How much did Trash help Alice Cooper?

[Rocker4Real]

I'm curious how many fans Alice gained from the ultra-produced Trash album. Sure, casual fans may have liked Poison. Why couldn't he follow it up? Of course Desmond Child said that it was because he wasn't involved. How much of Alice's 80s material does he play live?

[Wild Obsession]

IMO, Alice Cooper was a nonentity in the late 80's, "Trash" absolutely gave his career a resurgence.

[Velvis]

I saw Alice a month or so at Mohegan Sun and he did Bed Of Nails and Poison. (Maybe something else I am not sure)

But about halfway through the show a woman showed up to the seats in front of me and sat down. A couple of songs later Poison started and she stood up went absolutely apeshit screaming and dancing and singing every word.

The song ended and before the next song started she got up with her boyfriend and left never to return.

So that I suppose is worth something.

[NeonKnite]

I'm curious how many fans Alice gained from the ultra-produced Trash album. Sure, casual fans may have liked Poison. Why couldn't he follow it up? Of course Desmond Child said that it was because he wasn't involved. How much of Alice's 80s material does he play live?

I think TRASH got him on the radar of a lot of 80s metal fans and many stuck around. I got into him on the prior album "Raise Your Fist and Yell", but I remember eagerly awaiting his next album. I loved seeing him on the TRASH tour, and ran out the next day and bought "Greatest Hits" on CD and the rest is history. I spent much of the next decade exploring his entire catalog.

Alice plays more 80s/90s material nowadays than he has in years. On his Spring US leg, he played all of the following:

Lock Me Up (show opener / shortened version)
Bed of Nails
Snakebite
Lost In America
He's Back (The Man Behind The Mask)
Hey Stoopid
Poison
Feed My Frankenstein

I love that that he's playing these. He's also played other songs from this era over the last several tours including:

Teenage Frankenstein
The World Needs Guts
Freedom
Roses On White Lace
House Of Fire

[daveg]

I'd say gave his career a huge boost. I never listened to him..nor did my friends, but the "hair metal" cooper was awesome. Eventually we got into the rest of his catalog

[pieceofme]

Being on Wayne's World later probably helped him as well.

I'm actually surprised Trash didn't sell more. Poison was a massive song.

[NeonKnite]

I'm actually surprised Trash didn't sell more. Poison was a massive song.

Alice's manager Shep Gordon deciding it was best to not allow Desmond Child to produce the next album was an absolutely massive mistake.

"Hey Stoopid" has some great material, but it's missing that big hit Desmond Child was usually good for.

I'm not saying he should have used Desmond from that point forward, but you certainly gotta follow that up and see if you can catch lightning in a bottle again.

[HueyRamone]

Being on Wayne's World later probably helped him as well.

He was in Wayne's World supporting the next album, which stiffed.

I loved RYRAY. I didnt care for Poison or the rest of Trash. I did like Hey Stoopid. So at least for me it was a lowlight, even if sales-wise, it was the opposite.

[kytepunches]

For me , the order i like the return of Alice albums are as follows :
1. Hey Stupid
2.Raise Your Fist…
3. Last Temptation
4. Trash
5. Constrictor.

The bottom 3 can flip around depending on the day. Trash was huge , but it has a lot of filler for me.

[CrankerBait]

It probably helped give his career a boost, but my friends and I didn't go to the Trash show because we really wanted to hear "Poison", "Bed of Nails" and "House of Fire". I would guess between a quarter and a third of the setlist was from Trash, but it was an older crowd mostly who were there for the classics. We would have been good with a few fewer cuts from the new album, but it was a good show overall with no shortage of the expected hits and props.

[Love_Industry]

IMO, Alice Cooper was a nonentity in the late 80's, "Trash" absolutely gave his career a resurgence.

True. Here in Sweden He's Back was a big hit but nothing near the level of Trash. I liked him earlier because of the GH, B$B and Nightmare but he was like Uriah Heep or Nazareth until Trash came out and he was there front and center with the Leppards and Jovis for two years. Stoopid sold here too and he was still headlining arenas. Didn't know what a bomb that album was until I read it on Sludge. It wasn’t as good and lacked THE hit but should have sold based on name and momentum.

Thinking about it, without Trash he would be Heep or Nazareth for the last 40 years.

[EuroJR]

In Finland Trash was that year's (1989) most sold foreign album selling over 70 000 (Finland had 5 million people at that time)

[Bono Nettencourt]

I'd say gave his career a huge boost.

Yep. Without it, he would've been long forgotten.

[Metal Sludge]

I don't know. I'm sure the Poison video helped. It was pretty awesome.
I saw that tour in San Diego, it was a great show.
I'm admittedly a little biased, Alice is my all time favorite.

[Tommy2Tone84]

A lot

[dweezil]

I'm actually surprised Trash didn't sell more. Poison was a massive song.

