Billion Dollar Babies (1973)

Billion Dollar Babies is the sixth studio album by American rock band Alice Cooper, released on February 27, 1973. The album became the best selling Alice Cooper record at the time of its release, hitting number one on the album charts in the United States and the United Kingdom, and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.

The album has been retrospectively praised by such critics as Robert Christgau, Greg Prato of AllMusic, and Jason Thompson of PopMatters, but The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004) gave the album only two and a half stars.

Songs were recorded in both the state of Connecticut and London, England. Lyrics cover topics and themes such as necrophilia, dental fear, horror, and sexual harassment.

Recording and production

Drummer Neal Smith has said that the album can be traced back to the song "Caught in a Dream" from the album Love It to Death (1971). The first recording sessions for the album took place in Greenwich, Connecticut, in a mansion called the Galesi Estate. To achieve certain vocal sounds and echoes, microphones were run through rooms of various sizes and through a greenhouse. Other sessions were held at Morgan Studios in London, where singer Donovan contributed to the album by singing on its title track. The album was produced by Bob Ezrin with Gerry Lyon as assistant in New York, Connecticut and London.

Guitarists Glen Buxton and Michael Bruce both used Gibson SGs for the album. Three additional guitarists (including longtime band friend Mick Mashbir and New York-based session musicians Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter) were retained to cover for Buxton, who suffered from alcohol abuse-related pancreatitis throughout the sessions.

A quadraphonic mix of the album was released on both 8-track and reel-to-reel format, as well as vinyl. This features radically different mixes of all of the songs, including different vocal tracks ("Raped and Freezin'"), unfaded endings ("Generation Landslide"), and editing ("I Love the Dead"). Alice's lead vocals are more upfront in the quad mix than the stereo mix.

Rumors that this mix of the album can be found on the DVD-Audio release are untrue. The DVD-Audio release contains a newer 5.1 channel mix of the album, based on the original 2-channel tracks as opposed to the quad mix. In June 2023 Rhino released a Blu-ray with the quadraphonic and stereo mixes.

Lyrical themes and subjects

The album's title comes from the fact that the five members of Alice Cooper were surprised about their success. Cooper related: "How could we, this band that two years ago was living in the Chambers Brothers' basement in Watts, be the Number One band in the world, with people throwing money at us?" The title was also later used as the name of the group Neal Smith, Dennis Dunaway, and Michael Bruce formed after Alice Cooper group had split up. Cooper said, "The whole idea behind the Billion Dollar Babies album was exploiting the idea that people do have sick perversions."

Alice Cooper, who wrote the majority of the album's lyrics, cited Chuck Berry as a key influence on his writing. "Hello Hooray", the album's opening track, was written by Canadian singer/songwriter Rolf Kempf and was previously recorded by Judy Collins. The band wanted their version of the song to sound like "Alice Cooper meets Cabaret". The album's third track, "Elected", is a rewrite of the song "Reflected" from Pretties for You (1969). "Raped and Freezin'" has been called a "hilarious and gorgeously catchy" take on the idea of sexual harassment by PopMatters's Jason Thompson. "Unfinished Sweet" is about visiting a dentist with sound effects recorded by Gerry Lyon. The title track was co-written by Reggie Vinson (credited on original pressings of the album as "R. Reggie", i.e., "Rockin' Reggie Vinson"), who had played guitar on and performed vocals for School's Out (1972). Donovan described the song as a "horror story song". The album's closing track, "I Love the Dead", is a tongue-in-cheek song about necrophilia.

Touring

After the album was released, the band embarked on a tour which broke the United States box office records previously held by the Rolling Stones and included a scheduled 64 concerts in 59 cities in 90 days. The gross revenue of the tour was anticipated to be close to $20 million, but only about $4 million was achieved.

Cooper hired magician James Randi to design effects for the show, and Randi traveled with the tour to supervise and coordinate the effects. Randi even played a role in the stage show as "The Executioner".