Alice Cooper has produced what can easily be considered the best dressed album of 1972. Alice and the rest of the boys in the band, and the strange charisma that surrounds them, sometimes tend to overshadow the fact that theirs is one of the best little rock 'n' roll bands in the country. Mind blowers (literal and otherwise) include "Public Animal," "Street Fight" and this year's tribute to the summertime blues, "School's Out."

- Billboard, 1972.

Bonus Reviews!

With its all-time ugly vocal, kiddie chorus turned synthesizer, and crazy, dropped-out thrust, the title hit is as raw and clever as it gets, but this album is soundtrack. Some of it's even copped -- with attribution, yet -- from West Side Story. For a while I comforted myself with the thought that West Side Story is more a rock musical than Hair, at least in spirit. But the orchestral homages to Uncle Lennie ruin the effect. B-

- Robert Christgau, Christgau's Record Guide, 1981.

The title cut of one of Cooper's best albums was a Top Ten hit. * * * *

- Rick Clark , The All-Music Guide to Rock, 1995.

In the early '70s, when the cops were still harassing hippies...enter a group led by a made-up freak with a girl's name and a sick stage act of camp horror. No wonder Alice Cooper -- the stepfather of Goth, Metal and A.O.R. -- seemed subversive in America. Cooper was actually the name of the band, initially signed by Frank Zappa for clearing a venue, but it soon became the monicker of frontman Vincent Furnier. On School's Out, Alice envisioned the threatening future of U.S. rock and grabbed it with black finger-nailed hands, delivering an album that fulfilled Mom's worst fears -- a heads down tribute to under-age drinking, brawling and truantism. Cooper had made some fine recordings before, noticeably "I'm Eighteen" from Love It To Death, but it wasn't until School's Out that his boogie band really got it together. The title cut was a slice of pure teen rebellion, an anti-school anthem with an emphatic chorus, squealing guitars and drop-dead finish. Throw in a nod to West Side Story ("Sharks Vs Jets"), the pushy brass of "Blue Turk" and the growling "rawk" of "Public Animal" and Bob, or rather Alice, was your million-selling uncle. Ahead lay a series of O.T.T. efforts, but on this Bob Ezrin-produced album Cooper had the perfect band around him and they hit just the right note for the bored summer of 1972.

- Collins Gem Classic Albums, 1999.

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