Alice Cooper - Welcome To My Nightmare

Welcome To My Nightmare is the eighth studio album by American singer-songwriter and musician Alice Cooper, originally released in March 1975 via Atlantic Records.

This was Alice Cooper’s first solo album using the band name as his stage name and was produced by Bob Ezrin.

Welcome To My Nightmare is a concept album about a boy called Steven, who suffers nightmares. This author considers this album to be almost a progressive rock album as there is a mix of melodic pop songs with some more complex pieces of music that build themes around the characters and stories retelling the nightmares.

Legendary American horror actor Vincent Price makes an appearance on the album as The Curator in the song “Devil’s Food” adding a nice menacing touch to the album. The backing band for the album included a couple of members of Lou Reed’s band, Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter on guitars. Wagner and Cooper wrote majority of the songs for the album.

The haunting piano theme on “Steven” is distinctive and was reprised on Cooper’s 2011 sequel Welcome 2 My Nightmare.

The rocker “Department of Youth” was released as the lead single on the album and reached #7 in Australia and #67 on the US Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart. The second single, the ballad “Only Women Bleed” reached #12 in the US and has endured as one of his most successful songs. The third single from the album was “Welcome To My Nightmare” that peaked at #45 on the US Singles charts.

The album reached #5 on the US Billboard 200, #19 on the UK and #5 on the Australian Albums charts, and remains his biggest selling solo album of his career to date.

The album cover art was created by Drew Struzan for Pacific Eye & Ear, and ranks as one of the most distinctive covers of all time.

This is an album well worth adding to any record collection, a great example of a 1970s concept album, that flows seamlessly from start to finish.

This album is a 2021 limited edition reissue on clear coloured vinyl with a printed inner sleeve, pressed in Europe via Atlantic Records.