Track Listing

1. Hello Hooray
2. Raped And Freezin' (1)
3. Elected
4. Billion Dollar Babies
5. Unfinished Sweet
6. No More Mister Nice Guy
7. Generation Landslide
8. Sick Things
9. Mary Ann
10. I Love The Dead
11. Hello Hooray
12. Billion Dollar Babies
13. Elected
14. I'm Eighteen
15. Raped And Freezin'
16. No More Mister Nice Guy
17. My Stars
18. Unfinished Sweet
19. Sick Things
20. Dead Babies
21. I Love The Dead
22. Coal Black Model T
23. Son Of Billion Dollar Babies (Generation Landslide)
24. Slick Black Limousine

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42858 in Music
• Released on: 2001-03-05
• Number of discs: 2
• Formats: Double CD, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .31 pounds

CD Description
While their theatrical stage show (which featured the singer getting his head chopped off by a guillotine) may have made Alice Cooper a household name, the material on BILLION DOLLAR BABIES is so exceptional there is no danger of the musicbeing overshadowed by gimmicks. The album became Cooper's biggest selling release, but it would prove the last effort by the original incarnation of the Alice Cooper band (who would up split a year later). But the group hits the mark completely here, combining the raw garage rock of earlier albums with a glossier production, but with plenty of edge, grit, and sleaze still at the music's core.
While mission statement "No More Mr. Nice Guy" is the best-known song, the rest of the album is just as strong. The title track features a backing vocal by Donovan and a mammoth backbeat from drummer Neal Smith, while sweet melodicism plays an important role in "Generation Landslide" and "Mary Ann". Cooper's rock-and-shock aesthetic can heard in the future concert staples "SickThings" and "I Love the Dead", giving the sleek sound of the album a wonderfully seamy underbelly. Pound for pound, this is probably Cooper's finest release, and remains one of the true cornerstones of the '70s hard rock canon.

Customer Reviews

Alice Cooper - 'Billion Dollar Babies: Expanded Version' (WEA) 2-CD
A must-have for all true Alice Cooper fans. When I first saw this available, I thought to myself, disc two will put all those bootleg recordings of this notorious 1973 tour to pure shame. First you get the 'original' shock rock ground-breaking album with the original artwork. Then, on disc two, you get a nearly complete live recording of an actual 'Billion Dollar Babies' concert. Obviously, a soundboard source. Loved hearing the glam rock opener "Hello Hooray", "Elected", "Raped & Freezin' ", "My Stars", "Sick Things" and the guillotine song {tee-hee} "I Love The Dead". Then there are a couple of tough-to-find songs such as Alice's flexi-disc available-only rarity "Slick Black Limousine" {wish he'd play this song on tour sometime}. Put this on the top of your 'want list' if you don't already have it.

Hello Hooray! Let the show begin...
This is one of the greatest rock albums ever made and even after three decades is still a vital part of any collection. I now have four copies of it, two original lp's and a previous cd and now this. Let's face it, no self respecting Alice Cooper fan would be without this recording in some form or another and they certainly don't need me to tell them how good it is. So why should they buy this particular edition? Well firstly there is the excellant packaging with cut-out pictures of the band, just like the vinyl version but smaller, plus a small booklet about the album. More importantly it comes with a second disc containing most of the set from the Billion dollar babies tour(Schools out and under my wheels absent) that many of the older fans(myself included) have been waiting for for 27 years. Why wasn't this released in 1974? It would certainly have been a big seller back then. The quality of the live recording is excellant and the original band prove that they are the masters of their craft. This is Alice at their peak, when they were threatening, when the songs were dangerous and about the real horrors and corruption boiling under the surface of the 'civilised' world. Not the nice cosy 'welcome to my nightmare' of later years. The original band may not have played all the notes in the correct order and pristine condition but they were innovative, stylish and more importantly they were a rock group. This is the most important release that Alice has had since 'welcome to my nightmare' and in my opinion it is more so because it captures an original group pushing rock to the limits as never before.

The Eighth Wonder Of The World
Billion Dollar Babies is less of a recording more of a monument to rock decadence. Scale, inception, packaging all unsurpassed, only secondarily is BDB one of the finest rock albums ever made.
Here in Britain the inner sleeve cornered every tabloid paper, Leo Abse MP, and Mary Whitehouse contrived to effectively stop the band from touring. Tour or no tour it went to number 1 and more worryingly for the rock mainstream dislodged Dark Side Of The Moon from the topping the charts.

So to the music. "Elected" with its megaphone vocal is the first to hook followed by the sparkling "Billion Dollar Babies", a rock'n'roll tango with our very own attic dancing transvestial villainesss exeling herself.
Spellbinding tracks set standards of their own. The magical" No More Mr Nice Guy", a debtor to the Who's "Substitute" told of the flak Alice's parents were receiving in America.
Donovan's acoustic contribution bolsters "Generation Landslide", and "Sick Things" is well________sick! Crying monstress laments loss of human toys. Feeling wronged she resigns herself to a fate of live concrete burial. Cheerful stuff lads.
"Mary Ann2 is a blissful throwback to days of greater innocence as well as a smart but silly piano ballad. "I Love The Dead" is a the corpedelicious farewell.
Where could they go from here? Nowhere they didn't want. There MUSIC WAS NOW OF LEGEND.
Actually they hit the road on the biggest tour in history for the time. The live disc is pure contraband. It manages to reflect the fact that in 1973 this was the one band everyone with any imagination or sense of daring wanted to see.
Live The Alice Cooper Band are much more r&b than on record they reworked their songs for their performances. "Sick Things"benefits most whilst "Dead Babies" loses out. The audience are almost religious in their manner, you can almost smell the inscence. Alice has a voice like hoarse thunder and his rapport with his crowd is masterly.

The show depends on its decapitational climax.

America! A country where even revolutionaries are conservative. Alice Cooper are the closest thing to revolutionaries she will ever see. Fear the blade? He's only worried about his manicured nails. The crowd rise as one man, then gasp as one man, the head is raised for inspection. The King Is Dead Long Live The Queen. Queen Alice! M A G N I F I C E N T