TIP OFF: When you’re a pop artist,...

TIP OFF: When you’re a pop artist, your A&R; exec signs you to a record deal, helps you find a producer, gets your label excited about your album . . . but should he be writing your songs too? It’s an intriguing question, which has been raised about Alice Cooper’s new “Hey Stoopid” album, which has (count ‘em) seven songs co-written by his Epic A&R; exec, Bob Pfeiffer. As a recent Hits magazine column put it: “What’s next? A&R; guys appearing in their artists’ videos?” Over the years, pop top guns like Ahmet Ertegun, Ted Templeman and Billy Sherrill have signed acts--and written and produced hits for them. And to be fair, Pfeiffer is a respected musician who headed the critically lauded Human Switchboard before joining the A&R; ranks. But does his songwriting foray with Cooper present a potential conflict? According to one industry insider: “You leave yourself open to scrutiny because, as an A&R; exec, you’re supposed to be objective about your artist’s work. But if you’re writing half their songs, aren’t you losing a lot of that objectivity?”

Pfeiffer insists he doesn’t have any divided loyalties. “My ultimate goal is for Alice to have a hit record. I’d never write songs with Alice if it’s going to harm his album.” He says it was Cooper who suggested he get involved in the songwriting process. “Whenever Alice would meet new songwriters, I’d be along to check out the situation. But when I’d start to go, the other writers would say, ‘Aren’t you going to stay?’ ” So Pfeiffer hung around, co-writing one song with Cooper and Jim Valance and several with Cooper and the team of Jack Ponti and Vic Peppi. “I’ll admit I was a little scared about the idea at first,” he says. “I even thought about using a fake name. But when we gave a tape to Peter Collins, who produced the album, he picked the songs without knowing who’d written any of them. And he didn’t play favorites. There were songs I co-wrote that never made the album.”