‘My Generation’: Alice Cooper on “the first anthem” of rock and roll

Posted On August 21, 2024August 21, 2024

Rock and roll exploded onto the scene during the 1950s, providing a cultural identity for young people around the world. However, the genre was fairly tame while in its infancy, still taking many of its cues from country, blues, and R&B music. It was only during the 1960s that the movement of rock began to truly tear down boundaries, with the advent of the counterculture age and the British Invasion. As a budding young musician in Arizona, Alice Cooper had a front-row seat to this musical revolution.

Cooper – or, to use his birth name, Vincent Furnier – had been a disciple of rock and roll from a very young age, but it was the music of the British invasion which inspired him to take up performing. In fact, his earliest performances, as a 16-year-old participating in his high school talent competition, saw the future rock icon playing covers of songs by The Beatles. Inevitably, though, young Cooper soon found himself yearning for music that was a little heavier, a little more anarchic than the Fab Four. 

If The Beatles represented the pinnacle of British pop during the 1960s, then The Who were their misfit younger brothers. Led by the songwriting of guitarist Pete Townshend, the London outfit helped to completely reinvent the landscape of rock music, pioneering a defiant, infectious, and loud style of playing that would go on to inspire everybody from The Small Faces to Nirvana. Their raucous performance style had a particular impact on Alice Cooper, who was infatuated with the band from their very first releases.

While most bands might spend a few years honing their craft before achieving any mainstream success, The Who were not most bands. Their earliest singles, namely ‘I Can’t Explain’ and ‘Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere’, immediately established the artistic manifesto of Townsend and the revolutionary rock of The Who. Cooper was hooked almost instantly, but it was their 1965 track ‘My Generation’ which completely altered the songwriter’s outlook on the music scene of the 1960s.

Speaking to Classic Rock in 2021, Cooper listed the track as a song that changed his life, sharing, “I think ‘My Generation’ was maybe the first anthem – and that was the birth of the power chord, right there. And then you saw The Who performing it, and you saw [Pete Townshend] smashing into his amps, and you started going, ‘Is there any end to this British Invasion? I mean, who else is going to come up?’”

It is difficult to dispute Cooper’s assessment of the song. After all, ‘My Generation’ was years ahead of its time, defining the power-chord heavy aggression that would later influence the entire field of alternative rock and punk music. The distorted guitar tones of the track, coupled with the aggressive performance style of the band, made ‘My Generation’ a natural fit for Alice Cooper, who himself pioneered techniques of shock rock, glam, and hard rock.

Reportedly, Cooper eventually got the chance to meet The Who, and he quickly forged a friendship with drummer Keith Moon. In many ways, Moon encapsulated the unpredictability and chaos that first attracted Cooper to ‘My Generation’. “Keith Moon and I were really good friends,” he shared, “and the Hollywood Vampires still do that song [‘My Generation’]. When we perform, we always perform songs for all of our dead drunk friends. And these are all the guys that we drank with.”

Alice Cooper certainly has a lot to thank The Who for. Not only did their chaotic take on the British Invasion scene help to first inspire Cooper on his path to rock royalty, but the London band also provided the shock rock godfather with an irreplaceable friend in the form of Keith Moon.

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