Alice's manager Shep Gordon deciding it was best to not allow Desmond Child to produce the next album was an absolutely massive mistake.

"Hey Stoopid" has some great material, but it's missing that big hit Desmond Child was usually good for.

I'm not saying he should have used Desmond from that point forward, but you certainly gotta follow that up and see if you can catch lightning in a bottle again.

I read somewhere that Cooper and Desmond Child did not get along very well. Cooper did not like Child's production style, and the Trash album was a slog to complete.

[El Vampiro Blanco]

Yeah, it sure raised his profile world wide.
He was on MTV again and was able to play bigger places.
I saw the Raise your fist and yell tour here in the Netherlands and he was playing a big gymnasium. I went with my nephew and he literally had gym class there 2 days before the concert.
Now, this was not a small gym, I saw Aerosmith, Judas Priest, Ozzy there as well and AC/DC played it in 1979 (Angus met his future wife there that day), but when he returned 2 years later for the Trash tour Alice was playing the main arena at the time, the Ahoy in Rotterdam. That was a big step up.

[Bono Nettencourt]

I'm actually surprised Trash didn't sell more. Poison was a massive song.

Alice's manager Shep Gordon deciding it was best to not allow Desmond Child to produce the next album was an absolutely massive mistake.

"Hey Stoopid" has some great material, but it's missing that big hit Desmond Child was usually good for.

I'm not saying he should have used Desmond from that point forward, but you certainly gotta follow that up and see if you can catch lightning in a bottle again.

I read somewhere that Cooper and Desmond Child did not get along very well. Cooper did not like Child's production style, and the Trash album was a slog to complete.

I bet. By that time, that dancin' queen turned rock song doctor probably thought he was God. He did have 2 cowrites on Hey Stoopid, FWIW.

[NeonKnite]

I bet. By that time, that dancin' queen turned rock song doctor probably thought he was God. He did have 2 cowrites on Hey Stoopid, FWIW.

I always assumed those were leftovers from the TRASH sessions, though I could be wrong. Desmond has worked with him since and doesn't seem to have any malice towards him, and even wishes they got to make TRASH 2.

Maybe it's just me, but when you struggle for years and then suddenly your career is resuscitated with the help of one of the great songwriters of the era, I don't think it's a wise idea to just cut him loose if he's willing to work with you again.

TRASH definitely has it's share of filler, but half of the album is pure brilliance.

[pieceofme]

After reading this thread it seems Trash was more popular/successful in Europe than in the States. Although Alice Cooper certainly got a nice bump in popularity in the States as well.

Poison is one of the most famous songs from the genre in the UK. Certainly way more popular than songs like 'Round and Round' and 'Talk Dirty to Me'. Alice Cooper is one of those US artists who really took off in the UK right away.

[tooth]

I never owned any, but older kids in the 'hood had some of the Alice Cooper/Band records & I knew Eighteen, No More Mr. Nice Guy, Schools Out from the radio. Trash absolutely helped, but The Man Behind the Mask song teed it up for Trash.
With all that being said, has AC ever had a successful arena run in the US? I'm talking big arenas/20k seats with 1 or 2 true openers. Not a coheadlining situation, either, & not an opener that could sell a 3k seater on their own.

[El Vampiro Blanco]

I never owned any, but older kids in the 'hood had some of the Alice Cooper/Band records & I knew Eighteen, No More Mr. Nice Guy, Schools Out from the radio. Trash absolutely helped, but The Man Behind the Mask song teed it up for Trash.
With all that being said, has AC ever had a successful arena run in the US? I'm talking big arenas/20k seats with 1 or 2 true openers. Not a coheadlining situation, either, & not an opener that could sell a 3k seater on their own.

Dunno about Alice Cooper but the Alice Cooper Band sure did... Billion Dollar Babies tour was huge.

[ElectrickMagick]

I've always preferred "Raise Your Fist and Yell" to "Trash," but "RYFaY" had several things going against it from the start. Perhaps the biggest was that it was on MCA, a label where rock bands went to die in the mid to late 80s. As a hair band adjacent guy MCA wasn't doing anything with Alice or that album, by 1987 MCA just had no idea how to market hard rock or get it on MTV. And in addition to Child, Sony also hooked him up with Diane Warren, Aerosmith, and Richie and Jon of Bon Jovi. All of those were heavy hitters in their own way.

"Trash" was a complete rebirth for Alice. No more Kane Roberts, no more MCA, and now Cooper was on a label that knew how to get on the radio and on the TV. They also made a really killer video for "Poison," the model in that video (her name was Rana Kennedy) had an ass that could launch 1000 ships.

[pieceofme]

Don't get the love for Raise Your Fist and Yell. Not one redeemable song on that entire album.

Next three albums are far superior. They actually have good songs on them.