No More Mr. Nice Guy

The tempo is brisk and bouncy, almost uncomfortably so given the bitter self-mythology being constructed in the lyrics. Cooper is narrating his own transformation from obliging good-boy to deliberate provocateur, and the music's cheerful momentum creates an ironic gap between form and content that is itself the joke. The guitar work is bright and crunchy rather than heavy, giving the track a pop-rock immediacy that made it genuinely radio-playable despite its attitude. Neal Smith's drumming has a loose, live-room energy that keeps the whole thing from feeling calculated. What the song understands — and what made it such an effective commercial and cultural statement — is that the most subversive move available to Alice Cooper in 1973 was making transgression sound fun rather than threatening. The chorus is so immediately hummable that you're singing along before you've quite processed what you're endorsing. A piece of gleeful image-making that somehow also functions as a straightforward rock song. Best heard loud, in a car, with the windows down.