Puzzle Welcome To My Nightmare (500 Parties)

The concept album about the terrifying nightmare of a little boy named Steven was based on the singer's lifelong fascination with scary movies: "I loved horror movies. I still do," he revealed. "And I also love theatre and musicals. I always had this grand idea that we could take the basic album and make it into a stage show, which we ended up doing. I saw it as a cross between a bad fairy tale and West Side Story. If you listen to something like Gutter Cat vs. The Jets from the School's Out album, you'll hear it anyway. Collaborating with someone like Bob Ezrin really pushed the envelope. He really doesn't hold back and he's open to anything, so we went for it. Our goal was to make the album sound almost like the soundtrack to a movie or a stage play. And I think we achieved that with Welcome." Cooper's vision for Welcome to My Nightmare was much broader than just an album. It became an expansive and artistically ambitious stage show, complete with music videos and an array of stage characters, including dancing spiders and a two-foot-tall cyclops. The ambitious production cost more than half a million dollars and even inspired an ABC television special called Alice Cooper: The Nightmare. The show, which originally aired on April 25, 1975, won an Emmy Award in 1976 for Outstanding Achievement in Videotape Editing for a Special: Welcome to My Nightmare's narrator, Vincent Price. "It wasn't planned. But as time went on, we began to wonder if we could use something that would add to the effect. I wrote to Vincent," Cooper said of recruiting the Hollywood legend. "I didn't expect a response, but apparently he knew all about me and was happy to join. He was fantastic, really got into the role, and even took part in the subsequent TV special. I think he'd like to go on tour as well." The album Welcome to My Nightmare was released on March 11, 1975 and confused many critics at the time, mainly because of its very different sound, which leaned more towards soundtrack drama than heavy metal thunder. Fans loved it, however, and sent it all the way to No. 5 on the Billboard 200 chart in the week of June 21, 1975. Elton John's "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy" was the number one album in America that week. "I think we did everything right on this album," Cooper said. "It contained all the elements I wanted to have on the record. And for a first solo album, it's not a bad start at all!" The year 1975 was a year of glory for superstar Alice Cooper with the concept hit Welcome To My Nightmare. A precursor to the video revolution, Welcome To My Nightmare was an extravaganza on many historical levels. As a major television broadcast seen by millions of people, the album climbed to the top of the pop and rock charts thanks to a clever combination of songs, acting performances and the overall personality of the legend Alice Cooper. When he reunited with his longtime producer Bob Ezrin, the pair put together one of the best soundtracks to the David Winter-produced film, creating some of his best-known songs, such as the huge hit Only Women Bleed. The single Welcome To My Nightmare reached the Top 5 and went multi-platinum, forever attaching the word superstar to Alice Cooper's name. Special guest, legend Vincent Price, visited as curator and narrator for the song Devil's Food. In addition, star guitarists like Dick Wagner (Lou Reed / Peter Gabriel) and Steve Hunter (Lou Reed / David Lee Roth) and Tony Levin (King Crimson / Peter Gabriel) on bass contribute to make this a very modern and exciting listen. Friday Music is very proud to offer the next installment of our 180gram audiophile vinyl series by Alice Cooper. Meticulously mastered from the original Atlantic Records tapes by Joe Reagos (School's Out) at Friday Music Studios and Capitol Records in Hollywood, California. This limited edition 180gram LP also includes for the first time a collectible deluxe sleeve with original lyrics and photos from the 1975 release. We believe this is the definitive audio version of this classic rock recording that will be one of the most anticipated audiophile titles of 2010.(fridaymusic. com)