Detroit Stories

On his 2019 EP Breadcrumbs, shock rock pioneer Alice Cooper paid tribute to his hometown of Detroit, working in a Detroit studio with a host of musicians from the city recording a smattering of covers of Bob Seger, the MC5, Suzy Quatro, the Dirtbombs, and other Motor City favorites. Full-length album Detroit Stories expands on the theme begun with Breadcrumbs, presenting many of the EP's tracks again and fleshing out the record with new originals and covers. Showing up a second time are high-spirited covers of the MC5's "Sister Anne," Seger's "East Side Story," and original tunes "Go Man Go" and "Detroit City 2021" (updated from its title "Detroit City 2020" on the EP). Exciting new additions include a cover of the Lou Reed-penned song "Rock & Roll," delivered with the same energetic barroom swagger as the early-'70s Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels rendition, and an unexpected cover of longtime Detroit independent rockers Outrageous Cherry's hooky sunshine pop anthem "Our Love Will Change the World." Cooper's longtime producer Bob Erzin delivers the same thick, powerful sound he's achieved on many of Cooper's post-2000s albums, with booming heavy metal drums, walls of guitar, and Cooper's sinister vocals high in the mix. For every surprisingly strong cover version, Detroit Stories has a clunker original. Boozy blues rocker "Drunk and In Love" and the uptempo riffing of "Social Debris" are passable if uninspired, but the obnoxious "Independence Dave" and warmed-over, Kiss-reminiscent "Shut Up and Rock" could have easily been left off the album's 15-song track listing. Even with its all-star cast of Detroit players (Wayne Kramer, Grand Funk Railroad's Mark Farner, members of the original Alice Cooper band, and many others all contribute), Detroit Stories is stuck in a confusing limbo somewhere between tribute to Detroit and another album of the kind of campy, theatrical, radio-geared hard rock Cooper has been turning in since Hey Stoopid. Never quite committing to either concept, Detroit Stories ends up feeling like a handful of solid covers of classic Detroit tunes with some Alice Cooper extras thrown in at random.