Pretties for You | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | June 25, 1969[1] | |||
Recorded | November 1968 | |||
Studio | Whitney Studios, Los Angeles[2] | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 38:10 | |||
Label | Straight | |||
Producer | ||||
Alice Cooper chronology | ||||
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Singles from Pretties for You | ||||
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Pretties for You is the debut studio album by American rock band Alice Cooper, released on June 25, 1969, by Straight Records. "Alice Cooper" referred to the band and not its lead singer Vincent Furnier. The album has a psychedelic style to it and the group had yet to develop the more concise hard rock sound that they would become famous for.
Most of the tracks feature unusual time signatures and arrangements, jarring syncopation, expressive dynamics, sound effects, and an eclectic range of music influences. A few songs, such as "Levity Ball", show the influence of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, with whom the band hung out during the British group's U.S. tour.[9] Alice Cooper guitarist Glen Buxton stated he could listen to Barrett's guitar playing for hours on end.[10]
The artwork for this album is a painting by Edward Beardsley.[11] It was originally hanging on the wall of the living room in Frank Zappa's house,[12] and his wife Gail Zappa stated that it was later stolen from them.[13]
Pretties for You was a critical and commercial failure, briefly appearing on the Billboard Top 200, and none of its songs have ever been played live by Cooper since the release of the band's breakthrough album Love It to Death.[14] The song "Reflected", Alice Cooper's first single, was later rewritten as "Elected", which features on their 1973 album Billion Dollar Babies.
As a rock'n'roll group, Alice Cooper were always so much more than those first two horrible/brilliant LPs – and even they were genuine experimental rock of the Frankenstein kind. That is, they fell on their face at least seventy percent of the time, but struggled ever upward towards some Doorsian light at the end of the tunnel.