Alice Cooper – Pretties For You (1969)

February 5, 2025

Pretties For You is the debut full length album from Alice Cooper (the band, not just the man) from all the way back in 1969. Other than the bizarre inclusion of a live track about 2/3 of the way through the tracklist, this thing is produced wonderfully for the time and sounds fantastic. Musically, Alice’s (the man, not the band) vocals are distinct even at this early point in time, but as a whole the sound here is in the Zappa / Beefheart school of “just a tiny bit weird, innit”, which isn’t my favourite thing ever but it’s fun to hear how everything started.

I really like “Reflected”, which is later reworked as “Elected”. I also thought the intro was super cool and was a bit bummed out when it just fades away as it gets going. Bizarre!