Alice Cooper, Opinions on Chance the Rapper & Deafheaven

Alice

Alice Cooper invented shock-rock in the 1970s, sparking controversy with his ghoulishly theatrical live shows and hard rock hits like "School’s Out" and "I’m Eighteen." Alice Cooper joins Jim and Greg for a career-spanning conversation. They'll also review new music from Chance the Rapper and Deafheaven.

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I might Need Security Chance The Rapper

I Might Need Security - Single

Chance The Rapper just dropped his latest EP, 4 new songs, which was technically released as 4 concurrent singles: Wala Cam, 65th & Ingleside, I might Need Security, and Work Out. The release immediately made news for more reasons than one. First off, the rapper hasn't released a solo project since Coloring Book in 2016. That project garnered critical acclaim, as well as 3 Grammys. Secondly, on I Might Need Security, a fiery track on 4, Chance announced that he had purchased the Chicagoist(a now defunct news and culture website that was a sister site to the Gothamist). Greg notes that the song also addresses Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, and Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner for the way that they have dealt with police-involved shootings and violence in Chicago. Greg notes that the EP shows a more political slant than he has previously; but also showcases a vulnerable side with 65th & Ingleside. Greg calls that track "refreshing" in the way that it deals with Chance's relationship with his now-fiancée and child. "Security" is, according to Jim, "the song that everyone is talking about [on 4], but '65th and Ingleside', that's the brilliant one here".

Ordinary Corrupt Human Love Deafheaven

Ordinary Corrupt Human Love

Ordinary Corrupt Human Love is Deafheaven's fourth studio album since 2011. Since their second album, Sunbather, the group has expanded beyond the limits of black metal. This album is their most expansive effort to date, taking its inspiration from Graham Greene and Julio Cortázar.

Jim says the sweet and sour sonic combination works well for him. The cathartic release is there, but with a bit of hope to avoid total despair.

Greg says the songs that stick closer to the metal/shoegaze hybrid of their previous albums are great, but some of the more experimental tracks fall flat for him. He says Night People is a goth ballad that belongs on the American Horror Story soundtrack, while You Without End is a Broadway song with a guitar solo straight out of a Queen or Boston album from the 1970s.

Alice Cooper

Alice

This week, Jim and Greg revist their 2015 interview with shock-rock legend Alice Cooper. Cooper was born in Detroit but later moved to Arizona for high school, where he was a teenage jock in a rock band. His group, The Spiders, performed around Phoenix and LA for a few years before they changed their name to Alice Cooper (Alice's real name is Vincent Furnier.) Their first couple albums Pretties For Youand Easy Action didn't gain much traction but once they teamed up with producer Bob Ezrin, they found success with the album Love It to Death. A string of popular records followed such as School’s Out, Billion Dollar Babies and Welcome to My Nightmare but for a time, critics couldn't see past the group's on-stage antics. Alice is perhaps most famous for his special brand of shock-rock including props like snakes, guillotines and even straight jackets. Jim and Greg were very excited to speak with Cooper and discuss his on-stage persona, sobriety, music catalogue and relationships with other famous artists.

Jim & Greg

Jim

Glenn Branca passed away on May 13th at the age of 69. Jim's desert island jukebox pick highlights Glenn's contribution to the nascent noise, and no-wave scene in New York in the early 1980s, an exciting time when there were "no lines between what was going to blow up as hip-hop, what was going to blow up as graffiti art and experimental noise, but also [there were no lines between] pop music and rock and roll and the remnants of punk." Artists and break dancers alike were winding up in the same place. Against that backdrop, Glenn released The Ascension in 1981, which combined "avant-classical composition, multi-harmonics and dissonance" with a "lot of feedback". Jim remembers that watching the Glenn Branca Ensemble at CBGB was like "top of your head sheared off, brain spilling on the floor". For his pick, Jim chose Lesson # 2 from Glenn's album The Ascension, "which is really where [Glenn's career] begins".

Greg

Greg is also heading to the Desert Island thing week with a track by a group inspired by Glenn Branca - Sonic Youth. He selected the track "Silver Rocket" from the group's 1988 album Daydream Nation. "Silver Rocket" channels the melding of chaotic guitars, dramatic volume changes and more than Branca pioneered and Sonic Youth perfected.

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