The 1971 Alice Cooper song that shaped rock, according to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
While Alice Cooper’s catalogue is full of controversial and incendiary moments that shocked plenty of audiences, his tendency to rile people up should never overshadow the fact that he produced some of rock music’s finest records.
However, while many of these sharp bursts of primal rock and roll energy were simply written with the intention of being provocative, such as the supposedly education-shunning ‘School’s Out’ that caused a stir among people who thought he was genuinely inciting teenagers to burn down classrooms, some of Cooper’s songs were far more insightful and provided deeper commentary on the faults of certain aspects of society.
When it comes to the song that influenced the course of rock and roll the most, one might immediately jump to the aforementioned primal 1972 hit that stormed to the top of the UK charts, despite being banned by multiple radio stations for its rebelliousness, but according to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it’s a song from one year prior that stands out as his greatest contribution to the genre.
Although Cooper and his band were only inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2011, when the Cleveland, Ohio-based institution compiled a list of 500 songs that supposedly shaped rock and roll in 1995, they selected the group’s breakthrough hit, ‘I’m Eighteen’, as the standout song. Given how it brought Cooper to mainstream attention as a shock rock provocateur who audiences simply weren’t ready to handle, it’s understandable that they would nominate such a song as their most culturally impactful.
The Hall of Fame expanded their original list in 2018 to include a further 160 songs from previously ineligible points in rock history, but ‘I’m Eighteen’ still stands proudly among this titanic list of notable tracks with its aggressive power chords and snarling political lyricism, both these aspects being what made it such a tour de force in the first place.
With Cooper assuming the role of a teenager about to come of age in the song, ‘I’m Eighteen’ laughs about the inconsistencies in American laws that prohibited 18-year-olds from drinking alcohol or voting in certain states, but that they could be called upon to fight for their country in a war on foreign soil.
Given how over 60% of those killed in combat during the Vietnam War, which was still ongoing in 1971 when the song was written and released, were under the age of 21, the rage that Cooper displays when it comes to questioning what his country demands of him as a teenager is palpable, and while not a protest song in the traditional sense, his scathing criticism can be heard as he snarls through every line.
With a slight glam rock flair but an almost demonic way of presenting himself, Cooper undoubtedly went on to influence so many other artists in subsequent years, wanting to create their own transgressive art that had the potential to make audiences uncomfortable. Artists such as Sex Pistols’ John Lydon, who would go on to create a controversial persona of his own later in the same decade, supposedly earned his place in the pioneering punk band by auditioning with this song, and countless others have taken clear cues from having been exposed to Cooper’s brilliance.
With ‘I’m Eighteen’ having been their breakthrough song, this is undoubtedly the song that defines them the most, and while other songs that came afterwards may have endured more success, they wouldn’t have been able to happen without this watershed moment.
