Taking Sides: IGGY POP VS. ALICE COOPER

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

http://grooveraccoon.blogs.com/grooveraccoon/iggy_pop.jpg http://members.cox.net/audubon5425/scott/alice2.jpg

Battle of Detroit's favorite sons (well, technically, Alice was from Arizona originally but...y'know, whatever...)

Peers, contemporaries and drinkin' buddies. Alice famously rushed Ig to the hospital after one of the estimable Mr.Pop's onstage dances with broken glass. But who is better?

If you're talkin' showmanship, it could be argued that Alice was merely macabre vaudeville...whereas Iggy "kept it real". If such things matter to you.

Musically, Iggy seems to get more credit for pushing the envelope, but the early albums by the Alice Coooper band are no less significant. It could be argued that Alice succumbed to self-parody later in his career --- but that same claim can also be levelled at Iggy.

Choose and cite your reasons.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 22 October 2004 17:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Iggy made Funhouse.

― Loose Translation: Sexy Dancer (sexyDancer), Friday, 22 October 2004 17:56 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah, but apart from funhouse (which is completely awesome any day of the year, any context, whatever), i'd probably rather listen to alice.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 22 October 2004 18:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Iggy was incapable of making pop songs. Alice came up with a ton of pop gems and could still entertain in the live setting. "I Never Cry" may have been the best Elton John ripoff of the '70s. Credibility be damned, I'll take Alice.

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Friday, 22 October 2004 18:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Has anybody killed themselves while listening to Alice?

― Edward Bax, Friday, 22 October 2004 18:08 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm actually quite fond of the Iggy/Bowie albums and enjoy Iggy's version of "China Girl" more than Bowie's these days.

― Edward Bax, Friday, 22 October 2004 18:10 (twenty-one years ago)

I have never heard the early Alice Cooper Band albums. The stuff I have heard (Killer in particular) has underwhelmed me quite a bit. Gotta go with Iggy, not even for the Stooges necessarily. They're great, but I really like his early-80s Arista records, too. I love "Mr. Dynamite" and "The Endless Sea" and "Five Foot One" and "I'm Bored" and "Dog Food" and "Eggs On Plate" and a bunch of others.

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Friday, 22 October 2004 18:10 (twenty-one years ago)

That's funny cuz I just (re)picked up "New Values" two days ago, and its not a very strong album, but it certainly has its moments. And yes, I'd rather listen to the better tracks of Iggy's solo stuff than Alice's, even though much of it (post-80?) is veryveryveryvery awful. But so is Alice's.

― peepee (peepee), Friday, 22 October 2004 18:54 (twenty-one years ago)

if iggy pop will start wearing a shirt, i'll vote for him.

― el sabor de gene (yournullfame), Friday, 22 October 2004 18:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Alice music can be fun.

Iggy is, um, a, um, great, er, poet. And is the Velvet Fog of sorta-punk. And has the best body, ever.

― ian g, Friday, 22 October 2004 19:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Iggy was incapable of making pop songs

Wha? What about "Candy"? I mean, personally speaking, I hate it...but it's a pop song.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 22 October 2004 19:39 (twenty-one years ago)

"Real Wild One" made the licensing rounds in its day.

― Loose Translation: Sexy Dancer (sexyDancer), Friday, 22 October 2004 19:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Incidentally, I love Alice Cooper. And he's got a more great songs than you can shake a skull-capped scepter at, but Iggy just has an indefinable coolness that trouces Alice. Iggy seems invincible....even when he's promoting crappy records like Beat'em Up, he's still untouchably great. Alice has made new music worth listening to in EONS, and as such he's become a bit of a joke. A VH1 talking head for hire.

I'd bring up his golf game and his conservatism, but Iggy shares both of those with Alice.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 22 October 2004 19:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Alice has made new music worth listening to in EONS, and as such he's become a bit of a joke.

Whoops, that should've read: HASN'T.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 22 October 2004 19:54 (twenty-one years ago)

IGGY. He doesn't play golf or star in shitty Staples commercials where he deliberately misquotes his own lyrics to make a buck.

― n/a (Nick A.), Friday, 22 October 2004 19:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Iggy most definitely plays golf. Which is, of course, an awesome sport. Watch the Letterman interviews.

― Roy Williams Highlight (diamond), Friday, 22 October 2004 20:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Iggy, cause he still has what it takes onstage

― kephm (kephm), Friday, 22 October 2004 20:03 (twenty-one years ago)

http://espn.go.com/media/pga/2003/0128/photo/cooper_i.jpg

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 22 October 2004 20:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Well I'm runnin through the world
with a gun in my back
tryin' to catch a ride in a Cadillac
Thought that I was livin'
but you can't really tell
been tryin' to get away
from that success smell

I need a houseboat and I need a plane
I need a butler and a trip to Spain
I need everything
the world owes me
I tell that to myself
and I agree

god, I am so drinking beer and blasting Love it to Death tonight..

