Alice Cooper Group: "The Seven Most Outrageous Rock Stars of 1972" Feature (1973)

Alice Cooper Group’s "The Seven Most Outrageous Rock Stars of 1972," a four-page feature in Circus Magazine, January 1973

In 1972, a Pittsburgh preacher denounced Alice Cooper (below left) from the pulpit, a self-appointed British censor tried to wipe him off the airwaves, and the University of Houston student body elect- ed him home-coming queen. The astonishing Carnegie Hall debut of David Bowie (opposite page) attracted more pink, green and blue hair, dyed afros, men in gowns, and girls with silver glitter glued to their cheeks than America had ever seen gathered in one audience before.

Hordes of mascaraed male rockers and battling multi-million dollar managers made 1972 The Year Of The Unbelievable.

1972 was the year of unadulterated outrage in rock. It was the year of men in hot pants and lipstick mincing around the stage, baby dolls hacked to bits amid showers of blood, and lawsuits so large they rivaled the Pentagon budget. It was the year of a Cocker comeback that competed with the Howard Hughes affair for intrigue and suspense, a T. Rex tour that rivalled the downfall of Oedipus for tragic disappointment, and a Cros- by, Stills, Nash and Young breakup so murky that not even the group itself seemed to know if it was still together. But despite the billowing clouds of stage smoke, the heaps of silver sparkles, and the countless storms of controversy, there were seven rockers so utterly outrageous