I was a huge fan of the trilogy "Trash", "Hey Stoopid" and "The Last Temptation". The more brutal sounding "Brutal Planet" never got to me, but with "Dragontown"
Alice Cooper is incorporating the best elements from the previous mentioned records.
"Dragontown" is continuing the story from "Brutal Planet". On "Brutal Planet" the worst place is Dragontown. This town is like hell and the citizens are the worst of the worst. As you can read in the track by track review the citizens of Dragontown is a mixture of bad guys and surprisingly also famous people.
The listener is taken through a guided tour of Dragontown with
Alice Cooper being the tour guide of course.
Track by track review:
Triggerman opens the disc with a nice melodic riff. Alice is using a vocal distortion on part of the verse. I wonder if this is Ryan Roxie playing, because a great guitar solo finishes this track. The song has one of the best choruses and is the most melodic track on this disc. A strong opener.
Deeper is marked of the collaboration with Bob Marlette providing Alice with a more "industrial" and modern sound. The old shock Rocker is singing some pretty scary lyrics on this song.
Dragontown is a semi-ballad, which builds up for the chorus. The song has a really cool middle part before the guitar solo with some atmospheric guitar creating a great emotion.
Sex, Death and Money characterizes the life in Dragontown. A track that grows on you and definitely an album highlight.
Fantasy Man features some great guitar playing and Alice is playing with words like "I hate opera, I hate Oprah".
Fantasy Man reaches climax in a great chorus. Again an album highlight.
Somewhere in the jungle is a mellow song. The song has a special emotion to it mainly because of the unique guitar sound, which is throughout the whole song.
What the hell is going on here you might think. Alice is doing an Elvis impression on
Disgraceland. There is no doubt when you listen to the lyrics that Elvis Presley is living in Dragontown. Notice the word puzzle in the title.
Sister Sara is one of my favorites. The song has a quite heavy verse, but totally changes in the chorus, which has lots of melody. There are great backing vocals and Sister Sara is singing also. The many layers on the chorus create a great moody emotion.
Every Woman has a name follows the emotional tradition from
Sister Sara. This ballad has kinda the same song structure as
Only Women Bleed from 1975. The song is a bit different from the "cold" and heavy guitar dominating most of the album. This song is a bit warmer driven by an acoustic guitar and additional strings.
I just wanna be god is lacking a killer chorus. The chorus is repeated many times during the song.
Back to the poppy roots introducing
It's much Too Late, which is
Alice Cooper's salute to Dragontown resident John Lennon. The lyrics are dealing with a guy, who did nothing wrong but still he died and now he has gone to Dragontown. The lyrics "The must be some kind of mistake up there in heaven" and "I don't know which god I've offended" leaves a huge question mark why John Lennon ended in Dragontown. The song features some great Beatles-like vocal harmonies and one of the best guitar solos on the album.
The album finishes off with
The sentinel, which has an up-tempo verse that slows down for a great melodic chorus.
Overall there are some atmospheric and emotional guitar all over the album creating a scary mood on the record. The old master still knows how to scare people both with sound collages and lyrics.
The special edition of Dragontown includes a bonus cd. There is a brand new track called
Clowns will Eat Me, which is really good track. It sounds like a leftover from "Trash" or "Hey Stoopid" because the song has a Pop/Rock feel to it and Alice is not using any vocal filters. The lyrics are quite entertaining with references to fast food chain McDonalds -
The Clowns will Eat Me.
Also included are 2 live version of
Go To Hell and
The ballad of Dwight Fry. Both songs are well-played Live versions obviously with a more updated sound than the originals from 1971 and 1976. Especially
Go to Hell sounds very dramatic and theatrical. You can only imagine the cool stage show that Alice is providing, while listening to this song.
Moreover there is an awful techno-remix of
Brutal Planet and 2 enhanced videos, so if you did not buy Dragontown when it was released you are out of excuses with this special edition.
Alice Cooper has still got it.
Written by
Michael Tuesday, October 15, 2002
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