Alice Cooper

With sensational stage shows (involving fake executions, mock fights, live snakes, overt sexuality and other garish theatricality inspiring lurid headlines to offend the moral majority), Vince Furnier was one of the most controversial rock stars of the 1970s and 1980s. His first band were The Spiders, who played around Phoenix, Arizona, before he moved to LA and developed the androgynous, alter-ego of Alice Cooper, which came as a nasty shock to the hippy era. His shock-rock sharply divided opinion, but Cooper's band were signed by Frank Zappa to the Straight Music label, which released his first album Pretties For You in 1969. Cooper's first hit I'm 18 came in 1970 and he reached infamous new heights, outraging the establishment with the international smash School's Out in 1972. Concept albums followed and he pioneered the use of promotional videos with further hits like Elected. Rock'n'roll excesses took their toll but Cooper cleaned up his act to come back strong in the 1990s and 2000s.