Tommy Snöberg Söderberg 
The idea with Hey Stoopid was probably to try to repeat the success of the previous album Trash, preferably top it, of course, but I don’t think it quite gets there. It becomes too commercial and too polished to be really enjoyable to my ears. It simply becomes boring and predictable, and isn’t Alice usually anything but that?
Admittedly, there are a few real standout tracks on the album, which also made their way onto singles – the title track Hey Stoopid and Love Is a Loaded Gun are among my favorites, while Feed My Frankenstein, which was also released as a single, falls under the more negative aspects of the album. Pretty much all of the songs have the same structure, with some exceptions, of course; they start out somewhat cozy with sparse instrumentation and then build toward some kind of crescendo in the chorus. It works well enough on the occasional song, but here it becomes far too repetitive.
However, it should be said that when I listened through it for the second and third time to refresh my memory of it for this discography, many of the songs grew on me considerably. Maybe it just needs more time?
Apart from the aforementioned songs, Might as Well Be on Mars falls within the framework of my favorites from the album, even though I perhaps don’t really think it stands up to the competition with everything else Alice has done over the years. Desmond Child is once again involved in composing it, and perhaps that is what makes it rise above the rest a little. However, he doesn’t take on the producer role this time, and that is somewhat noticeable. As I said, it is a little boring and it never really lifts off.
There are plenty of guest artists, though, and in this context you can mention Joe Satriani, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx from Mötley Crüe, Slash, Steve Vai, and Ozzy Osbourne. An extra word of praise must also be given because Alice Cooper’s character Steven once again appears in the closing track Wind-Up Toy.
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