| Love It to Death | ||||
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.jpg) Original, uncensored album cover | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | March 9, 1971 | |||
| Recorded | November–December 1970 | |||
| Studio | RCA Mid-American Recording Center (Chicago, Illinois) | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 36:58 | |||
| Label | ||||
| Producer | ||||
| Alice Cooper chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Love It to Death | ||||
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Love It to Death is the third studio album by American rock band Alice Cooper, released on March 9, 1971. It was the band's first commercially successful album and the first album that consolidated the band's aggressive hard-rocking sound, instead of the psychedelic and experimental rock style of their first two albums. The album's best-known track, "I'm Eighteen", was released as a single to test the band's commercial viability before the album was recorded.
Formed in the mid-1960s, the band took the name Alice Cooper in 1968 and became known for its outrageous theatrical live shows. The loose, psychedelic freak rock of the first two albums failed to find an audience. The band moved to Detroit in 1970 where they were influenced by the aggressive hard rock scene. A young Bob Ezrin was enlisted as producer; he encouraged the band to tighten its songwriting over two months of rehearsing ten to twelve hours a day. The single "I'm Eighteen" achieved Top 40 success soon after, peaking at No. 21. This convinced Warner Bros. that Alice Cooper had the commercial potential to release an album. After its release in March 1971, Love It to Death reached No. 35 on the Billboard 200 albums chart and has since been certified platinum. The album's second single, "Caught in a Dream", charted at No. 94.
The original album cover featured the singer Cooper posed with his thumb protruding so it appeared to be his penis; Warner Bros. soon replaced it with a censored version. The Love It to Death tour featured an elaborate shock rock live show: during "Ballad of Dwight Fry"—about an inmate in an insane asylum—Cooper would be dragged offstage and return in a straitjacket, and the show climaxed with Cooper's mock execution in a prop electric chair during "Black Juju". Ezrin and the Coopers continued to work together for a string of hit albums until the band's breakup in 1974. The album has come to be seen as a foundational influence on hard rock, punk, and heavy metal; several tracks have become live Alice Cooper standards and are frequently covered by other bands.
- ^ Brackett & Hoard 2004, p. 12.
- ^ "Rolling Stone's Best Glam Rock Albums of All Time". Album of The Year. Retrieved April 28, 2019.
- ^ Pearson, Paul (August 8, 2007). "Alice Cooper, Love It to Death". PopMatters. Retrieved April 28, 2019.
- ^ Blum, Jordan (July 7, 2020). "10 Proto-Punk Albums Every Music Fan Should Own". Consequence. Retrieved March 21, 2023.
- ^ Billboard staff 1971b, p. 66.