Instagram/@alicecooper
The iconic rock musician Alice Cooper has recently brought to light one of his hidden past jewels and shared a vintage advertisement that not only made his audience laugh but also took them back in time. Indeed, the clip depicts an extremely refined and polite Cooper who, rather than playing tricks on others, is cheerfully promoting a Comp USA MP3 player, which is a chain of electronic stores that no longer operates, thus revealing a completely different aspect of his scandalous rock character.
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The video is undoubtedly a time machine. The very elaborately dressed actor called Cooper pretends not to be tripping through time and directly addresses the camera telling about his transformation, and he remarks, “I am going to be the one dubbed Alice Cooper Shock Rocker.” but he goes on to state, “I am now more into maturing and more elegant stuff.” He then raves about his new MP3 player from Comp USA and goes all the way to A & B, telling that he downloads classical music from Bach and Beethoven, too. The commercial’s last line is rather bland: “Oh, yes, I do think that the new technology has no time for childish toys.” Cooper’s sharing of the old video was accompanied by a brief caption, “Back when MP3s were the hot new thing…#Throwback.”
What was the reaction? An overwhelming wave of raw and pure nostalgia. Comp USA was for a great deal of people the direct link to a time long gone that was more than just a couple of years back. There was this person who wrote, “COMP USA. I remember them,” which basically summed up the recollection of that whole period. Another one went more into the nitty-gritty details of the technology of the time and recalled, “Man I remember picking up a 256 mb flash drive at comp USA for 40 bucks, that was a crazy good price for the time.” One more commented on how strange it was to talk about Comp USA and wrote, “‘CompUSA’ is something I never thought I’d hear uttered again.”
Though past technology and age-related nostalgia blended, the audience still kept laughing at Coop’s performance in the ad. One among numerous comments said, “Alice, you’re a darling,” to which the commenter responded that they had also been missing MP3s. Another user’s comment was, “Alice transformed into a good guy just for the MP3 player,” whereas another user quickly opposed that it was the other way around since the musician was always good: “Correction. Alice has always just been a complete standup good guy.” Humor and the amazement of finding its existence were common, and one could read them in such remarks as “OMG I have never seen this before” and “So funny! Absolutely love it.”
Furthermore, the post brought to mind Cooper’s long and winding career and his ability to swap between his theatrical stage persona and the one outside the showbiz who likes golf, etc. “Always knew you were Renaissance Man,” one enthusiast expressed, hinting at his great variety of interests. Another commentator linked it to his highly energetic live performance by saying, “Alice Cooper still puts on an amazing show, saw him open for Rob Zombie last year and he stole the show!!”
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In the era of digital streaming and smartphone usage, the retro journey of Alice Cooper to the days of digitization of music was not just an entertaining clip but an instant travel back to that specific tech era, a giant retailer that was once more, and a rebellious singer’s image that was not very timeless since he could always laugh at it. In other words, the commercial, which in the past was a mere product endorsement, has now turned into a charming and amusing piece of pop culture archaeology which has been expertly uncovered by the very artist himself. This Halloween, Cooper is known for his spooky celebrations, including his Monster Bash radio takeover. He also enjoys engaging with fans, such as when he demands Halloween costume proof from them. Beyond music, he has explored horror themes, revealing secrets in a new documentary about America’s first horror theme park. For fun, he might even challenge followers with a “Hey Stoopid” trivia game.
