Love It to Death

The band and Ezrin prepared the album in Pontiac, Michigan, in November and December 1970 and recorded it in Chicago that December. Ezrin had them rehearse ten to twelve hours a day, and he cut I'm Eighteen from an eight-minute jam called I Wish I Was 18 Again to a three-minute rocker. Black Juju was the only track recorded live in the studio. The sleeve said Straight, but Warner Bros. had already bought the label. The original cover showed Cooper with his thumb sticking out so that it looked indecent, and Warner censored it, first with white strips and later by retouching.

It reached 35 in the US and 28 in Britain, and was certified gold in 1972 and platinum in 2001. On tour, Ballad of Dwight Fry sent Cooper offstage in a straitjacket, and the show ended with a mock execution in an electric chair during Black Juju. Billboard called the album artfully absurd third-generation rock. Greg Prato of AllMusic wrote that it was the release when everything began to come together for the band. In 2012 Rolling Stone ranked it 454 on its 500 greatest albums list.