Welcome to My Nightmare

Welcome to My Nightmare is the debut solo studio album by American rock musician Alice Cooper, released on February 28, 1975. It is his only album for the Atlantic Records label in North America; in the rest of the world, it was released on the ABC subsidiary Anchor Records (also his only album for that label). Welcome to My Nightmare is a concept album. Played in sequence, the songs form a journey through the nightmares of a child named Steven. The album inspired the Alice Cooper: The Nightmare TV special, a worldwide concert tour in 1975, and his Welcome to My Nightmare concert film in 1976. The ensuing tour was one of the most over-the-top excursions of that era. Most of Lou Reed's band joined Cooper for this record.

The cover artwork was created by Drew Struzan for Pacific Eye & Ear. Rolling Stone would later rank it ninetieth on the list of the "Top 100 Album Covers of All Time". Famed horror film star Vincent Price provided a monologue in the song "Devil's Food". The original version of "Escape" was recorded by the Hollywood Stars for their shelved 1974 studio album Shine Like a Radio, which was finally released in 2013. The ballad "Only Women Bleed", released as a single, is a song originally composed by guitarist Dick Wagner for his late-1960s band the Frost, with a new title provided by Cooper and revised lyrics written by Wagner and Cooper. The song "Escape" was a rewrite of a song by the Hollywood Stars from the album Shine Like a Radio – The Great Lost 1974 Album. The remastered CD version adds three alternate version bonus tracks.

A sequel concept album, Welcome 2 My Nightmare, was released in 2011.