Back in the '70s, a group of rock & roll carousers called themselves the Hollywood Vampires as they crawled the bars of Los Angeles during the dead of night.
Alice Cooper was at the forefront, joined by
Harry Nilsson,
John Lennon,
Ringo Starr,
Keith Moon, and
Micky Dolenz -- a crew so soused their tales became legend, even if the specifics of the debauchery were often forgotten. Forty years later,
Alice Cooper revived the name
Hollywood Vampires when he came to form a supergroup with
Joe Perry and
Johnny Depp. These three are the anchors in an open-door party where everybody is invited, providing you're already a classic rocker of some note. The joke of
Hollywood Vampires is that all the songs apart from the two originals -- joint efforts between
Depp and his compadre
Bruce Witkin,
Alice Cooper and his old producer
Bob Ezrin, plus his new guitarist
Tommy Henriksen -- are covers of songs by dead rockers, a gag that is easy to miss because the songs are the kinds of standards that function as classic rock wallpaper: they're always there, so they rarely evoke memories of the long-gone
Jim Morrison,
Jimi Hendrix, and
John Lennon. Instead, in the words of the still-living
J. Geils Band, this ain't nothin' but a house party, a raucous celebration of old-time Sunset Strip rock & roll that only lets the sleazy good times lift when
Paul McCartney swings by to sing "Come and Get It." That's still a blast, though, because it's clear
Sir Paul enjoys playing with these louts as much as they enjoy playing with him and, despite all the big names packed into the studio, the key to the whole shebang is
Alice Cooper himself. He's the ringleader, pushing people to the mike, turning "Itchycoo Park" into metallic vaudeville and doing justice to
T. Rex. Sure,
Hollywood Vampires is just a lark but it's a fun lark, and having fun is what matters in a party. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine