This has been weighing on my mind for a while, but edit #49116981 brought it back up to the forefront. There has been some off-and-on warring over whether we should have separate artists for Alice Cooper the band and Alice Cooper the man, and if we have separate artists where do we draw the line as to what credit to use. You’d think this would be a no-brainer: everything from Welcome to My Nightmare on should be credited to Alice the man, right?
This is where things get murky.
On his past two albums, Alice Cooper has featured his surviving former bandmates on a handful of tracks. On his latest album, Paranormal, there are two tracks listed on the back cover as having been written and performed by the original Alice Cooper band. Some editors have believed this is enough to warrant crediting those tracks to the Alice Cooper group, which led into the edit I linked above.
I’m not aware that there’s ever been formal discussion about this issue. Ideas/comments/suggestions?
As a huge fan, I am often trying to inform commoners how pre-74 is different than post-74. To the point that I sometimes feel like one of those ComiCon geeks.
The albums are, in fact, Alice Cooper albums. That is easy to determine.
As to who to credit for the specific songs…
I don’t see any legitimate site saying that The Alice Cooper Band was involved. They do, however, say that members of The Alice Cooper Band were involved.
I mean, I had Ace Frehley and Peter Criss play at my bar. They each did an individual set, and then they did a 3rd set together of nothing but KISS songs. It doesn’t mean that I could sell it as a KISS concert.
Vinnie Vincent even wrote a few songs on the KISS Revenge album, it didn’t mean he was back in the band.
It’s nice to dream about our favorites getting back together. But until it happens, it hasn’t happened.