Alice Cooper – School’s Out (Expanded & Remastered) (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Alice Cooper – School’s Out (Expanded & Remastered) (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:56:14 minutes | 2,50 GB | Genre: Hard Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rhino – Warner Records

SCHOOL’S OUT (DELUXE EDITION) begins with a newly remastered version of the 1972 original, which peaked at #2 on the albums chart. Essential tracks like “Luney Tune” and “Alma Mater” are joined by “Gutter Cat vs. The Jets.” The latter is an homage to West Side Story, a significant influence on the band. The song incorporates lyrics from “Jet Song” from the 1957 musical, which led to an unlikely songwriting credit for Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim on an Alice Cooper track.

The Deluxe Edition contains rarities like the single versions of “School’s Out” and “Gutter Cat vs. The Jets.” Two previously unreleased tracks are also included, an alternate version of “Alma Mater” and an early demo for “Elected,” a song that would appear in 1973 on the band’s first #1 album, BILLION DOLLAR BABIES.

Alice Cooper’s concert in Miami on May 27, 1972, adds even more unreleased music to the collection. The show was recorded a few weeks before the band entered the studio to record School’s Out. The live performance features standout versions of “Halo Of Flies,” “School’s Out,” and “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah,” a song that gives Cooper a chance to show off his impressive harmonica skills.

With 1971’s Killer, Alice Cooper released a classic album that encompassed psychedelia, horror movies, musicals, prog and biker rock and compressed it all into timeless nuggets of hard rock gold. It also propelled the band into the rarified upper reaches of the charts and into larger concert halls too. While the next step for most bands would be to stick the the formula and double down on the hooks in ever more commercial ways, on 1972’s School’s Out these weirdoes did nearly the opposite. Apart from the brilliantly, brutally dumb title track, which indeed does strip their sound down to the thrilling basics and unleashes a perfect marriage of naggingly sharp riffs, hilarious lyrics, and sneering vocals — the album flies off weird tangents that are barely related to anything the band had done before — and also the last thing one might expect from them. Case in point the late night jazz ballad “Blue Turk” which comes complete with a finger snapping bass line, multiple horn solos, and a lounge lizard vocal by Cooper. Granted the subject matter is the joys of necrophilia, but the music is a million miles away from what rock fans who were clamoring to hear more Killer-style rockers might expect. “Alma Mater” is another plot twist of a song; a gentle doo wop-inspired ballad that flips the sentiments of the title track on their head as Cooper nostalgically laments his impending matriculation in tones that almost come across as earnest. These pale in the weirdness stakes next to “Gutter Cat vs The Jets,” a loping. light-hearted tale of cool cats that morphs into a high-kicking version of “Jet Song” from West Side Story. Alongside these oddball gems, the band sounds locked in on the rockers like the piano-led “My Stars” and the happily vicious “Public Enemy #9″as well as suitably theatrical on “Luny Tunes” a deceptively melodic and orchestrated song about being locked up in the psychiatric ward. All these songs, and the album itself, have a light and almost swinging underpinning, almost nothing rocks as hard as Killer, some of it isn’t even rock at all. Half the joy to be derived from listening to School’s Out is to marvel at how daringly the band took all the goodwill they had engendered to this point and blew up their just barely established template in fascinating, aolmost reckless ways. The end result is a bewildering, impressively contrary album that’s a glorious kiss off to expectations while also showing the band’s range and ambition in glorious technicolor. – Tim Sendra

Tracklist:
1-01. Alice Cooper – School’s Out (2023 Remaster) (03:29)
1-02. Alice Cooper – Luney Tune (2023 Remaster) (03:40)
1-03. Alice Cooper – Gutter Cat vs. The Jets (2023 Remaster) (04:39)
1-04. Alice Cooper – Street Fight (2023 Remaster) (00:53)
1-05. Alice Cooper – Blue Turk (2023 Remaster) (05:31)
1-06. Alice Cooper – My Stars (2023 Remaster) (05:49)
1-07. Alice Cooper – Public Animal #9 (2023 Remaster) (03:52)
1-08. Alice Cooper – Alma Mater (2023 Remaster) (04:25)
1-09. Alice Cooper – Grande Finale (2023 Remaster) (04:26)
2-01. Alice Cooper – Be My Lover (Live in Miami, FL, May 27, 1972) (05:31)
2-02. Alice Cooper – You Drive Me Nervous (Live in Miami, FL, May 27, 1972) (02:22)
2-03. Alice Cooper – Yeah, Yeah, Yeah (Live in Miami, FL, May 27, 1972) (04:02)
2-04. Alice Cooper – I’m Eighteen (Live in Miami, FL, May 27, 1972) (05:51)
2-05. Alice Cooper – Halo of Flies (Live in Miami, FL, May 27, 1972) (10:12)
2-06. Alice Cooper – Dead Babies (Live in Miami, FL, May 27, 1972) (06:17)
2-07. Alice Cooper – Killer (Live in Miami, FL, May 27, 1972) (07:38)
2-08. Alice Cooper – Long Way to Go (Live in Miami, FL, May 27, 1972) (05:15)
2-09. Alice Cooper – School’s Out (Live in Miami, FL, May 27, 1972) (08:28)
2-10. Alice Cooper – Is It My Body (Live in Miami, FL, May 27, 1972) (08:05)
2-11. Alice Cooper – School’s Out (Single Version) (03:32)
2-12. Alice Cooper – Gutter Cat (Single Version) (03:49)
2-13. Alice Cooper – Alma Mater (Alternate Version) (04:10)
2-14. Alice Cooper – Elected (Early Take) (04:18)

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