Fans of ’70s Rock know all too well the classic works of a band by the name of Alice Cooper. And while that name ultimately became the moniker of the singer for his later solo career, the legacy left behind by the band, who kicked out grand albums in whirlwind seven to nine month periods, reached its peak with an album called Billion Dollar Babies.
Billion Dollar Babies was released after the hefty success of School’s Out, the album that generated the title song that, to this day, is an anthem of school being let out. Billion Dollar Babies was released a mere nine months after School’s Out. It was an anticipated release, and was preceded by a promotional video for “Elected”, pre-MTV. As the album was released, it issued a single of “Hello, Hooray”, a brilliant Rolf Kempf cover done as only Alice Cooper (the band) could do. (For more cover coolness, check out the Rolf Harris “Sun Arise” cover, heard on Love It To Death.
Billion Dollar Babies generated several hit singles that included “No More Mister Nice Guy”, “Elected”, “Billion Dollar Babies”, and the previously mentioned “Hello Hooray”. Whatever didn’t get released as a single into the Top 100, played quite well on FM radio.
Audio Fidelity has, for some time now, been back in the SACD flow. That itself is a grand thought for SACD fans, who still want their favorites played back in the best way possible. Their new SACD remaster of Billion Dollar Babies is a guarantee to make happy fans of the album. Remastered by Steve Hoffman, who does a lot of the label’s remastering, the album sounds brilliant. I loved all of Alice Cooper’s albums (as the band), even Muscle Of Love, which, unfortunately is an album not as well loved as I would hope it were. I played them from Love It To Death to Muscle Of Love, picking each up as they arrived, back-tracking only for Easy Action, and Pretties For You. And I can tell you that I’m well-pleased with the audio on Audio Fidelity’s SACD version of Billion Dollar Babies.
The SACD is a Hybrid disc, which means it incorporates the industry standard of a Redbook CD layer for playback in cars, etc. The set adds a bonus of a folded Billion Dollar bill, replicating the original LP’s LP-sized bill tucked into the gatefold jacket’s “wallet” clip. Like all Audio Fidelity issues, the SACD carries a limited edition number to create value when the store of SACDs created depletes.
I’m glad I have this one!
I just got this disc yesterday. It’s the first non-compilation Alice Cooper album I have ever purchased. I am thrilled that Audio Fidelity has switched to SACD. Since January I have acquired 17 of their SACDs as well as 10 of their 24 kt. gold discs.
So where is the original CD-4 Quad mix or the DVD-Audio 5.1 mix….?
There should be enough space for these – Or else on a Blu-ray Audio version… sigh.
Those are Warner issues.
I was on the fence about this one, then I listened to the DVD-Audio today and I think there is room for improvement so I am in.