{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2025}} {{Infobox album | name = Pretties for You | type = studio | artist = Alice Cooper | cover = Alice Cooper - Pretties for You.jpg | alt = | released = June 25, 1969<ref>Alice Cooper Box Set</ref> | recorded = November 1968 | venue = | studio = Whitney Studios, Los Angeles<ref>{{cite web|url=http://globalia.net/donlope/fz/notes/Hot_Rats.html|title=Hot Rats: Notes & Comments|website=globalia.net|access-date=April 28, 2019}}</ref> | genre = {{flatlist| * Hard rock<ref name="Greene2016">{{cite book|author=Doyle Greene|title=Rock, Counterculture and the Avant-Garde, 1966-1970: How the Beatles, Frank Zappa and the Velvet Underground Defined an Era|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ELeaCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA125|date=17 February 2016|publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-1-4766-2403-7|page=125}}</ref> * psychedelic rock<ref name="Greene2016"/><ref name="allmusic">{{AllMusic | class= album | id= love-it-to-death-mw0000650017 | label= ''Love It to Death'' | access-date= February 7, 2017}}</ref> * acid rock<ref name="allmusic"/><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7ctjc6UWCm4C&pg=PT231|title=The Rough Guide to Rock|last=Buckley|first=Peter|date=2003|publisher=Rough Guides|isbn=9781843531050|page=224}}</ref> * art rock<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.popmatters.com/alice-cooper-love-it-to-death-2496222651.html|title=Alice Cooper, Love It to Death|last=Pearson|first=Paul|date=August 8, 2007|website=PopMatters|access-date=April 28, 2019}}</ref> * experimental rock<ref name="Cope">{{cite book |last1=Cope |first1=Julian |title=Copendium: An Expedition into the Rock 'n' Roll Underworld |date=2012 |publisher=Fsber & Faber |location=London |isbn=978-0-571 27034-7 |pages=91–92 |quote=As a rock‘n’roll group, Alice Cooper were always so much more than those first two horrible/brilliant LPs – and even they were genuine experimental rock of the Frankenstein kind. That is, they fell on their face at least seventy percent of the time, but struggled ever upward towards some Doorsian light at the end of the tunnel.}}</ref> }} | length = 38:10 | label = Straight | producer = * Ian Underwood, Herb Cohen, Frank Zappa, Vincent Furnier<ref>{{cite web|url=https://alicecooper.com/music/pretties-for-you|title=Pretties For You|website=alicecooper.com|access-date=August 8, 2023}}</ref> | prev_title = | prev_year = | next_title = Easy Action | next_year = 1970 | misc = {{Singles | name = Pretties for You | type = studio | single1 = Reflected | single1date = May 19, 1969 }} }}
'''''Pretties for You''''' is the debut studio album by American rock band Alice Cooper, released on June 25, 1969, by Straight Records. "Alice Cooper" referred to the band and not its lead singer Vincent Furnier, although he also used the band's name as a stage name. The album has a more progressive and psychedelic style to it and the group had yet to develop the more concise hard rock sound that they would become famous for.
Produced by Furnier along with Frank Zappa, his manager, Herb Cohen and his fellow Mother of Invention, Ian Underwood, most of the tracks feature unusual time signatures and arrangements, jarring syncopation, expressive dynamics, sound effects, and an eclectic range of music influences. A few songs, such as "Levity Ball", show the influence of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, with whom the band hung out during the British group's U.S. tour.<ref>Liner notes to ''The Life and Death of Alice Cooper'' box set, p. 62.</ref> Alice Cooper guitarist Glen Buxton stated he could listen to Barrett's guitar playing for hours on end.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hellbound.ca/2011/08/alice-cooper-old-school-1964-1974/ |title=Alice Cooper – Old School 1964-1974 |first=Sean |last=Palmerston |website=Hellbound.ca |date=August 10, 2011 |access-date=February 29, 2012}}</ref>
The artwork for this album is a painting by Edward Beardsley.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.sickthingsuk.co.uk/albums/a-pfy.php |title=Pretties For You |publisher=Sickthingsuk.co.uk |access-date=April 26, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120219172856/http://www.sickthingsuk.co.uk/albums/a-pfy.php |archive-date=February 19, 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref> It was originally hanging on the wall of the living room in Zappa's house,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?imgurl=ff002c907b64a1ff |title=LIFE: Musician Frank Zappa (R) w. parents (L–R... - Hosted by Google |publisher=Images.google.com |access-date=April 26, 2010}}</ref> and his wife Gail stated that it was later stolen from them.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.zappa.com/gzsez/questions/alice-master-tapes/ |title=Re: Questions about Alice Master Tapes |access-date=2012-07-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131019233529/http://www.zappa.com/gzsez/questions/alice-master-tapes/ |archive-date=2013-10-19 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
''Pretties for You'' was a critical and commercial failure, briefly appearing on the ''Billboard'' Top 200, and none of its songs have ever been played live by Cooper since the release of the band's breakthrough album ''Love It to Death''.<ref>[http://www.alicecooperechive.com/tourdates/index.php?date=love Alice Cooper Tour Archive]</ref> The song "Reflected", Alice Cooper's first single, was later rewritten as "Elected", which features on their 1973 album ''Billion Dollar Babies''.
