Rare is the album that's better remembered for its packaging than its contents.  But that may well be the case with the band Alice Cooper's seventh (and final) album, 1973's Muscle of Love.  As it followed the Platinum-certified international chart-topper Billion Dollar Babies, hopes were high for the LP.  It was greeted by lukewarm critical assessments, though, and "merely" reached No. 10 on the Billboard 200 and No. 34 on the U.K. Albums Chart.  As such, it was inevitably considered a disappointment.  (It did go Gold.)  But fans - and even those who didn't care for the album - remembered that Muscle of Love arrived in a plain cardboard box...complete with a stain.  That original cardboard package has been lovingly replicated in CD and vinyl versions for Rhino's (roughly) 50th anniversary expanded edition.  It's a reissue that makes a strong case that Muscle of Love should be re-evaluated in the oeuvre of Alice Cooper, the man and the band.

Featuring Michael Bruce on guitar, Dennis Dunaway on bass, and Neal Smith on drums - supported by Mick Mashbir and Dick Wagner on guitars and Bob Dolin on keyboards - Muscle of Love was the Alice Cooper band's first album without founding guitarist Glen Buxton (who nonetheless has four writing credits on the LP owing to his early involvement).  It was also the group's first album since 1970's Easy Action without Bob Ezrin as producer.  Instead, Jack Richardson (Ezrin's co-producer on Love It to Death) returned to produce with Jack Douglas.

What's most striking about Muscle of Love - and what might have been most off-putting in 1973 - is how Cooper's voice changes along with the mood and style of each track.  The band might have jettisoned horror- and shock-rock, but Dixieland jazz, Broadway, proto-disco, psychedelia, hard rock, and John Barry-esque spy soundtrack drama all coexist on the album.  "The only thing wrong," Alice opines in the new liner notes, "[was] that it didn't feel like an Alice Cooper album."

The 2CD/1Blu-ray set boasts the original album in both stereo and four-channel Quadio surround.  From the first notes of the 4.0 mix, it's clear that this is an immersive presentation with all four channels used to maximum, discrete effect.  Drums, guitars, bass, and vocals are clearly separated on "Big Apple Dreamin' (Hippo)," which Cooper describes in Joan Uhelszki's liner notes as "the closest we came to disco."  Its big beat might have lent itself to play in a club such as its namesake inspiration, The Hippopotamus, but it's first and foremost a rocker with a gritty, urban feel befitting its subject of New York at its seediest.  Though Muscle of Love isn't a concept album, there are some threads between the songs.  "Never Been Sold Before" is in the same milieu as "Big Apple Dreamin'," sung from the perspective of a prostitute confronting her pimp.  Though it's a guitar-driven rocker, a horn section adds a dash of theatricality.

The carnality continues with the brisk rock-and-roll workout "Workin' Up a Sweat," featuring The Pointer Sisters on background vocals.  (Though placed in the front of the soundscape, they're nonetheless a bit buried in the quadraphonic mix.)  "Workin' Up a Sweat" has its share of naughtiness, but it's just a prelude for the title track of Muscle of Love, a tongue-in-cheek teenage ode to self-pleasure ("I read Dad's books like I did before/Now things are crystal clear/Lock the door in the bathroom now/I just can't get caught in here...") with a time signature-shifting rhythm and forceful playing all around from the band.

A fusion of Beatle-esque balladry and Yardbirds-esque psych-rock with soaring harmonies and a swirling Bob Dolin organ solo, "Hard-Hearted Alice" (a semi-autobiographical track evoking a band at the brink) is atypical both of Muscle of Love and of the Cooper discography as a whole, but fits in with the album's anything-goes spirit.  So does "Crazy Little Child," which opens in quad with Dolin's piano in the rear channels before Cooper's louche voice enters the soundscape up front.  Woozy Dixieland horns kick in as the story song unfolds set to a melody that Alice comments was "almost a ragtime and had the feel of Porgy and Bess."  The Storyville milieu and its vividly-drawn characters were unexpected for a Cooper record; so was the interplay between Dixieland horns and rock guitars.

