hard. minimize