12 Greatest Ever Hard Rock Solo Artists

In the late 60's, hard rock was still in its birthing period. With rock and roll only a few decades old, the meaner acts of the day were taking the typical sounds of their contemporaries and building them up to gargantuan sonic feats. While some may have been heavier or more raucous, no one was more representative of the harder side of rock than Alice Cooper.

Forming as a band in the late 60's, this shock rocker took every unholy aspect of rock and roll and amplified it to the point of no return. With each passing release, Cooper became known as the ultimate hard rock villain, whose mix of garage rock and poppy riffs made them both a horrorshow for parents and irresistible to adolescent fans.

When the whole band left in the mid 70's, the future of Alice as a separate entity seemed pretty bleak. Pouring everything into his work, Cooper's monumental epic Welcome To My Nightmare laid the foundation for even more decades of blood-soaked debauchery.

Since then, Cooper's work has remained pretty consistent, as he continues to pump out hard rock tunes with the same kind of macabre tone he had in his early days. He may have been reviled in his prime, but Alice Cooper has gone from the Rock and Roll Devil to one of hard rock's most endearing elderstatesmen.