― Roy Williams Highlight (diamond), Friday, 22 October 2004 20:23 (twenty-one years ago)

I want to like Alice. I really do. The live take of 'Under my wheels' from OGWT(or was it TOTP?) that always gets wheeled out on British TV is amazing, but anytime I've sat down and tried to listen to an LP, I've been forced to the conclusion that you had to be there. Unlike the Stooges (or the Sonics, or Little Richard) where you are fuckin' there within a few seconds, regardless of time or place.

(And hey, doesn't this relate to GNR vs anyone? I cna tell you, I was never THERE, nor ever will be.)

― Soukesian, Friday, 22 October 2004 20:25 (twenty-one years ago)

"Dum Dum Boys" > Whole Alice Cooper catalogue

― anode (anode), Friday, 22 October 2004 20:53 (twenty-one years ago)

If god asked pick one or be damned: Fun House or Billion Dollar Babies. Jesus. Fuck. Shit. Christ.

Today: I would pick Billion Dollar Babies. I find it to be a perfect, perfect album. In fact, I will head home after work and drink and listen to Coop, too.

Hmmmmmmm, y'know? I might have killed Stooge music in college. I don't listen to it much these days. If I do then I play "I Got a Right" single 3 or 4 times in a row or originally released Raw Power. But, Cooper, to me, has more variety and great production work. He can rock like the Stones or prog-it-up on the first two. Also, his jam "Return of the Spiders" is as heavy and nasty as any Stooge-music. He can also be the Bowie-Queen production freak for the darker midwest hetero-male headbanger crowd. I know he is rather shitty these days. But, man, his discography is actually filled with a ton of good records and tracks and variety.

― Justin Farrar (Justin Farrar), Friday, 22 October 2004 21:01 (twenty-one years ago)

OK, OK, I'll give Bilion Dollar Babes another try. As I said, I truly want this to work.

― Soukesian, Friday, 22 October 2004 21:06 (twenty-one years ago)

If we're including the Stooges' stuff, well there's no discussion, is there?

― peepee (peepee), Friday, 22 October 2004 21:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Soukesian:
I am no good at these taking sides discussions, but, yeah, please try Billion Dollar Babies again. Track down a really clean, clean vinyl copy, and save it for the first spin on a new needle with a couple a beers and the volume turned way the fuck up. I swear it will blow the mind. It is just one immaculately produced 70s pop tune after another like Ziggy and A Night at the Opera. Hell, try it in the car really loud, too.

― Justin Farrar (Justin Farrar), Friday, 22 October 2004 22:59 (twenty-one years ago)

I think what clinches it for Alice is the "LA DA DA DA DA!!!" from Generation Landslide.

― My name is Kenny (My name is Kenny), Friday, 22 October 2004 23:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Iggy Pop vs. Alice Cooper = Trent Reznor vs. Marilyn Manson = my dad vs. my mom.

― maria b (maria b), Saturday, 23 October 2004 05:28 (twenty-one years ago)

I love both, but this is complicated. Alice gave voice to some great lyrics -- the song Roy quotes above has my favorite rock line ever, "When you see me with a smile on my face, then you'll know I'm a mental case" (Michael Bruce wrote that one) -- but I count myself among the crowd Christgau once called "those who think Iggy is a font of natural wisdom." They both rock, but Iggy seems to have more of his (heart?) in it when he "sells out," whereas the Coop often just betrays his shallowness. The last AC cut I heard that was worth a damn was "Lost in America" ('94), though I can't claim to have checked in to everything he's done since. But I dug a lot of the Igster's last one. The fact that I still bother listening has to count for something, too.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Saturday, 23 October 2004 09:17 (twenty-one years ago)

I was turned on to Alice Cooper after seeing him on the Muppet Show when I was 10. Can't say that about anyone else.

― shookout (shookout), Saturday, 23 October 2004 17:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Actually, I enjoy Alice Cooper just as much as I do Iggy. "New Values" is like half a good album. I find "Raw Power" somewhat overrated myself, but the good stuff certainly overshadows what Cooper could've done, as on "Fun House." I actually give Vince points for stuff like "Only Women Bleed," which is something Iggy should've covered had he been more with it. And yes, "Billion Dollar Babies" is a minor classic!

― eddie hurt (ddduncan), Saturday, 23 October 2004 18:29 (twenty-one years ago)

And yes, "Billion Dollar Babies" is a minor classic!

I would remove the word "minor" from that statement.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 23 October 2004 18:37 (twenty-one years ago)

It's a good record. Maybe I'm just feeling snooty today (hung over!) but is it a classic like "Exile on Main St." or "There's a Riot Goin' On" or Presley's "Clambake"?... But shit yeah, "Generation Landslide" is truly a fuckin' classic, I love that song!

― eddie hurt (ddduncan), Saturday, 23 October 2004 18:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Wha? What about "Candy"? I mean, personally speaking, I hate it...but it's a pop song.
Heeeeey! I Like "Candy"!
In fact, The only way they coulda made it better is with a three part harmony: Iggy, Kate Peirson and Annabella Lwin

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Saturday, 23 October 2004 18:46 (twenty-one years ago)

The only way they coulda made it better is with a three part harmony: Iggy, Kate Peirson and Annabella Lwin

That would've been great, yes.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 23 October 2004 22:14 (twenty-one years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.