School's Out
Alice Cooper used to claim he wrote entire albums worth of lyrics in an afternoon with the TV on. True or not, whatever led to moments of ultraclarity such as "We got no class / And we got no principles / And we got no innocence / We can't even think of a word that rhymes" should be bottled and force-fed toMarilyn Manson.School's Out(1972) is where Cooper's show-biz tendencies first fully flowered--"Gutter Cat Versus the Jets" more than nods toWest Side Storyand "Grande Finale" sounds like the band was trying to aceElmer Bernsteinout of a gig--but it also rocks hard, and most of the ambition-laden stuff (especially the epic "My Stars") really does work. Nasty and grande as they wanted to be.--Rickey Wright