Constrictor (album)

Constrictor (album)

Constrictor is the 16th studio album by rock musician Alice Cooper released on September 22 1986. After retiring from the music industry after the release of DaDa, Cooper remained in seclusion for three years. He starred in Monster Dog, a horror film for which he wrote two songs. He also guest starred on the Twisted Sister track "Be Chrool to Your Scuel". It was Alice Cooper's first record to feature bass playing from Kip Winger, who would later gain great fame with his own band, Winger.

Cooper sought the aid of heavy metal guitarist Kane Roberts for the album, which resulted in a sound Cooper had never tapped into before. Constrictor exposed a whole new generation of teens to the original shock rocker, returning him to the charts at number 59 after his previous two releases Zipper Catches Skin and DaDa had entirely failed to crack the Top 200. The album also led to one of the most successful tours of the late '80s, "The Nightmare Returns" tour.

The horror series Friday the 13th teamed up with Cooper during this time to produce the theme song for its latest film. The song "He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask)" was written for Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives. It went on to become a #1 hit in Sweden. Songs also featured in the film include "Teenage Frankenstein" and "Hard Rock Summer", a song that did not end up on the album.

The track "The Great American Success Story" was apparently intended as the theme song to the Rodney Dangerfield film Back to School, but was not actually used.

"He's Back (The Man Behind The Mask)" was recorded as a demo before the album & was totally different from the final album version. A reworked version of the "He's Back" demo landed on the album as "Trick Bag" instead. The version of "He's Back" that was featured in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives was remixed from the album version.