Hey Stoopid (1991)

At this point, the thought of a new Alice Cooper album is both admirable and pathetic, just like the idea of a 45-year-old man playing the role of decadent, mascara-streaked rock star. But give Alice credit: He knows that it's ridiculous too and that rather than even attempt an adult image, he's better off constructing a nothing-but-good-dumb-fun album like this follow-up to his 1989 comeback, Trash. Hey Stoopid is radio-friendly hard-rock fluff of the Bon Jovi or latter-day Aerosmith genre, but with better hooks than anything on, say, Jon Bon Jovi's solo album. Like Kiss, Cooper has settled into a respectable middle-aged rock formula: choruses that resemble football-stadium chants, truckloads of hammer-on-anvil power chords, and lyrics that work best when they are indeed stupid (''Feed my Frankenstein/Hungry for love/And it's feeding time''). Granted, the album is only a faint echo of the creepy and wonderfully adolescent rock theatrics of his 1970-73 gory days. But as long as Alice keeps getting the joke, he can wear all the eyeliner he wants. B-