Love BOC. The music is so...beautiful. I've always felt alone on an island as a fan. Just last week I was listening to the transition from "Screams" into "She's as Beautiful as a Foot", and was shaking my head at how great that sounds.
Caused by less and less input from Sandy Pearlman, Richard Meltzer and eventually Albert Bouchard on the songwriting and overall concepts.
I'm on the lamb, but I ain't no sheep. Now that an attention getter, I've been a fan since the late 70's. I'm a big fan of all their albums until Revolution By Night. Then it was over for me. I still play the early albums on a regular basis, my favs are the first one, secret treaties and agents of fortune. On your feet or on your knees..,
By the way, Some Enchanted Evening is one of my all time favorite live albums. That version of Astronomy is damn near perfect. Too bad the Enhanced or Legacy edition is out of print. (Or whatever they called it.) Though the DVD quality was pretty mediocre and a bit disappointing, the bonus cuts on the CD are (mostly) terrific. They just need to stop with the Born To Be Wild covers already.
Love the three black and white albums and the live double (IMO one of the most powerful live albums ever! Demands to be played loud!) Thought "Reaper" sounded like an entirely different band. Didn't like it. But the first time I heard "Cities on Flame ..." DAMN! Lucky enough to have seen them live half a dozen times in the early 70s. Blew my face off each and every time. Have tried to get into several of the later albums to see if I could recapture that magic. Sadly, I never did.
That was the first BOC album I ever bought - I got it for their cover of "Kick Out The Jams", which I was desperate to hear and could never obtain the Mc5 original at the time. Forty years later I'm still impressed at how great that album is - single LP live albums were unusual at the time. I have the Legacy edition set and I listen to it often. And that "Astronomy" is indeed definitive.
Yeah I'm not the biggest fan of stuff like Joan Crawford, it was ok the first few listens and then I tired of it. AS far as Cultosaurus Erectus....that was a fantastic return to form (heavy metal form) for BOC. Bucks playing on that album is relentless. Songs like Monsters, Black Blade, Lips In The Hills, Divine Wind..."If he really thinks we're the devil....then lets send him to Hell!" you tell him Erik. I hold Cultosaurus in very high regard and it made my summer my Junior year in High School!
Mixed bag. Secret Treaties is a great album ... one of the best hard rock records ever. The first two are okay working up to that point. Agents was disappointing and I never explored beyond that. Not real sure why.
Joan Crawford imo, was a pretty smart marketing move by the band and Pearlman. It dovetailed nicely with the movie release of Mommie Dearest, which was a bit of a cultural thing back in 1981. (No more wire hangars!) They made a video for the song, but MTV wouldnt show it because they didnt want to expose the new music channel to any controversy. Id guess if they had run this video every hour on the hour around the clock, like they did in those days, it would have been a lot bigger hit.
It may just be a benefit (prolly the only one) of living in upstate NY (the band lives on Long Island) but I've seen them at least a dozen (lost count) times. Always good, mostly great! I just saw 'em a few hours ago in fact. Love 'em!
When I met my wife while dating I used to make her mix tapes. The first tape I made her had She's as beautiful as a foot on it. I occasionally still get a hard time about it from her and its been 23 years. cracks me up. Safe to say she doesn't like that one.
It is a shame that a lot of people stopped listening to B.O.C. after Revolution By Night because there is nothing wrong with Imaginos a great rock LP IMO
Blue Öyster Cult - I love 'em, they make really great music and have many beautiful songs. I guess that their problem is more image-wise. You know, the first thing I heard about them was that they were put together as an American answer to Black Sabbath, and that annoyed me... It's not easy to classify them, and they're definitely NOT a US version of BS! Actually, (as Sabbath wrote much more about druggy stuff than about the occult) they fit the image of an occult band even more than BS. Songs like "Tattoo Vampire", "I Love The Night", "Nosferatu", and of course "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" all show a fondness for the darker side of things, albeit from a more romanticizing point of view. The difficulty of classification in the mass media shows also in the fact that their two biggest hits were not sung by their lead vocalist. Also, they were musically not so easy identifiable as were Zeppelin, The Who, Sabbath or other giants of that era. I guess they were more into making good music, no matter what it might sound like. Now, after telling you why I think they're underestimated, I tell you again that I think they write pretty good songs. They also have their own vibe, and the band members are all top-notch. My favorites are the albums from Secret Treaties up to Fire Of Unknown Origin.
Ooops, should have read your first post! I thought you were wondering about their position in rock music, or wanted some kind of advice... but no, you're a great fan, and this thread doesn't need any explanation regarding their status - sorry for that!
Same, I listened to all their stuff and didn't connect. They are the fear the reaper and burning for you band to me.
Yeah...I pretty much agree. However, the catalog does hold up as a far more interesting blast of ideas when compared to, say, contemporaries like Aerosmith, Eagles and Journey. I'll also add the B-Movie is not meant as a slight. Some of the best times at the movies were the second billed flicks filled with surprise. We all need Gojira on the occasional weekend. Sandy Pearlman r.i.p.
This has been the year that I discovered Secret Treaties and Fire Of Unknown Origin (and Spectres and Tyranny and Mutation and...). One of my favorite things about living now is that all the great music is out there, waiting to be found, and when the right song and the right album find you in a time of need, you are permanently rewired and bettered. If you'll indulge me further, I wrote a bit about Secret Treaties here. Just a wonderful American band.
A guilty pleasure of mine. Saw them twice in the 70s. I enjoy selected bits of the first three records and On Your Feet. I'm off the bus after that. But really, a lot of their lyrics are pretty darned silly. I sort of have to pretend that doesn't bother me. If pressed hard enough, I will deny any involvement with the band ;-)
