This one is for all the people who were elected yesterday, a list that does not yet include a president.
Though the song appeared Alice Cooper’s 1973’s “Billion Dollar Babies” LP, it was released as a single the autumn before, in time for the 1972 presidential election. It didn’t make much of a dent in the election — Nixon carried 49 states — or on the charts, where it topped out at No. 26.
The album fared much better, topping the charts and launching the band on a national tour that was the highest-grossing ever at the time. Alice Cooper (the name of the band as well as its front man) had always put on elaborate stage shows, and this one featured effects and a stage role for magician James Randi, later to be known as professional skeptic The Amazing Randi, who died last month at 92.
But it was also the turning point that made clear the band’s reputation for shock was campy, not scary. It was easy to see that success changed them. As Cooper put it, “How could we, this band that two years ago was living in the Chambers Brothers’ basement in Watts, be the Number One band in the world, with people throwing money at us?” The answer: By softening up.
You can hear the difference between the successful version of the band and its original sound, because “Elected” is actually a reworking of the band’s first-ever single, “Reflected,” from its 1969 LP “Pretties for You.” It’s the difference between the garage rock they started with and the glam rock they adopted in the early-to-mid ’70s.
