Alice Cooper “Muscle of Love”

This is an oddball record in my LP collection—in more ways than one. First of all, the strange packaging—the album cover is a corrugated cardboard shipping carton—the kind of box you might ship an LP in, to this day—but it is the cover—it has the title and band name and other info printed in red—so it really does look like a shipping box. I’m sure my 13-year-old self caught on, but it might have confused some people. Also, I seem to remember there was a water stain on my cover—and I think I spent half my life thinking it was water damaged, but now, on the internet, I see that there was an intentional “stain” as part of the design, which is kind of next level. Even weirder, on my copy, after all these years (50 years!) the stain has disappeared! Could that be possible? Did it just fade? And weirder still, the full-color inner sleeve (and supplementary materials, later on those) both seem to be water damaged. Were they intentionally fake water damaged as well, or did they actually get water damaged (but how could they without the corrugated cover getting damaged)? Or did they just get really worn over the years (50 years!) by being inside a corrugated cardboard album cover on record shelves? It’s a real head-scratcher—still a bit of a grand mystery!

The other odd thing about this album cover is that it’s been signed by Alice Cooper—the only one of my albums that I’ve ever had signed by the artist, or anyone. How this came about is pretty funny—a number of years back my brother was working at this very nice golf course in Ohio, and Alice Cooper, an avid golfer, was coming through and asked in advance for someone to play a round with, so my brother jumped at that opportunity. It sounded like they both had a good time. Not having his own AC record in his collection, he took along my copy of “Muscle of Love” (I had a lot of records stored at his house at the time) for the rock star to sign, with a Sharpie, on the brown cardboard cover. I admit, it gives me a bit of a thrill, since I’ve always been an Alice Cooper fan (though, never saw him live). I’ve never really been one for autographs (got a few from Cleveland Indian ballplayers when I was a kid), though, so this is rare for me. But this reminds me of something I’ve been trying to remember for years—the one time I went to one of those record store signings, where you stand in line, meet the musician. I went up to Cleveland—this was the early Eighties—and Lou Reed was doing a signing. He was my all-time hero, so why not (also, sadly, never saw him play live). Anyway, I took something ODD for him so sign—and I can’t remember what it was. Apparently, it was a little unusual, because I remember the funny look he gave me—the amused, unreadable smile—I felt like I surprised him a little. But for the life of me, I can’t remember what it was I had him sign—much less where it is now! (A side note: I just heard that Tony Bennett passed away. I did, actually, once, see him live.)

Back to the record. I was surprised to realize this LP actually came out the same year (1973), but after, Billion Dollar Babies—just later that year. Even though I feel like I’m a pretty big fan, the only three AC records I’ve owned were these two and School’s Out (1972) (previously reviewed here, November 2017). I was too young, maybe, for the four records before these—and after this one—I didn’t buy any more. So, I guess I’m not that big of a fan, really—but then, in general, I suck as a music fan. I pretty much move on from artists after a few records, pretty consistently—not all that different from my love life—ha! Anyway, they really went all out with the packaging on these three LPs. Besides the nutty cover of this one, the inner sleeve—one side—is a photo of the band wearing sailor suits in front of the “Institute of Nude Wrestling”—did such a thing exist? They’re paying lots of money to a “little person” and “lady of the night.” There’s also a guy in a suit walking out of frame—who is that guy?! (Leave a comment, please!) It was maybe the next year when the Rolling Stones did a video for “It’s Only Rock’n’Roll”—wearing sailor suits—so, around this time, I was wondering, what exactly did sailor suits mean? (It was several years, still, until The Village People’s “In the Navy.”) On the other side of the sleeve is the quite gruesome depiction of the bloody and mangled band members after their realization that the “live, nude, female” they were paying to wrestle was actually a gorilla. Funny bit. If that wasn’t enough, also included was a paper book cover. Back then, it was often a requirement to make book covers (usually with paper shopping bags) to protect your school textbooks. This one includes all credits for the record, more photos, including the band, as sailors again, peeling potatoes, and an official logo for the “Institute of Nude Wrestling.” I apparently didn’t use my book cover, since it’s intact—either I wanted to save it (for this day), or I was embarrassed to go through school with such a thing emblazoned on my social studies book!

As for the songs—a little uneven, but they’re all okay, and some are really good. At the time I bought this record (1973), I’m not sure that I knew that New York was “The Big Apple”—because I recall being confused why someone would have a song called “Big Apple Dreamin’ (Hippo)”—also confused by the reference to Ohio—and really had no idea about the “Hippo” part—still a few years before the internet, or me personally exploring the underbelly of “The City.” The whole record confused me, actually—it just didn’t quite have the vitality and insanity of  “Billion Dollar Babies”—though, now I’ve come around to it—just for what it is. “Never Been Sold Before” starts out sounding a lot like an early KISS song (I mean that in the best way), though KISS’s first LP was still a year off. But then horns come in, and a good chorus—and it sounds like Alice Cooper. The biggest confusion of all was the song “Man with the Golden Gun”—which sounded exactly like a James Bond opening number—but then, that movie opened, and there was an entirely different song, sung by Lulu—which always sounded like a soft-porn Bond parody to me—but very little about that movie makes any sense at all (except for Christopher Lee). Of course, from the first time I heard the name of the title, “Muscle of Love,” it was clearly a clever reference to the penis—but in the song itself, did he sing “my heart’s a muscle of love?” Was I wrong? Of course not. There are a lot of good songs on this record—my favorite is “Teenage Lament ’74”—which I didn’t really relate to at the time—the age of 15 seemed way far off, and I couldn’t really see myself quite in with the “cool kids” (the one singing this song) quite yet. They are good songwriters, and they could play rock’n’roll. Great background vocals on this record, too—credited are: Labelle (Nona and Sarah), Liza Minnelli, The Pointer Sisters, and Ronnie Spector! My inclination is to say that Alice Cooper of this era is vastly “underrated”—but then I’d sound like one of those geniuses in the YouTube comments—ha!

7.21.23