Lotsa dark humor and hard rockin' music with a new wave flavor make this a must-have. Favorite tracks: Skeletons In The Closet and You're A Movie.

Alice had fallen out of favor when he released this album in 1981 which stalled at US #125. That's the only explanation I can think of for it not yielding a handful of hits. This is a peppy, slick, high-energy feel good album with some of Alice's funniest lyrics. The (very) loose theme is some kind of para-military fantasy and the album begins with a helicopter (which Aldo Nova would steal a year or so later for Fantasy) dropping the head banging song Special Forces into your ears. There is a good cover of Seven and Seven is (a mixed drink?) and a piece of fluff about a transvestite policeman, Prettiest Cop On The Block, which is probably the weak link in the chain of tunes.

Don't Talk Old To Me comes at you with a real punk feel. Generation Landslide adds a few lyrics to the classic from Billion Dollar Babies, but not much else. Skeletons in the Closet is as good a song as Alice ever did, and could've fit on any of his more popular albums. It begins with a nice faux harpsicord and ends with the trademark whispering of "Alice Alice..." This is an obligatory track for your next Halloween party mix.

You Want It, You Got It and You Look Good In Rags continue the hard punk sound Alice was experimenting with here quite successfully. Vicious Rumours rocks pretty hard and closes out the album where it began with guns loading and helicopters flying. The stand out piece, though, is You're A Movie, which features Alice as a General, who is the reincarnation of Patton, with Hannibal's heart, and Alexander's prowess. It is delightfully smug and condescending. After 21 years I still laugh out loud everytime I hear it.

This is the perfect cure for a bad day or a boring drive. It's hard not to nod along and smile as Alice struts and frets his hour or so on your CD player.

The early '80's Alice is a much overlooked portion of his carrer. Although we all love the original Alice Cooper group this was a brave new direction for the master. Things get off on the right foot with the opener 'Who do we think we are' and continues in the tradition of the Coops clever lyrics throughout the album. Just trust an old Cooper fan. If you like Alice - you won't be disappointed.

Well I had to edit this from my earlier post and downgrade the rating. Collectors choice when reissuing this messed up somewhere..I know it isn't remastered..BUT the import sounds better and has more punch. If you can I would get this Special Forces as the Import rather than the collectors choice reissue. Now for Zipper Catches Skin the reissue soundwise is better than the import and DaDa soundwise is slighly better over the import.

Earlier post below -

Well I received my purchase today for the Zipper Catches Skin, Special Forces and DaDa Cds. While these 3 lost years albums are among my favorites from Alice. I had bought these 3 reissues hoping that they would have been treated to a remastering that they do truly deserve but didn't get this second time around. ???

The highlights of these reissues are the 2 bonus tracks For Britain Only - On Zipper and finally we get Special Forces with the track that was left off the original album at the last minute by Alice because he felt it didn't fit in with the rest of the tracks on the album..though the record company didnt have time to change the cover to omit the track from the listing. We finally get the album as it was listed with "Look At You Over There Ripping the Sawdust From My Teddy Bear" .

I really wish there had been something extra that they had included on DaDa but we get nothing.

Ok if you are a diehard Alice fan such as myself you allready have these as imports and you also have the 2 bonus tracks from the box set Life And Crimes.

These reissues are good for the fan though that don't have these as imports or the box set. Also good that these are available here in the U.S so you don't have to pay the import price.

My question is When is Warner Brothers gonna wake up and give their Alice catalog the remastering they deserve along with bonus tracks etc? They did it to Billion Dollar Babies and Atlantic did it with Welcome To My Nightmare. Warner Brothers and Rhino needs to get this done as it is surly needed!

Common factors for music I like is: tight controlled, raw, bold and, above all, free of cliches.

Special Forces has made it to stay in my lifetime top-5. I value it on par with Deep Purples Machine Head, Metallicas Kill 'em All and Budgies Power Supply. They are void of cliches, hard to the core with total control and a mastery in every detail.

Every once in 10.000 albums a magic completeness and coherence emerges. Special Forces has this magic in my view.

I very seldom bother to listen to the lyrics in music because 99% are braindead - but AC I listen to. Also here Special Forces is top of the heap.

"Special Forces" is one of Alice Cooper's forgotten '80's efforts, and a fine one. He effectively introduces elements of punk rock with his usual horror-hard rock, and this comes together especially well on the tracks 'Who Do You Think We Are', a new studio (not live--the audience was mixed in!) version of his '70's classic 'Generation Landslide' and 'You Look Good In Rags'. Not all the material works, but what ultimately saves this from an average rating is the humour. There are some very funny tracks here- 'You're A Movie' is just hilarious, 'You Want It You Got It' only slightly less so, while 'Skeletons In The Closet' comes off as a parody of his earlier "Welcome To My Nightmare" period. Not the first '80's Cooper cd to pick up (go for 1983's "Da Da"), but definitely the second.