I saw Alice Cooper on “American Idol” last week. A blonde chick in a Catholic girl skirt tore into the E minor-A-E minor chords opening “School’s Out.” A chorus of kids pranced around the stage in some bizzarro combination of Roald Dahl surrealism, zombies and playground brats, sounding hokey as they sang lyrics evocative of Dickensian melodrama, flag burning and truant-inspired anarchy – all of it signaling Alice’s emergence on stage.
He’s part of the cannon now, an acknowledged pop rock elder statesman. You can’t get more mainstream than “American Idol,” but had the show existed 40 years ago, the name Alice Cooper would have been anathema, unutterable in such a legit Hollywood arena. Alice was the prince of darkness, an androgynous figure with a female name, the front man of a band projecting full-tilt, testosterone driven, balls-out rock. He was a nude figure draped within a boa constrictor, a demented, alcoholic unleashed from the psych ward, throwing decapitated dolls all about the place, staging mock executions and singing about graveyards and blowing school to pieces.
He’s tame by today’s standards. The shock factor is passé; it’s the rock n’ roll that endures.
I love the irony of the early 70s rock era. The kids in their sailor jeans and long, gnarled hair, drinking Jack Daniels and smoking weed -- lost in the night to Alice Cooper, Deep Purple and Grand Funk Railroad pummeling like howitzers from the speakers of their Plymouth Barracudas and Olds 442’s --were just getting born around the time rock n’ roll first chipped at the wheel of white bred America. At that time, middle aged squares were in a panic over a sideburn-wearing hoodlum thrusting his pelvic region and singing raunchy negro music. Likely, he was the product of a Communist conspiracy to overthrow the country by sending its youth into a paroxysm of juvenile delinquency.
Yet by the time Alice Cooper came along to corrupt the morals of a more desensitized America, Elvis Presley was standard, respectable entertainment. He was family friendly, giving concerts that 65-year-old grandmothers could enjoy.
Alice courted the mainstream about as quickly as Elvis did. If “American Idol” had been on television 35 years ago, his horror show act would have been a nice novelty to showcase. By that time, he was doing “Hollywood Squares” and singing a sappy duet with Miss Piggy on “The Muppet Show.” Kiss, with their blood and pyrotechnics, were the new bad boys on the block. Alice Cooper was really the alter ego of Vincent Furnier, a preacher’s son, but Kiss – they were devil worshipers.
In the ‘80s when Alice Cooper was forgotten and Kiss temporarily dropped from the klieg light, parents, politicians and church leaders were aghast over a rocker who truly was the devil incarnate. I was in junior high when kids were playing Ozzy Osbourne’s “Blizzard of Oz” tape on their Sony walkmans, indifferent to parental concerns that he was driving teens to commit suicide. The other guys may have been putting on a show (or maybe they were just forgotten), but Ozzy, with his upside down crucifixes and eyes, the color of demonic possession, had to be worshipping at the altar of the netherworld.
Who would have foreseen that, not 20 years later, his family would star in a reality show with Pat Boone --- Mr. Wholesome White Christian -- singing a big band-backed, loungy cover of “Crazy Train” over the opening credits? That his wife would become a respected celebrity mother figure? Or that Ozzy would parody his own image in TV commercials? When former Pres. George W. Bush acknowledged the Oz-man among audience members at a public event, everything became clear. It just happened. Ozzy never had to sing Engelbert Humperdinck songs or go on a game show. He simply hung around a long time and the mainstream came to him.
Ozzy’s public life prompts one to ponder how today’s controversial figures will be perceived in 20, 30 or 40 years. How can a cretin who names himself after a murderer and simulates oral sex with a midget ever be welcomed in the mainstream? Who knows? Perhaps his appearance in “Bowling for Columbine” a few years back was the first step toward normalizing this person.
Will Marilyn Manson one day be singled out with a friendly, jocular nod from a conservative, born again president of the United States? Will the extra-terrestrial, asexual, evil looking one someday serve up TV comedy with his wife and kids? Will the Jonas Brothers sing a sanitized version of “Anti-Christ Superstar”?
