Somewhat of the original groups break out album, Love It To Death contains the smash hit "I'm Eighteen" as well other fan favourites such as "Is It My Body" and "Ballad of Dwight Fry".
Released in February 1971, Love It To Death helped the Coopers become more widely known and helped set the base for the success of the group for many years to come.
SONG BY SONG RUN DOWN
1. Caught In A Dream - A great start to a great album, I love the "I'm caught in a dream - SO WHAT? - You don't know what I'm going through..." line, this song has a lot of Cooper style teen angst in it - I really like this song, great lyrics all the way.
2. I'm Eighteen - Ahhh, pure classic, this one is featured on every best of compilation out there, with good reason. I really think this song just works so well, all the instruments compliment each other perfectly - when push comes to shove, it's one of my favourite Alice songs.
3. Long Way to Go - Nice, fast paced cut, nice guitar riffs all the way through, Glen Buxton is in fine touch here. Great Lyrics too, overall a good lead in to the haunting next song...
4. Black JuJu - From the creepy voodoo style drum beat at the start that keeps getting louder to the scream of "BLACK JUJU !" at the end, this song is a true Cooper epic. Like Halo of Flies from the Killer album this one has a huge range to it and runs quite long compared to some of the cuts on this album (runs in at 9:08 minutes). I love this song. It's one of my top 2 or 3 Cooper songs of all time. I love turning it on, sitting in my room when it's nice and dark, having my TV on to nothing but static with the volume down and just escaping into this brilliant song. Alice's vocals are great, very stinging - and the rest of the band really goes to town here. Recorded absolutely live apparently, makes it just that much better to me really.
5. Is It My Body - I think this song has got a very lounge singer kind of feel to it. Pure classic Coop here, great lyrics, especially "Have you got the time to find out! ...Who I really am...", a line that pretty much rings true for most of Alice's career of misconceptions and ill informed assumptions.
6. Hallowed be My Name - Another great cut that has a great church organ style start. Quite a religious theme to this song with very cool guitar and organ throughout.
7. Second Coming - Nice slowing of pace at the start of this one, sort of lurches around throughout the song. Some nice drums in this too. To be honest, I often find myself waiting for this song to come to the end, so I can here the part that fools me every time, the piano lead in to the next song, with it's couple of teases, before we finally here...
8. Ballad of Dwight Fry - "Mommy...". Ok, I'll get it out the way, this is my favourite Alice Cooper song, whether it be the original group or solo work. This is THE Cooper song for me. The insane ramblings of a mad man have never sounded so good. I struggle to find anything negative about this song - to me, it's perfect. Apparently, the "I GOTA GET OUT OF HERE! I GOTA GET OUT OF HERE!" part was recorded with Alice under a pile of folding chairs, to exaggerate the "getting out" of the situation for him. It's done brilliantly, very much my favourite part of the song.
Performed on stage while Alice is in a straight jacket being attended to by a nurse (or a doctor going back a bit), Alice breaks out an strangles his attendant at the songs end - great stuff :)
I think this song fits the asylum theme of "From the Inside" brilliantly, but it is definitely not out of place on Love It To Death.
9. Sun Arise - Personally, I think the album should have ended with Dwight Fry as the brilliant climax, but that wasn't to be. This cover of a song originally recorded by Australian entertainer Rolf Harris is not a favourite of many Cooper fans, and for me it's probably my least favourite cut from this album - that said, it's got stiff competition on this album. Not Alice's best song, but definitely not the worse.
"Love It To Death" Prime Cuts - It's hard to say really, this whole album is essential Cooper listening - but If I had to make a call on a few tracks, I'd say check out "I'm Eighteen", "Is It My Body" and "Ballad of Dwight Fry" - an inexperienced Cooper listener shouldn't go straight to "Black JuJu" it's a song you need to get used to.
Overall - "Love It To Death" is personally one of my favourite Cooper albums (my top always changes, between "Killer", "Love It to Death" and couple of others). Like stated, this whole album is essential Cooper. That said, I'd say someone looking to widen there knowledge of Alice Cooper may be better served to go for the hit machine "Billion Dollar Babies" before checking out this more darker Alice album.
