Alice Cooper: Muscle of Love Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		0.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		5.0
Overall		3.5

Alice Cooper: Muscle of Love Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 22, 2024

In the annals of specialty packaging, props of a kind have to be granted whoever came up with the cardboard shipping box idea for the seventh and last studio album from the Alice Cooper Band, one which Warner Brothers kind of hilariously promoted in its original LP form as "the album in the plain brown, slightly greasy wrapper". That packaging is repeated, albeit in miniature form, in yet another winning Quadio release from Rhino. If this was Alice Cooper's veritable swan song (at least in this formulation), he and/or it at least went out with a bang, making it to the Top 10 on the Billboard album chart, though many fans have probably felt like they've been able to read (and/or hear) between the lines in terms of some of the backstage drama going on, leading to what is a somewhat uneven feeling album.

The album's tracklist can be seen in the screenshots of the Blu-ray menu that I've uploaded to accompany this review.

Alice Cooper: Muscle of Love Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

This is another Quadio release with only static menu video content, but at least this disc is authored in my preferred way, with the colored buttons on your remote allowing you to easily toggle between codecs, so that you don't even really need to have a monitor or display on.

Alice Cooper: Muscle of Love Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Alice Cooper: Muscle of Love offers either DTS-HD Master Audio 4.0 or DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 options. This is another quad mix where some of the riff driven material tends to erupt from all four channels simultaneously, though there can be some nice surprises along the way in terms of discrete speaker placement, as in the opening of Never Been Sold Before, which in fact begins with a riff emanating from all four speakers until suddenly there's one of the rhythm guitars blasting out chunky strumming in the left rear channel. Speaking of that tune, there's a weird, almost imperceptible dropout on vocals at around the 7:00 minute mark that I've never noticed before that may just be Al not quite making the end of a phrase, but which at least points out the increased atmosphere of this hi-res version. Tunes like Hard Hearted Alice have a really beautifully spacious feeling in the quad mix, with enveloping organ and guitars providing some really lush immersion.

Alice Cooper: Muscle of Love Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This is the rare Quadio release with some significant bonus items, at least for those like many of the readers of this site who will count anything other than the Blu-ray as a supplement.

Two CD's offer the following tracks:

Disc 1

1. Big Apple Dreamin' (Hippo)
2. Never Been Sold Before
3. Hard Hearted Alice
4. Crazy Little Child
5. Working Up A Sweat
6. Muscle Of Love
7. Man With The Golden Gun
8. Teenage Lament '74
9. Woman Machine

Disc 2

1. Big Apple Dreamin' (Hippo) (Early Version)
2. Never Been Sold Before (Early Version)
3. Hard Hearted Alice (Alternate Mix)
4. Crazy Little Child (Early Version)
5. Working Up A Sweat (Alternate Mix)
6. Muscle Of Love (Alternate Mix)
7. Man With The Golden Gun (Early Version)
8. Teenage Lament '74 (Acoustic Diversion)
9. Woman Machine (Alternate Mix)
10. Teenage Lament '74 (Single Version)
11. Muscle Of Love (Single Version)

Additionally, the "greasy wrapper" also encloses a mini reproduction of the kind of funny original LP insert, as well as a really great insert booklet with some fantastic interviews that should be of considerable interest to the band's fans. All three of the discs are in their own separate mini-LP jackets.

Alice Cooper: Muscle of Love Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Muscle of Love is frankly not my favorite Alice Cooper record, but I gained a new appreciation of it courtesy of this very inviting quadraphonic presentation. This is the rare Quadio release with some kind of fun packaging and really enjoyable non disc swag. Recommended.