Alice Cooper
School's Out

THE REVIEW

When rock takes on a tint of horror…

1965 Phoenix – Arizona: seventeen-year-old Vincent Fournier has been waiting all afternoon for his parents to leave. Now he is alone. He can finally listen to the 33 RPM 'My Generation' by The Who, bought a week before but never heard. The members of the band he secretly plays in, the Earwings, had spoken very highly of it. He places the needle on the vinyl and, after making sure once again that no one is home, slightly raises the volume. And he loses himself in that sea of sounds. If only his father, a puritan preacher, had seen him…

He can't take it anymore. His parents are just stupid bigots. He wants to escape from that place. Become famous like the Beatles. He wants to get back at his parents by being outrageous. Rage rises, engulfing his entire body. He needs to let off steam. He decides to go make some noise with his friends. As he walks, he wonders: "Will I become famous?"

'School's Out' (1972) will prove to be for Vincent Fournier (who will change his name to Alice Cooper) the work of his definitive establishment as a star. At the time, he was still the leader of the band that bore his stage name. Their music was hard rock characterized by Alice's sharp voice, which showed he could dominate the stage, violent and theatrical (inspired by b-movie horror). In the following decades, many bands have honored this artist, including Motley Crue, Guns n' Roses, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, and Marilyn Manson (the latter has been considered by some as Alice's successor, but Cooper did extremely important things in the history of hard rock, while Manson at best made tough-guy albums for spoiled kids who lounge in front of MTV).
The cover, openable as per '70s tradition, transformed into an old school desk and inside was a yellowish slip, the singer's old report card. The title track was a success at the time, Alice's first to enter the Top 10. The song is energetic hard rock characterized by excellent riffs from a rather heavy guitar and children's choruses singing:
"No more pencils no more books no more teacher's dirty looks Out for summer out till fall we might not come back at all School's out forever school's out