Alice Cooper, never one to bite his tongue, has let his thoughts be known about the state of modern rock music in a recent interview with Billboard.
In the interview, Cooper talks about how an Alice Cooper show is devoid of politics. “I’m taking you away from CNN. I’m not plugging you into it,” he said.
“You’re coming to me the way you would go see Harry Potter, the way you would go see Lord of the Rings or the Avengers.”
He then took a weird segue into how female pop stars – namely Lady Gaga, Rihanna and Shakira– are the artists that are giving fans big production, and how he wishes young rock bands would do the same.
“Isn’t it interesting that the girls are the ones doing all the big productions? Lady Gaga does an amazing production, and she really knows what she’s doing up there – same with Shakira, same with Rihanna,” Cooper said.
“It’s amazing that the girls are taking over the big productions and the guys have become very introverted. I don’t quite understand why a young rock band would be introverted rather than, “I’m a rock star. Let me loose! Get me up there and let me rock that place!” I see young rock bands being introverted; they don’t want to be rock stars, almost. They’re anti-rock star.”
“I totally understand the Lady Gaga thing,” he continued. “It’s just amazing to me that more guys haven’t jumped in and done big productions.”
He gave a shoutout to Bruno Mars as well, who he says is “more versatile than Michael Jackson.” He did make a note that Foo Fighters and Green Day are “very good at what they do.”
“They don’t let up on the audience and give the audience every single ounce of energy that they’ve got,” he said.
“I look around and I go, ‘Why aren’t 18-year-old bands jumping on this?!'”
Finally, Cooper believes there’ll be a resurgence of 80s-style bands, that will embrace the big production he’s craving so much from bands.
“I think there’s gonna be a resurgence of the ’80s, where you’re going to see young bands trying to be Mötley Crüe, and young bands trying to be Bon Jovi. That was a fun period,” he said.
“They call them the hair bands, but think of it — the songs were great, the records were great, the videos were great, the stage show was great, and they had personality. All of these bands, you look at them, and you go, ‘Wow, these guys really knew what they were doing.’ And then it went away.”
