Billion Dollar Bonus

I’ve noticed a lot of hits from people searching for Amy Winehouse, since her near sweep at the Grammys on Sunday night. I suppose I could be a whore and post more Amy; I think I have another live show or two stacked away somewhere. But a more favorable ploy is to promise to post more soon and see if I can get people to keep coming back and, I hope, checking out the other stuff here.

That being my decision, I was pretty happy to get my hands on a couple of Alice Cooper disks the other day. The first is the bonus reissue edition of Billion Dollar Babies and the other is Alice’s first official live album, The Alice Cooper Show.

I used to have the vinyl version of The Alice Cooper Show, but I’ve bitched about my vinyl issues before and won’t get into that again. I hope to sometime in the not-too-distant future spotlight a couple of tracks from that album, which is one of my favorite live disks. Tonight, though, I want to get into some of the bonus material from Billion Dollar Babies.

Billion Dollar Babies was originally released in March 1973. AllMusic.com called the album, “probably the original Alice Cooper group's finest and strongest.” It included the hits “Elected,” “No More Mister Nice Guy,” and the title track. The album itself peaked at Number One on the Billboard charts.

The bonus disk in the re-release package includes 11 tracks recorded in Houston on the 1973 Billion Dollar Babies tour. There are also three previously unreleased songs: “Coal Black Model T,” “Son of a Billion Dollar Babies,” and “Slick Black Limousine.” “Coal Black Model T” is an early version of “Limousine.” “Limousine” was released in the UK as a free flexi-disc in NME magazine, and “Son” was an outtake that had been previously unreleased.

Billion Dollar Babies (live).mp3
No More Mr. Nice Guy (live).mp3
I Love the Dead (live).mp3
Slick Black Limousine.mp3

Labels: classic rock, live albums, outtakes

posted by aikin @ 9:59 PM