Tame Nightmares

There was footage of an Alice Cooper stage-show on telly the other night (called Welcome to my Nightmare or some such clichéd tat, and of the conceptual kind that abounded in the ‘70s). Filmed back in the days when Mr (or should that be Mrs?) Cooper was regarded as something of a renegade with a “shocking” penchant for heavy eye makeup and hanging himself, it made for amusing viewing.

In the show, our Alice largely spent his time emerging from behind cardboard tombstones and popping balloons with a plastic sword, or cavorting with dancers dressed as giant spiders clambering up and down a makeshift web. The rest of the time he spent striking theatrical poses like a first-year drama student and shouting a lot. Hmm, terrifying. Parents – protect your children’s eyes.

It was amusing to watch something which may have seemed rebellious and edgy at the time now appearing fantastically tame. In fact, the most nightmarish thing about the entire show was the somewhat unflattering red jumpsuit he wore which unfortunately left very little to the imagination.

This tempering of what was once seen as subversive isn’t a quality restricted to Mr Cooper, and it’s well-documented that what goes around comes around in music. Years ago, Elvis’s swaying hips were the most seditious thing in the world of entertainment, with each trademark wiggle sending out seismic shockwaves of repressed sexuality across America, corrupting young girls and disgusting their parents.

And so to today, where the natural inheritor of Alice Cooper’s crown is Marilyn Manson, who has kept the pasty face and heavy eye makeup of his predecessor, and who has his own effect on impressionable youth. To all of you moping around in your big black coats and peculiar hair: your little hero, with his toyshop props and one googly eye, is about as outrageous and subversive as those root vegetables that used to appear on That’s Life that resembled malformed genitalia.

Time will judge him just as it judges everything else. He’s just a normal skinny chap called Brian who’s had a persona constructed by some clever marketing people at the record company in an effort to convince you that you might like to buy his music, and really you’re no different from the girls who used to go into paroxysms of delight every time Mr Presley flung his pelvis left and right. Aah! Bless you all...