Alice Cooper’s last album for Warner Brothers

By 1983 Alice Cooper had fallen back off the wagon and was recording albums that he’d later claim he couldn’t remember. 1981’s Special Forces had brought him back to a stripped-down rock ‘n’ roll sound that recalled his earlier peaks, and 1982’s Zipper Catches Skin retained the same direction while sounding more labored. 1983’s DaDa, his last album for Warner Brothers (and his last album before a three-year hiatus) reunited him with Bob Ezrin, who’d produced Cooper in his glory years. The album opens promisingly with the menacing “Da,” a looming synthesizer instrumental punctured by thumps of percussion and a spooky doll’s voice. The spoken word lyrics sound as if they’re snippets of confessional dialog lifted from a 1940s psychological thriller.

The doll’s eerie “da-da” vocalizations point to the album’s family themes, with a teenage son calling out his abusive father on “Enough’s Enough,” and the family’s dark human secret essayed in “Former Lee Warmer.” There’s a not-quite-heartwarming story of a shopping mall Santa, the Devo-esque dizziness of “Dyslexia,” and the over-the-top patriotism of “I Love America.” Whatever else Alice Cooper was doing (or drinking) his sense of humor never left him. On the darker theatrical side are the dominatrix sister duo and middle-eastern flourishes of “Scarlet and Sheba,” the vampire horror of “Fresh Blood,” and the alcoholic nightmare “Pass the Gun Around” that closes a chapter in Cooper’s career. Collectors’ Choice’s domestic reissue includes a four-panel booklet that features new liner notes by Gene Sculatti, but no bonus tracks. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]