Alice Cooper turned 73 today, and in celebration of his birthday, the shock rocker is releasing a new single from his forthcoming studio album, Detroit Stories, a tune titled “Social Debris” that’s available as a free download for 24 hours at AliceCooper-DetroitStories.com.
Cooper says the song, which he wrote with members of the original Alice Cooper band, “is a gift to Detroit, to my fans and to myself.”
Explaining the tune’s meaning, the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer notes, “[T]he Alice Cooper band didn’t fit in with anybody, because we were doing things that no other band did. We didn’t fit in with the folk scene, we didn’t fit in with the metal scene, we really didn’t fit in with anything that was going on at that time. We just always felt like we were outsiders. We felt like we were social debris, we were in our own little world.”
He adds, “‘Social Debris’ was just the original band writing a song about us, essentially. And it came out sounding like it belonged into 1971.”
A companion video for the edgy tune shows rows of burnt-out buildings, with footage of Cooper singing digitally projected onto the structures.
As previously reported, Detroit Stories, which will be released on February 26, is a tribute to the hard-edged music of Cooper’s former hometown. Alice recorded the album in the Motor City-area with longtime producer Bob Ezrin, and it features contributions from various local musicians, including MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer, and Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels drummer Johnny “Bee” Badanjek.
“Social Debris” was preceded by two other advance singles from Detroit Stories, covers of Outrageous Cherry‘s “Our Love Will Change the World” and The Velvet Underground‘s “Rock ‘n’ Roll.”
You can pre-order Detroit Stories now.
By Matt Friedlander
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