10 Rock Bands That Had A Really Shaky Start
8. Alice Cooper
On first glance, it's almost expected that something like Alice Cooper wouldn't have gone well right out of the gate. Even when these shock rockers were on top of the world in the '70s, there were still plenty of naysayers trying to denounce what they saw as too macabre for the little children to be listening to. You couldn't script something more controversial...and yet that actually happened in the early days.
As opposed to crawling out of the crypt, Cooper and co. actually got their big break when they hooked up with rocker and resident weirdo Frank Zappa, who took them under his wing. Although the first few records were certainly a trip for what they were, the product was anything but spectacular, with most of the production sounding wretched under the wrong conditions. Compared to the chaotic stage show they would put on night after night, albums like Pretties For You is what that kind of chaos would sound like if it were made into audio form.
Though Alice had been getting notoriety for his outlandish stage shows, the marriage between hooks and looks didn't really congeal until Bob Ezrin entered the picture, who helped make Love It To Death and Killer the classics they are on the strength of songs like I'm Eighteen and Under My Wheels. A touch of evil does lend itself well to rock and roll...just not total anarchy though.