The unexpected debut of Alice Cooper can only be called looking back, being familiar with those musical blockbusters that the group recorded in the early seventies, and which made it fame. But fifty years ago, guys, having come to the studio, had no idea what could come of their musical opuses, which they really did not rehearse. And here, when start studying the history of this debut album, curious facts come up that are interesting, perhaps, only in the context of a deep immersion in the history of rock music.

If you listen to what happened to band's in the debut of the studio activity on the album "Pretties For You", then there is nothing to do with the future hits of the time of "Schools Out" and "Billion Dollar Babies" either musically, in composition, or in terms of sound. Nevertheless, it must be said that in my opinion the group consistently went to the heights of hard rock glam, starting with the first exercises in transit through the albums "Love It To Death" and "Killer".

It is worth reminding that the Alice Cooper brand and the musician known as Alice Cooper are two different things. Until 1975, the name Alice Cooper denoted a group, one of the members of which was frontman and vocalist Vincent Fournier. Vincent played a far from decisive role in the formation of the group and in its work. The authors of the compositions were all musicians without exception, together and separately, to the extent that almost the most charismatic compositions of "Billion Dollar Babies" in 1973 were generally written by the band's producer.

Alice Cooper transferred to Fournier as a copyright split in the second half of the seventies, so while listening to Alice Cooper before this period, remember that this is a group, not a person with witch makeup at the microphone.

For many, it will be unexpected that Syd Barrett, founder and inspirer of Pink Floyd, had a great influence on the musical component of the compositions from his debut work. The fact is that future Alice Cooper members were hanging out with Pink Floyd musicians, then little known in the United States, during a British tour in 1967. Syd Barrett’s manner of playing and musical glance impressed Alice Cooper guitarist Glen Buxton quite a lot - on many tracks of the album one can feel a strong psychedelic beginning, evoking associations with early Pink Floyd, such as on "Levity Bell".

The second curious fact that gives an understanding of what was going on in the head of the musicians is the fact that Frank Zappa recorded newcomers and took part in the production. The backstory of relationship between Alice Cooper and Zappa is such that Frank turned up at a national concert in the Los Angeles club, where guys went on stage. After the first two songs, the auditorium was empty, to which entrepreneur Sharp remarked to Frank that a group that could expel two thousand people from the auditorium in two songs had powerful potential. Frank, known as a connoisseur of all sorts of freaks and having a paradoxical approach, agreed with him and invited the musicians to record in his own studio.

By this time, rock music with might and main acquired new meanings and spread to many directions. The defiant appearance of Alice Cooper musicians, enchanting outfits, an excessively loud and careless garage sound, a laid-back manner of behavior on the stage - all this looked pretty honest and could in the future find its listener, which happened.

At the studio recordings, the elements of garage rock did not disappear - the sound was completely raw and uncleaned, however, the influence of Barrett and Zappa himself is felt in the overloaded compositions with syncopation, sound effects and an ambiguous change of tonalities - elements of psychedelic. The combination of these two components looks quite wild, given the professionalism of the musicians, which had not taken place by then.

The participation of Frank Zappa, by the way, was reduced to a presence in the studio during the first five minutes of work. After that, the maestro safely rode away on some of his affairs, leaving his brother for the chief. The musicians were sure that they were rehearsing before the base recording, waiting for the return of Zappa.

However, he returned and informed them that the recording was finished and these rehearsal tracks would go on the album. Guys were shocked and indignant. Zappa did not even bother to listen to the material. However, everything remained as it is, although the album, instead of the promised week, was released only six months later, in the middle of 1969.

Well, the third curious fact is the appearance of the name of the album. Frank Zappa himself was engaged in the design of the cover and, as usual, approached this simply by deciding to put a picture on the cover. It was planned as much as Salvador Dali, but failed to agree with the rights. Then Zappa took one of two paintings by his friend, American artist Edward Beardsley. The paintings were called "The Four Apostles" and "Pretties For You". The second became the cover of the debut album of the group Alice Cooper and gave the name to the album.

The album turned out to be far from outstanding from a musical point of view, but very indicative of understanding the musical atmosphere of the United States in the late sixties. The heyday of hippie culture was not at all decisive in the music scene, as many now see it.

Figures such as Frank Zappa were thought in a wider category, practically beyond the scope of psychedelicism, which at that time seemed to be the embodiment of a huge number of musical directions. And we must pay tribute to Frank - he discerned the very string in the eclectic debut work of Alice Cooper and recorded the first three albums, becoming indirectly their godfather. I must say that this string grew from album to album, the direction narrowed and formed, until it led to the recognizable style of Alice Cooper in the early seventies.