Review Summary: The best summary of Alice Cooper's glam years
Despite releasing a year after grunge allegedly killed the genre, Alice Cooper’s hair metal high reached its culmination with 1992’s Hey Stoopid. The album is built on the same foundation that made the preceding Trash so successful, armed with polished production, an even more extravagant roster of guest players, and relentless choruses. If anything, it pushes the template even further with twelve tracks to sort out and much more of that signature Alice flair shining through.
Much like what Ozzy was going through around the same time with No More Tears, Hey Stoopid could be seen as the album where Alice got more comfortable with his elder stateman status. This is perhaps best demonstrated by the title track, driven by an anti-drug cautionary outlook to go along with the stadium-ready chants and upbeat guitar work. It could be seen as preachy through a certain lens, but there’s also a sort of ‘I’ve been there’ perspective that keeps it from getting too condescending. He may not be playing the part of the snot-nosed brat anymore, but he still remembers what it’s like to be one.
Going along with that, the softer songs have a more earnest quality than they’ve had since the late seventies. “Love’s a Loaded Gun” isn’t a ballad in the traditional sense, but the acoustic-strummed verses and sentimental lyrics make for a strong track with a rootsy feel. Meanwhile “Might as Well Be on Mars” is the album’s centerpiece and the sort of ballad that “Hell Is Living Without You” wished it could’ve been as its lovelorn lyrics hit an urgent point of disconnected longing while the seven-minute length and urban vibes bolster its sweeping epic execution.
It also helps that those elements never come at the expense of the macabre theatrics that make this era so fun to listen to in the first place. “Dangerous Tonight” and “Feed My Frankenstein” each show off darker textures but go about expressing them differently, the former leaning more on synth-driven atmospherics and choppy guitars while the latter’s grinding rhythms and adrenaline-soaked dynamics make it feel like one of Trash’s most psychosexual songs given the proper Alice treatment. “Wind-Up Toy” even manages to prove that there’s room for old Nightmare-era lore to shine on a party record, reconciling its creepy verses and catchy chorus without much trouble.
In addition to being one of the strongest Alice Cooper albums in any era, Hey Stoopid is perhaps the best summary of his glam years. The hooks are even more potent than those of Trash and the personality that made Constrictor and Raise Your Fist and Yell stand out are further developed here. The worst you can say is that having so many songs inevitably leads to some that could’ve been cut, but even the fillers put in something enjoyable. It’s a satisfying resolution of this style trajectory and could be considered an essential listen.
Oh, and something about Wayne’s World, I guess.
