Alice Cooper ( b20 )

1990s

In 1991, Cooper released his 19th studio album Hey Stoopid featuring several notable rock musicians guesting on the record. Released as glam metal's popularity was on the wane, and just before the explosion of grunge, it failed to have the same commercial impact as its predecessor. The same year also saw the release of the video Alice Cooper: Prime Cuts which chronicled his entire career using in depth interviews with Cooper himself, Bob Ezrin, and Shep Gordon. One critic has noted that Prime Cuts demonstrates how Cooper had used (in contrast to similar artists who succeeded him) themes of satire and moralisation to such good effect throughout his career. It was in the Prime Cuts video that Bob Ezrin delivered his own summation of the Alice Cooper persona: "He is the psycho killer in all of us. He's the axe murderer, he's the spoiled child, he's the abuser, he's the abused; he's the perpetrator, he's the victim, he's the gun slinger, and he's the guy lying dead in the middle of the street".

During the early 1990s, Cooper guested on records by the most successful bands of the time, such as the Guns N' Roses album Use Your Illusion I, on which he shared vocal duties with Axl Rose on the track "The Garden". He also had a brief appearance as the abusive stepfather of Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare On Elm Street film Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991).

Cooper made a cameo appearance in the 1992 comedy film Wayne's World. Cooper and his band first appear onstage performing "Feed My Frankenstein" from Hey Stoopid. Afterwards at a backstage party, the movie's main characters Wayne and Garth discover that when offstage Cooper is a calm, articulate intellectual when he and his band discuss the history of Milwaukee in depth. Wayne and Garth respond to an invitation to hang out with Cooper by kneeling and bowing reverently before him while chanting "We're not worthy! We're not worthy!"

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