Alice Cooper's Welcome to My Nightmare 2 is a Dream Come True

Welcome to My Nightmare 2 is more like a daydream that takes you back to rock's most creative decades. Alice Cooper's new release, whose timely emergence occurred just one month before Halloween, is the best album of 2011.

Cooper delightfully fills the album with original songs that span the first three decades of rock. Most of the tunes recall the 70s, when the original Welcome to My Nightmare was released.

The producer of the original, Bob Ezrin, was brought in to oversee this project as well, and the results are even better than they were 35 years ago. More importantly, Cooper sounds like he's having even more fun now than he was in his heyday.

Cooper has always been at his best when he doesn't take himself too seriously, and there are many such instances here, starting with the rocking "Caffeine," the doo-wop romp "Ghouls Gone Wild" and the catchy "I'll Bite Your Face Off."

Cooper also includes parody in his repertoire, resulting in perhaps the album's best song. "Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever" has Alice sound like Weird Al Yankovic as he pokes fun at the late 70s rage that hastened the end of Cooper's stardom.

"The Congregation" recalls the psychedelic phase of the late 60s Beatles and 90s Oasis. In fact, Cooper's vocal on the track seems to blend the vocal styles of Brit pop brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher.

Cooper goes from Weird Al to Oasis to Randy Newman, who sounds like he could have written the jingly "Last Man on Earth." Then Cooper collaborates with contemporary pop vocalist Ke$ha on "What Baby Wants."

The only blemish on the album is "Something to Remember Me By," a soft ballad reminiscent of Cooper's last pop hits, "I Never Cry" and "You and Me." His vocal on this track, like those from late in the 70s, has a certain appeal, but the serious approach no longer works for the aging rocker.

Parents in the early 70s were shocked when they heard teens like me listening to Alice Cooper. The most shocking aspect of Cooper now is how good his music still can be.

I bought the album merely out of curiosity, since I had loved Welcome to My Nightmare back when I was a teenager. I planned to give it a listen or two then file it on my CD shelf beside Billion Dollar Babies and School's Out. Instead, it will likely remain in my CD player until Halloween.