Album Review: Alice Cooper - Detroit Stories

Alice Cooper - Detroit Stories

Ear Music - 2021

3.5/10

The latest Alice Cooper record would see the same rock ‘n roll throwback energy as Paranormal. The big difference is that this one is significantly longer, it ditches the spookier resurrection element that’s hit the last few albums, and there’s somewhat of a funk feeling in certain tracks. Thus, we end up with Detroit Stories, a disc that reeks of “old man reminiscing” as heavily as it sounds. Therefore, finding the strong moments becomes a bit of a task.

For starters, almost everything feels like an anecdote, and depending on the subject matter there’s very little glue holding the tracks together. They’ll jump around from something that sounds Beatles-inspired, to Bee Gees, to KISS, to something off of a Boogie Nights scene. More or less, it creates a lot of songs that feel catchy enough but get on my nerves more often than not. “$1000 High Heel Shoes” was a doo-wop/disco attempt that I didn’t need to be subject to, yet I find it being stuck in my head; but not in a good way. It’s like getting a song from a kid’s cartoon in your head.

Moreover, Detroit Stories suffers from being way too on-the-nose and grows stagnant quite fast. “Detroit City 2021” is littered with references to other artists, the “old days” and corny rhymes that plagued the latest Megadeth album (though not quite as bad). Same can be said about the obvious blues reach on “Drunk And In Love,” an unflattering tune that couldn’t be less original, or further from Alice’s originality that often works its way in. The only real exception may be “Our Love Will Change The World,” a Monkees-oriented happy tune that surprisingly feels like a breath of fresh air compared to everything else being anywhere from alright to uninspired.

Perhaps I’m a bit hard on this record because of the expectations Alice has set. Even most of his weaker albums almost always have at least something worthwhile, or something I look forward to hearing. But essentially, this is an overly long (fifteen tracks is way too much) compilation of songs that hardly go anywhere, don’t really stick together, and ultimately could be skipped, save for that one standout. Perhaps a sign of retiring writing new material? I could stand for a brief band-reunion disc at most, otherwise no more songs from the shock rocker is really desired on my end.