==Production== According to Alice Cooper's band manager Shep Gordon, when recording at Whitney Studios in Burbank, Frank Zappa left his brother in charge of recording while Zappa left the studio. Zappa returned later that day and informed them the album was finished, having only recorded the band rehearsing. Gordon states that there was no producer during recording, that the band had no complete songs written, that Zappa "didn't spend 5 minutes in the studio" and never asked to hear their material, and that the band's debut album was made up entirely of that rehearsal recording, aside from the live recording of "Levity Ball".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episode-758-shep-gordon|title=Episode 758 - Shep Gordon|date=November 10, 2016|website=WTF with Marc Maron Podcast|access-date=April 28, 2019}}</ref>
==Reception== In a 1969 review of ''Pretties for You'' for ''Rolling Stone'', music journalist and critic Lester Bangs felt that "there are none of the gross, ugly, idiotic juxtapositions of the totally incongruous found in much other studio-assembled art-rock. But neither is there any hint of life, spontaneity, joy, rage, or any kind of authentic passion or conviction." However, he stated that "within the context of [Alice Cooper's] self-imposed limitations, the album ''is'' listenable." He concluded the review by saying that "Alice Cooper's music is, for this reviewer at any rate, totally dispensable."<ref name="RS">{{cite journal |last=Bangs |first=Lester |date=July 12, 1969 |title=''Records'' |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/pretties-for-you-19690712 |journal=Rolling Stone |issue=37 |pages=36–37 |location=San Francisco |publisher=Straight Arrow Publishers, Inc. |access-date=August 25, 2015 }}</ref> Pretties for You won an award{{which|date=November 2025}} in Germany for "Best Arranged Album of 1969".<ref>Steve Demorest - Alice Cooper (1974). A Circus Magazine Book. {{isbn|978-0445030466}} p42</ref>
AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine feels that the album "was an earnest but flawed stab at psychedelia that occasionally caught fire".<ref name="AMG">{{AllMusic|class=album|id=r4539|label=Pretties for You - Alice Cooper|first=Stephen Thomas|last=Erlewine|access-date=July 6, 2011}}</ref>
==Track listing== {{Track listing | all_writing = Alice Cooper, Glen Buxton, Michael Bruce, Dennis Dunaway and Neal Smith | headline = Side one | title1 = Titanic Overture | note1 = Instrumental | length1 = 1:12 | title2 = 10 Minutes Before the Worm | length2 = 1:39 | title3 = Sing Low, Sweet Cheerio | length3 = 5:42 | title4 = Today Mueller | length4 = 1:48 | title5 = Living | length5 = 3:12 | title6 = Fields of Regret | length6 = 5:44 }} {{Track listing | headline = Side two | title7 = No Longer Umpire | length7 = 2:02 | title8 = Levity Ball | length8 = 4:39 | title9 = B.B. on Mars | length9 = 1:17 | title10 = Reflected | length10 = 3:17 | title11 = Apple Bush | length11 = 3:08 | title12 = Earwigs to Eternity | length12 = 1:19 | title13 = Changing Arranging | length13 = 3:03 }}
==Live covers== On November 8, 2015, the entire record was performed live at The Stone in NYC as part of Nick Didkovsky's residency there.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.didkovsky.com/pfy |title=Pretties For You LIVE |publisher=didkovsky.com |access-date=July 6, 2016}}</ref> Neal Smith, Dennis Dunaway and Cindy Smith Dunaway were in attendance. Dennis Dunaway joined the band for "Nobody Likes Me" as an encore, a song that was originally slated to be on the record.
==Personnel== ;Alice Cooper band *Vincent Furnier – lead vocals, harmonica *Glen Buxton – lead guitar *Michael Bruce – rhythm guitar, backing vocals, keyboards *Dennis Dunaway – bass guitar, backing vocals *Neal Smith – drums, backing vocals
==Charts== {| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center" ! scope="col"| Chart (1969) ! scope="col"| Peak<br />position |- {{album chart|Billboard200|193|artist=Alice Cooper|rowheader=true|access-date=May 25, 2024}} |}
==References== {{Reflist}} {{Alice Cooper}}
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Category:Alice Cooper albums Category:1969 debut albums Category:Straight Records albums Category:Enigma Records albums Category:Acid rock albums Category:Psychedelic rock albums by American artists Category:Experimental rock albums by American artists Category:Art rock albums by American artists