Constrictor is the sixteenth studio album by rock musician Alice Cooper released on September 22, 1986. After a hiatus from the music industry after the release of DaDa, Cooper remained in seclusion for three years. He starred in Monster Dog, a horror film for which he wrote two songs. He also guest starred on the Twisted Sister track “Be Chrool to Your Scuel”. Constrictor was Alice Cooper’s first album to feature Kane Roberts on guitar, Kip Winger on bass, who would later gain great fame with his own band, Winger and the only one to feature David Rosenberg on drums.<\/p>\n
Cooper sought the aid of heavy metal guitarist Kane Roberts for the album, which resulted in a sound Cooper had never tapped into before. Constrictor exposed a whole new generation of teens to the original shock rocker, returning him to the charts at number 59 after his previous two releases Zipper Catches Skin and DaDa had entirely failed to crack the Top 200. For all intents and purposes, Constrictor was the first “normal”album Cooper had released in nearly eight years, since his records following From the Inside were seen as largely experimental.<\/p>\n
The horror series Friday the 13th teamed up with Cooper during this time to produce the theme song for its latest film. The song \u201cHe’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask)\u201d was written for Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives and went on to become a #1 hit in Sweden. Also featured in the film were Constrictor\u2019s \u201cTeenage Frankenstein\u201d and \u201cHard Rock Summer,\u201d which did not end up on the album.<\/p>\n
The track \u201cThe Great American Success Story\u201d was apparently intended as the theme song to the Rodney Dangerfield film Back to School, but was not actually used.<\/p>\n
The demo of \u201cHe\u2019s Back (The Man Behind the Mask)\u201d was totally different from the final album version. A reworked version of the \u201cHe’s Back\u201d demo landed on the album as \u201cTrick Bag\u201d instead. The version of \u201cHe\u2019s Back\u201d that was featured in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives was remixed from the album version.<\/p>\n
Constrictor also led to one of the most successful tours of the late 1980s, \u201cThe Nightmare Returns\u201d tour. Three songs from the album, \u201cTeenage Frankenstein\u201d, \u201cGive It Up\u201d and \u201cThe World Needs Guts\u201d were regularly performed on this tour. However, as with all Cooper live songs since Lace and Whiskey, these songs failed to remain in the setlist during subsequent tours. \u201cTeenage Frankenstein\u201d was also played on the tour supporting the follow-up Raise Your Fist and Yell album and occasionally during the 2001 \u201cDescent into Dragontown\u201d tour, whilst \u201cHe\u2019s Back (The Man Behind the Mask)\u201d was played occasionally in the late 1980s and the early 2000s before becoming a frequent part of the setlist on the \u201cRaise the Dead\u201d tour, and \u201cThe World Needs Guts\u201d is played a regular part of 2017 and 2018 shows, to showcase guitar player Nita Strauss mastery of tapping.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Constrictor is the sixteenth studio album by rock musician Alice Cooper released on September 22, 1986. After a hiatus from the music industry after the release of DaDa, Cooper remained in seclusion for three years. He starred in Monster Dog, a horror film for which he wrote two songs. He also guest starred on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":201,"featured_media":4099,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[16,1],"class_list":["post-4092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alice-cooper","tag-hard-rock","tag-international-rock"],"yoast_head":"\n