Alice Cooper's admiration for John Barry was no secret, so he incorporated various flourishes redolent of the famed British composer when he took a stab at the title song for the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun.  Despite the explosive brass blasts, the Vic Flick-esque guitar, a killer Cooper vocal, and a rock sensibility that would have made a suitable follow-up to Paul McCartney's title song for Live and Let Die, the producers opted to return to John Barry himself (as sung by Lulu).  Liza Minnelli sang backgrounds on "The Man with the Golden Gun" and also on "Teenage Lament '74," joining Ronnie Spector, two-thirds of Labelle, and The Pointer Sisters on the soulful vocals for the latter.  "Teenage Lament," the hit off Muscle of Love (No. 12 in the U.K., No. 48 in the U.S.), offered one of the LP's strongest hooks and Cooper again proving the versatility of his vocals.  (Mick Mashbir calls his style on the track "Alice's 1940s crooner delivery.")  Throw in Minnelli's stratospheric scatting at the end, and it adds up to another distinctive, disparate cut on Muscle of Love.

The band dug all the way back to their days as The Spiders for the album closer, the sci-fi-themed riff-rocker "Woman Machine" (about a female robot who'll "do your work in half the time/Never sick and can't go blind").  Mashbir utilized effects pedals on the track that belonged to Frank Zappa, effectively bringing the band - first signed to the musical iconoclast's own label - full circle with Muscle of Love.

Reissue producers Bill Inglot (who newly mixed the bonus material on CD 2 with Brian Kehew) and Steve Woolard have dug into the vaults for a second disc featuring an alternative version of every song on the original Muscle of Love in sequence.  Many of these early versions find the songs in basic form before overdubs took place.  Bob Dolin's Hammond B3 shines on "Big Apple Dreamin' (Hippo)" which lacks the scorching lead guitar solo as well as the violin part.  The horns are absent from "Never Been Sold Before," which - like "Big Apple Dreamin'" - is leaner and meaner.  The final guitar part hadn't yet been laid down, lending the track the feel of a rehearsal. "Crazy Little Child," too, has that same spontaneity of the band discovering the song as they're laying it down.

The most dramatically different might be "Man with the Golden Gun," minus the brass and the brassy vocalists, but with a spot-on John Barry feel in the rhythm tracks alone that's even easier to appreciate sans the bells and whistles.  Equally exciting is the acoustic version of "Teenage Lament '74" with just Alice's voice and Michael Bruce's guitar.  Neal Smith quips in the liner notes, "Alice is singing great, and I'm going, 'Is this Barry Manilow or is this Alice?'"  It's just one of many tracks here showcasing the singer's versatility.

A handful of alternate mixes are also present.  Not only is the instrumental separation and clarity of the mix often stronger than on the original 1973 LP, but there are other variations such as a shorter, less extravagant ending on "Hard Hearted Alice" or a longer harmonica solo on "Working Up a Sweat."  Different guitar and drum parts are utilized on "Muscle of Love," and "Woman Machine" is taken at a faster tempo.  The original single mixes of "Teenage Lament '74" and "Muscle of Love" round out the bonus disc.

That perfectly-replicated, still-stained cardboard box - kudos to designer Greg Allen - includes a 24-page booklet printed on heavier-than-usual stock, with detailed track-by-track liner notes as told to Joan Uhelszki.  The CD audio has been mastered to fine effect by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering while Craig Anderson has handled the Quadio program with equal aplomb.  The sound is appropriately, well, muscular, with fine detail as to the instrumental performances.  As Alice admits, Muscle of Love may not sound like an Alice Cooper album - but this package proves that it's a damn fine record in its own right.​

Both formats of Muscle of Love are available now directly from Rhino.com!