It's almost hard to remember a time - what with all the golf and the Republican politics - when Alice Cooper was considered a serious threat to the morality of America's youth. But he was, and not without foundation. In the 1970's, Alice Cooper drew attention for their grotesque theatrics - the feigned onstage executions, the live boa constrictors, the ghoulish makeup and bizarre costumes. These were merely trappings - shocking, perhaps, in their day, but barely amusing by modern standards. These days, you'll see worse violence in Saturday morning cartoons. The thing that made Alice Cooper genuinely threatening was their music, which raised the venomous, violent hard rock of rebellion and discontent out of the gutter and placed it front-and-center on the airwaves and concert stages of middle America.

It's also a stretch to think of Alice Cooper as a band (they) rather than a person (him). But a band they were, and a damn good one, capable of muscular, sinister rock like "I'm Eighteen" and "Is It My Body" that enthralled a generation of misfits. Alice Cooper (the band) were genuinely hip back then, part of the Michigan underground that included the MC5 and the Stooges. And, Alice Cooper (the singer) was simply Vincent Furnier, wayward son of a Baptist minister. Only later did Furnier adopt the moniker of Alice Cooper, who, according to the band's dubious publicity, was a 17th century witch. By the mid-70's, Furnier shed his crack band, keeping the name and eventually morphing into a heavy metal hack of startling unoriginality. And, in the most shocking development of all, Cooper (nee Furnier) became an accepted - if novel - member of mainstream, conservative society.

Originally, Alice Cooper were signed to Frank Zappa's Straight Records imprint (sister label of his Bizarre Records) and were based in Los Angeles. The two records they cut for Zappa - Pretties For You (1969) and Easy Action (1970) - were competent, unremarkable hard rock that nevertheless foreshadowed the menacing music to come. After garnering little success in L.A., Alice Cooper relocated to Detroit (Furnier's hometown) and switched to Warner Brothers, Straight Records' distributor. There, they really began to cook, waxing a series of great albums over the next five years while developing a spectacular stage show that forever associated the name of Alice Cooper with the macabre. Even as the singer's emerging persona began to overshadow the music, Alice Cooper continued to crank out brilliant singles like "Hello Hooray" and "No More Nice Guy."

Alice Cooper's brief golden era began with Love It To Death (1971), which also launched the career of producer Bob Ezrin, who later helmed classic rock classics like Kiss' Destroyer and Pink Floyd's The Wall. Yielding a terrific hit single ("Eighteen" b/w "Body"), Love It To Death was truly a group effort, with every member of the band - especially guitarists Mike Bruce and Glen Buxton - contributing to the songwriting. The follow-up, Killer (1971), further refined the Cooper mystique with charming ditties like "Dead Babies," while also providing brilliant rockers like "Under My Wheels" and "Be My Lover." But, Alice Cooper were still largely an underground phenomenon, favored by freaks and miscreants, and had failed to yet crack the Top 20 on either the album or single charts. That was all about to change.

With School's Out (1972) and Billion Dollar Babies (1973), Alice Cooper stormed the citadel, placing records in the Top 10 and becoming the focus of fascination and outrage worldwide. While the title smash from School's Out became the Alice Cooper's biggest hit - and an annual pre-summer favorite of pre-teens - the album itself was the group's most accomplished and ambitious work yet, adding progressive touches to the band's anthemic garage rock. Later that year, Alice Cooper released a new single, "Elected" (based on a song from Pretties For You), to capitalize on the Nixon-McGovern presidential election. Included on Billion Dollar Babies (also available in a deluxe 2-CD version), "Elected" was but one of several great tracks on a record that, song-for-song, was the group's best yet.

Muscle Of Love (1973) was the last album that Alice Cooper (the group) would ever record. Though it contained some memorable tracks (especially "Teenage Lament '74"), it was something of a disappointment, both artistically and commercially - at least compare to the four previous stellar efforts. Those five records, however, served as the basis for Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits (1974, remastered in 2004), a perennial best-seller and a phenomenal compilation that effectively closed the books on the original Alice Cooper band. The twelve songs therein provide an impressive display of rock 'n' roll mayhem that should impress rockers of all generations - from rockabilly cats to heavy metal lunkheads to snot-nosed, pissed-off punks - with its verve and originality.

Retaining the expert assistance of Bob Ezrin and hiring a kick-ass band - the one which supported Lou Reed on Berlin and Rock & Roll Animal - Alice Cooper (the singer) met with initial success as a solo act, releasing Welcome To My Nightmare (1975) and Goes To Hell (1976). These albums presented a pleasant-but-polished version of the Alice Cooper schtick, relying on ballads ("Only Women," "I Never Cry") as much as rockers. Moreover, the songs began to focus as much on Alice ("Go To Hell," "Guilty") as anything else, trading on the singer's widespread reputation as a professional reprobate. As Cooper's solo career wore on, he completely swapped out the garage rock that earned him his initial glory for generic, plodding heavy metal. He continued scoring the occasional hit, but younger generations saw Alice Cooper as little more than a noisy clown.

By 1999, Alice Cooper had completed his 30th year in the limelight, and his once-shocking routines had long been surpassed by acolytes such as Marilyn Manson, the Genitorturers, Gwar, and Danzig. That year, Cooper was officially accepted as a traditional celebrity by the entertainment establishment, honored first with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and then with a 4-CD boxed set, The Life And Crimes Of Alice Cooper (Rhino Records). While brilliantly compiled - liner notes by Johnny Rotten! - the box is recommended mainly for the faithful. In its favor, Life And Crimes includes many rare cuts, including many from the band's early days - even tossing in a track by Billion Dollar Babies, the group formed by the original Alice Cooper band after their split from Alice. On the other hand, fully half of Life And Crimes is devoted to Cooper's regrettable "metal years," placing the emphasis on his least interesting material.

More attractive to the casual fan will be Rhino's single-disc anthology, The Very Best Of Alice Cooper: Mascara & Monsters. As good as Warner's old Greatest Hits is, Very Best is better, containing every song from the former album plus latter-day hits such as "You And I," "Clones," and "Poison" - 22 tracks in all. Highly recommended as an introduction to an artist - that is, a band - now greatly underappreciated.