Brutal Planet (track)
by Alice Cooper

Title track "Brutal Planet" is a great and powerful intro that immediately determines the alternating shady mood and brutality of the album. No matter how contradictory this may sound: this is Heavy Metal with a message. AC teaches history. He lists the many crimes that people committed on this brutal planet. Incorporated in the lyrics are: the holocaust, the crucifixion of Christ (The person Vincent Furnier aka AC claims to be a religious person, and that is quite amazing if you know from his appearances on stage and in the press that he is a very honest man with a dark, perverse edge, also although he is certainly not the only one) and the first Christians who were thrown to the lions as entertainment from the Romans. I would like to comment on the latter fact here: the first Christians were mostly ignorant, intolerant and women-unfriendly fundamentalists who were recruited in the lowest classes of the great Roman society. Even more violently than before, they forced the woman into a subservient, harmless position and gave her the fault of what happened to humanity since her convincing Adam to take a bite. Come on. What an unacceptable pile of nonsense. On the punishment of being banished to a very hot place on earth, where the atmosphere of hell can be evoked, each of us must be forced into a sincere but completely personal experience of any belief. But back to the music: despite the violent and sharp guitar chords, a female choir floats around the chorus that admires the globe from a great distance and is not aware of any harm. Great production to bring those two musical components together. The guitar riffs not only sound great, but remain the backbone of the song throughout its entire duration.

The song lives up too EVERYTHING it's going for: heavy metal, creepiness, and depression.