Song of the Day 11/7: Alice Cooper, “Billion Dollar Babies”

Elon Musk and his stockholders sure showed Delaware Chancery Court. You think $56 billion in CEO compensation is excessive? How about … one TRILLION dollars? That’s how much Tesla will pay Musk if he meets “certain performance targets” over the next decade. Sure, car sales are down, but Elon’s new pitch is robots, so why not?

When this album was released in 1973, there were five billionaires in the world. As of earlier this year, there were more than 900 in the U.S. alone, and quite a few of them act like babies, so maybe Alice Cooper was a prophet in shock-rock garb. Any Generation Alpha band that covers it will have to update it if Elon Musk becomes the world’s first trillion-dollar baby.

The most shocking thing about “Billion Dollar Babies” was that the album hit No. 1, just a couple of years after Alice Cooper’s shock-rock stage show gained him a cult following and a “satanic” reputation. By 1973 people had gotten used to snakes, skewered baby dolls and mock executions, and Cooper was switching to winking acknowledgement that it was all an act (this was years before Vincent Furnier became a golfer).

The album made Alice Cooper an international act; it went to No. 1 in the UK and the top 10 everywhere, despite not having any songs that matched the classic rock standards “School’s Out” and “I’m 18.” “Billion Dollar Babies,” the third single from the LP, only reached No. 57 on the Billboard Hot 100. Given that it’s the only song you’ll find pairing Alice Cooper with Donovan Leitch and featuring the dual guitar work of Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, it should have done better.

It’s about a sex doll, so it sounds like the kind of robot Musk’s fans would buy.