Alice Cooper – Billion Dollar Babies (50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition 2xCD)

– Disc 1 –
1 1. Hello Hooray
2 Raped and Freezin’
3 Elected
4 Billion Dollar Babies
5 Unfinished Sweet
6 No More Mr. Nice Guy
7 Generation Landslide
8 Sick Things
9 Mary Ann
10 I Love the Dead
– Disc 2 –
1 Hello Hooray – Live, 1973
2 Billion Dollar Babies – Live, 1973
3 Elected – Live, 1973
4 I’m Eighteen – Live, 1973
5 Raped and Freezin’ – Live, 1973
6 No More Mr. Nice Guy – Live, 1973
7 My Stars – Live, 1973
8 Unfinished Sweet – Live, 1973
9 Sick Things – Live, 1973
10 Dead Babies – Live, 1973
11 I Love the Dead – Live, 1973
12 School’s Out – Live, 1973
13 Under My Wheels – Live, 1973
14 Coal Black Model T – Outtake
15 Son of Billion Dollar Babies (Generation Landslide) – Outtake
16 Hello Hooray – Single Version
17 Billion Dollar Babies – Single Version
18 Elected – Single Version
19 Mary Ann – Single Version
20 Slick Black Limousine

Notes:

“Hello Hooray,” a new version of BILLION DOLLAR BABIES, is on the way as Alice Cooper’s delightfully subversive sixth album returns in all its snakeskin glory for an extended 50th-anniversary celebration. After hitting #1 on the album charts in America and the U.K. in 1973, the record remains a highwater mark for the original lineup, featuring hits like “No More Mr. Nice Guy” and “Elected.”

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BILLION DOLLAR BABIES: “TRILLION DOLLAR” DELUXE EDITION (2CD )features a newly remastered version of the original album, along with bonus material, including studio outtakes, single mixes, and an electrifying 1973 concert recording.

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An instant smash when it was released in March 1973, BILLION DOLLAR BABIES delivered a theatrical mix of hard rock and glam laced with macabre lyrics that explored wealth, decadence, and fame’s darker side. Newly remastered, the platinum-certified album sounds better than ever. The set also features outtakes (“Coal Black Model T”), single mixes (“Mary Ann”), and “Slick Black Limousine,” which originally came out on flexi-disc within an issue of the British rock paper New Musical Express.

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The “TRILLION DOLLAR” DELUXE EDITION also features a live show recorded in Texas in April of 1973, during the “Billion Dollar Babies” tour. The powerful performance includes live versions of many of the album’s tracks, highlights including “Elected” and “Hello Hooray,” along with several of the band’s earlier hits, including “I’m Eighteen” and “School’s Out.”

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This 2xCD version comes with an oral history of the album and the bonus tracks by the surviving band members – Alice Cooper, Dennis Dunaway, Michael Bruce, and Neal Smith – and Bob Ezrin, who produced the album. (Sadly, guitarist Glen Buxton died in 1997)

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In the notes, Cooper recalls writing “I Love The Dead” and “Sick Things.” He says, “We were writing those songs looking at each other, and every time we’d write a line I’d say, ‘Oh, this is gonna kill them. Oh, they’re gonna hate us on this one.’ But at the same time, it was almost like an Edgar Allan Poe short story when you listen to ‘I Love The Dead.’ I tried to write that the way Vincent Price would sing it.”