Alice Cooper gave details on his radio show (Nights With Alice Cooper) of the album's storyline and that the theme of the album revolves around a “cool, calm and collected” [1]serial killer named Spider, and the eight victims he needs to kill in order to live; police are baffled by the bodies of Spider’s victims, who are cocooned in a silk web, and are each missing a leg. Spider’s task is to collect eight legs in order to complete the construction of his own spider, however, things get complicated when he falls in love with his eighth victim.

PART ONE: READY, WILLING, AND UNSTABLE
The Alice Cooper story begins on February 4, 1948, in Detroit, Michigan, when Vincent Furnier, displaying the ear-splitting vocal calisthenics that would serve him well in the decades to come, came kicking and screaming into an unsuspecting world. After several years of living in the oppressive shadow of massive automobile factories, the family decided to change their environment by relocating to the desert ambience of Phoenix, Arizona.

This fortuitous move meant that Vincent would be fated to enroll at Cortez High School, where his naturally abundant supply of cheap wit landed him the opportunity to write for the school newspaper. "Get Outta My Hair," his wise-guy column, brought him the friendship of two fellow student journalists: soon-to-be lead and bass guitarists Glen Buxton and Dennis Dunaway.

As luck would have it, all three were looking for a way to score with the female Cortezians. And, hey, what better way to get to first base than by forming a rock `n' roll band, right? Not quite. Instead, Vince and Dennis decided to join the Cortez track team, of all things, whereupon their marathon running prowess made them instant varsity heroes.

This first exposure to fame was sufficient enough to embolden their self-confidence to the point where, along with fellow marathoner John Speer (on drums), Glen, and Glen's pal John Tatum (on lead guitar), they decided to don wigs and enter their lettermen's talent show as a Beatles parody. They even went so far as to hire several of the once-elusive Cortez beauties to scream for them from the foot of the stage during their mock performance. That little display of adulation, however bogus, was all it took to convince the future anarchists that this was the life for them.

So what if they didn't know how to play their instruments yet? Since when was musicianship a prerequisite of forming a rock 'n' roll band? They would learn. They were 16. They called themselves the Earwigs.

ALCOHOL AND RAZOR BLADES, POISON AND NEEDLES:
THE GLORIOUS WRETCHED EXCESS OF
ALICE COOPER, ALL-AMERICAN
by Jeffrey Morgan

"The sicker our fans get, the sicker we'll get."
--Alice Cooper

Of course, when Alice said that, he knew full well that he was sowing the seeds not only of North America's cultural demise but also of the world's. Laugh if you will, but once you've finished drying your eyes, take a good look at what's going on around you and try telling me that Alice Cooper wasn't there first.

DecaSexual gender bending? Hey, any guy can dress like a girl these days, but it took a real man to change his name to Alice and have it accepted the world over as one of the most masculine monikers in the history of popular culture.

Sex and violence? Are you kidding? Everyone takes a back seat to Alice when he unleashes the dark and sinister side of his personality, everyone. When's the last time you saw anyone else chopping up babies with an axe? Or defiling a deceased dame in front of an open fridge?

However, if that's not stomach-churning enough for you, then consider this, perhaps his sickest outrage: Alice Cooper actually ran for President of the United States against that other paragon of perversion, Richard Nixon. What's really sick, though, is that Alice lost.

Face it: there are few trends in modern music that Alice Cooper didn't anticipate; fewer still that weren't incorporated by this innovative showman into one of the most bizarre and entertaining rock attractions of all time.

The audacious, precedent-shattering, inspirational, taboo-defiling hoodlum flamboyance of Alice Cooper did more than forever alter the face of rock 'n' roll as we now know it. He virtually invented rock as theater, created new fashion trends, sparked a new sexual revolution, established higher standards for teenage decadence, and found time on top of all this to write and record a library of classic rock 'n' roll albums. The fact that Alice Cooper is rock 'n' roll's foremost legendary statesman of outrage is far beyond reproach. Any act worth its weight in rock 'n' roll, theatrics, makeup, and in-your-face, kick-ass punk attitude owes more than just a passing nod of respect in the direction of this malignantly macabre culprit.

And if you need proof, just ask Kiss, Marilyn Manson, David Bowie, the New York Dolls, Nine Inch Nails, Metallica, Iggy & The Stooges, Mötley Crüe, Lou Reed, Hanoi Rocks, Boy George, Slade, Parliament-Funkadelic, The Tubes, T. Rex, Elton John, The Runaways, Guns N' Roses, Gary Glitter, Aerosmith, the Dead Boys, Adam Ant, Poison, Prince, the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, Twisted Sister, Devo, Megadeth, the Plasmatics, Madonna, Gwar, Cheap Trick, Zodiac Mindwarp, Alien Sex Fiend, W.A.S.P., The Rolling Stones, The Cramps, Rob Zombie, Ozzy Osbourne, David Lee Roth, or even Elvis (the next time you see him at a White Castle)--to name only a few.

And no less a personage than Bob Dylan (who's been known to dip into the mascara himself from time to time) publicly proclaimed in a January 26, 1978, Rolling Stone cover story: "I think Alice Cooper is an overlooked songwriter."