Experiencing Alice Cooper: A Listener’s Companion takes a long overdue look at the music and stage act of rock music’s self-styled arch-villain. A provocateur from the very start of his career in the mid-1960s, Alice Cooper, aka Vince Furnier, son of a lay preacher in the Church of Jesus Christ, carved a unique path through five decades of rock’n’roll. Despite a longevity that only a handful of other artists and acts can match, Alice Cooper remains a difficult act and artist to pin down and categorize. During the last years of the 1960s and the heydays of commercial success in the 1970s, Cooper's groundbreaking theatricality, calculated offensiveness, and evident disregard for the conventions of rock protocols sowed confusion among his critics and evoked outrage from the public. Society’s watchdogs demanded his head, and Cooper willingly obliged at the end of each performance with his on-stage self-guillotining. But as youth anthem after youth anthem - “I’m Eighteen,” “School’s Out,” “Elected,” “Department of Youth”—rang out in his arena concerts the world over and across airwaves, fans flocked to experience Cooper’s unique brand of rock. Critics searched for proper descriptions: “pantomime,” “vaudeville,” “retch-rock,” “Grand Guignol.” In 1973 Cooper headlined in Time magazine as “Schlock Rock’s Godzilla.” In Experiencing Alice Cooper: A Listener’s Companion, Ian Chapman surveys Cooper’s career through his twenty-seven studio albums (1969-2017). While those who have written about Cooper have traditionally kept their focus on the stage spectacle, too little attention has been paid to Cooper’s recordings. Throughout, Chapman argues that while Cooper may have been rock’s most accomplished showman, he is first and foremost a musician, with his share of gold and platinum albums to vouch for his qualifications as a musical artist.

This book explores dancing from the 1960s to the 1980s; though this period covers only twenty years, the changes during it were seismic. Nevertheless continuities can be found, and those are what this book examines. In dancing, it answers how we moved from the self-control that formed the basis for ballroom dancing, to ecstatic rave dancing. In terms of music, it answers how we moved from the beat groups to electronic dance music. In terms of youth, it answers how we moved from youth culture to club culture.

Alice Cooper is an American rock singer, songwriter and musician whose career spans more than four decades. With a stage show that features guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, boa constrictors and baby dolls, Cooper has pioneered a grandly theatrical and violent brand of hard rock designed to shock. Drawing from exclusive and unpublished interviews with a variety of names and faces from throughout Alice’s career, the book follows Cooper’s tale from his life growing up as a preacher’s son in Arizona, through the early years of struggle in Phoenix and then Los Angeles, and then onto the rollercoaster ride that has been the years since then. Includes interviews with original bandmates Michael Bruce and the late Glenn Buxton, drummer Neal Smith, the late Frank Zappa, manager Shep Gordon and producer Bob Ezrin. Includes tributes and recollections from many of the artists who call Alice an influence - from the Damned and the Cramps, to White Zombie and Gwar. Session players and songwriters who have made their own contributions to the Alice story recall their days spent with this Prince of Hell-raisers. The result is a story that alternately thrills, shocks, surprises and delights. Includes full discography and bibliography.

In Experiencing Progressive Rock: A Listener's Companion, Robert G. H. Burns brings together the many strands that define the "prog rock" movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s to chart the evolution of this remarkable rock tradition over the decades. Originating in the 1960s with acts like Yes, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, The Who, Jethro Tull, Genesis, and The Moody Blues, progressive rock emerged as a response to the counterculture on both sides of the Atlantic. Prog rock drew heavily on European classical music as well as the sophisticated improvisations of American jazz to create unique fusions that defied record label and radio station categorizations. Reemerging after the 1980s, a new generation of musicians took the original influences of progressive rock and reinvented new formats within the existing style. The trend of combining influences continues to the present day, earning new audiences among the musically curious. Burns draws on his own experiences and original interviews with members of prog rock acts such as Colosseum, Renaissance, Steve Hackett’s Genesis Revisited, past and current members of King Crimson, Steven Wilson, and Brand X, as well as several others, to provide an exciting behind-the-scenes look at this unique and ever-changing musical expression'.

The man who invented shock rock tells the amazing and, yeah, shocking story of how he slayed his thirsty demons—with a golf club. It started one day when Cooper was watching a Star Trek rerun between concerts, bored and drunk on a quart-of-whiskey-a-day habit; a friend dragged the rocker out of his room and suggested a round of golf. Cooper has been a self-confessed golf addict ever since. Today he and his band still tour the world, playing some one hundred gigs a year . . . and three hundred days out of that year, Cooper is on the course. Alice Cooper, Golf Monster is Cooper’s tell-all memoir; in it he talks candidly about his entire life and career, as well as his struggles with alcohol, how he fell in love with the game of golf, how he dried out at a sanitarium back in the late ’70s, and how he put the last nails in his addiction’s coffin by getting up daily at 7 a.m. to play 36 holes. Alice has hilarious, touching, and sometimes surprising stories about so many of his friends: Led Zeppelin and the Doors, George Burns and Groucho Marx, golf legends like John Daly and Tiger Woods . . . everyone is here from Dalí to Elvis to Arnold Palmer. This is the story of Cooper’s life, and also a story about golf. He rose from hacker to scratch golfer to serious Pro Am competitor and on to his status today as one of the best celebrity golfers around—all while rising through the rock ’n’ roll ranks releasing platinum albums and selling out arenas with his legendary act.

This re-release of Alice Cooper at 75 (2023) celebrates the godfather of shock rock’s life in a photo-filled retrospective detailing 75 key releases and life events.

In comic book format, presents the history of the Beatles through the narration of John Lennon.

"The extraordinary illustrated biography of the original ""shock rocker,"" published to coincide with his 75th birthday."

By taking a thematic approach to the study of music appreciation, Music: A Social Experience, Second Edition demonstrates how music reflects and deepens both individual and cultural understandings. Musical examples are presented within universally experienced social frameworks (ethnicity, gender, spirituality, love, and more) to help students understand how music reflects and advances human experience. Students engage with multiple genres (Western art music, popular music, and world music) through lively narratives and innovative activities. A companion website features streaming audio and instructors' resources. New to this edition: Two additional chapters: "Music and the Life Cycle" and "Music and Technology" Essay questions and "key terms" lists at the ends of chapters Additional repertoire and listening guides covering all historical periods of Western art music Expanded instructors’ resources Many additional images Updated student web materials Visit the companion website: www.routledge.com/cw/cornelius