Alice Cooper’s 1986 comeback album Constrictor turns 40, marking the point where the shock-rock pioneer returned from a three-year recording hiatus with Kane Roberts, a harder-edged sound and two songs that became closely linked to horror cinema, “He’s Back (The Man Behind The Mask)” and “Teenage Frankenstein”.
by Paul Cashmere
Forty years after its release on September 22, 1986, Alice Cooper’s Constrictor remains the pivotal record that restarted his recording career after one of its most unsettled periods. Released by MCA following three years away from the music business, the album brought Cooper back with a new creative partner in guitarist Kane Roberts and a sound aligned with the hard rock and emerging glam metal of the mid-1980s.
The album followed DaDa in 1983, which had come after Zipper Catches Skin in 1982 and Special Forces in 1981. None of those later records had approached the commercial impact of Cooper’s 1970s catalogue, and Cooper did not tour behind Zipper Catches Skin or DaDa.
The period also coincided with Cooper’s recovery from alcoholism and a retreat from the music industry. By the time he began work on Constrictor, the musical landscape had changed considerably. MTV had helped establish theatrical hard rock as a major commercial force, while bands such as Twisted Sister and Mötley Crüe were bringing elaborate visual presentation back into the mainstream.
Roberts became central to Cooper’s return. Constrictor was the first Cooper studio album to feature the guitarist, who co-wrote the material and helped establish the heavier guitar-driven direction that continued into the following year’s Raise Your Fist and Yell.
The first public indication of the new Cooper came not from the album itself but from “He’s Back (The Man Behind The Mask)”, released in August 1986. Written by Cooper, Roberts and Tom Kelly, the song was commissioned for Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives and became the film’s theme song.
The connection between Cooper and the Jason Voorhees franchise went further. “Teenage Frankenstein”, the opening track on Constrictor and the album’s second single, was also featured in Jason Lives, alongside “Hard Rock Summer”, a song that did not appear on the album.
“He’s Back” became one of Cooper’s most recognisable songs from the period. It reached number four in Sweden in 1987 and number 61 on the UK Singles Chart. The album itself reached number 59 on the US Billboard 200, marking a significant return to the chart after Zipper Catches Skin and DaDa failed to reach the US Top 200.
There is an unusual history behind the album version of “He’s Back”. An early demo was substantially different from the finished recording, with a reworked version of that demo ultimately becoming “Trick Bag” on Constrictor. The version heard in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives was remixed from the album recording.
“Teenage Frankenstein” established another important strand of the Constrictor era. Its title and imagery fitted naturally into Cooper’s horror-oriented stage world while Roberts’ guitar work gave the material the muscular sound associated with the late 1980s. The song became a regular part of the “Nightmare Returns” tour alongside “Give It Up” and “The World Needs Guts”.
The touring cycle was important to Cooper’s return. “The Nightmare Returns” became one of his major tours of the late 1980s and helped re-establish the Alice Cooper stage character in front of a new generation. “Teenage Frankenstein” was retained for the tour supporting Raise Your Fist and Yell, while “He’s Back” continued to appear intermittently in later years before becoming a more regular live selection.
The Constrictor era also connected Cooper more directly with the horror film culture that had increasingly become part of his work. Before the album, he had appeared in the 1986 horror film Monster Dog and contributed two songs to it. He had also guested on Twisted Sister’s “Be Chrool To Your Scuel”.
The follow-up Raise Your Fist and Yell was released on September 5, 1987, extending the hard rock direction established by Constrictor. It was the last Cooper studio album to feature Kip Winger on bass before Winger moved towards his own band, Winger. Cooper’s next major commercial transformation would come with 1989’s Trash, which shifted towards melodic hard rock and produced “Poison”.
Constrictor therefore sits between two distinct phases of Cooper’s career. It followed a period of withdrawal and commercial uncertainty and preceded the more polished mainstream success of Trash. Its importance lies in the reintroduction of Alice Cooper as a contemporary hard rock artist, with Kane Roberts providing the guitar identity and “He’s Back” and “Teenage Frankenstein” providing the enduring links between Cooper’s music, theatre and horror cinema.
Forty years later, Constrictor stands as the beginning of Cooper’s late-1980s revival rather than simply another entry in his extensive catalogue. The album gave him a new musical framework, a new generation of collaborators and a route back onto the charts, while its two signature songs remain among the clearest documents of the moment when Alice Cooper reconnected with the horror culture that had always been central to his identity.
Tracklisting
Side One
Teenage Frankenstein – 3:40
Give It Up – 4:13
Thrill My Gorilla – 2:56
Life and Death of the Party – 3:45
Simple Disobedience – 3:30
Side Two
The World Needs Guts – 3:59
Trick Bag – 4:18
Crawlin’ – 3:22
The Great American Success Story – 3:38
He’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask) – 3:49 (featured in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives)
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