I’m a big fan of the motoring program called Top Gear. I recently watched an interview with non-other than Alice Cooper, so I thought I would feature his most iconic song for this week’s Thursday Throwback pick, School’s Out (Live).

Alice Cooper is famous for his horror-movie style concerts, which has spanned over four decades of music. He has released over 25 albums between his band and his solo career, with over 50 million sales worldwide. Because of this success, the band has been included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. While the original version of School’s Out was released in 1972 on his fifth album of the same name, this live version featured in Rock Band comes from the 2005 compilation album, Classicks. In May 2009, this song, along with five other Alice Cooper hits, was added to the Rock Band library. The song was also featured on Guitar Hero 3 (and again as DLC for Guitar Hero 5).

Although not as good as the studio version, this live version still features his usual difficult solos and catchy lyrics. The song’s devil-tiered guitar features that iconic riff, and will assault your fingers during the solos. 2-tier bass is quite lively, with frequent changes to keep things from getting stale. I would recommend to play the 4-tier drums in Pro mode, as there are some unique and interesting charts during the song’s choruses. And finally we come to the 2-tier vocals, which is quite different to the studio version, probably due to Cooper’s age and his improvisations during the intro and other parts.

Here’s a playthrough video:

Is there any new features you would to be added to future articles? What do you think of the pick and song? Sound off below!

Do you like video games, movies and TV shows? Then I would appreciate it if you would have a look at my growing fansite, The Tribute Pages which features loads of tributes of video games, TV shows and movies. Thank you!

6 Responses to “Thursday Throwback: “School’s Out (Live)” by Alice Cooper”