Where should I start? What are their "heaviest" albums?
Please & thank you.
I bought "Fire of Uknown Origin" last week and, pfft ::)
Burnin' For You and Joan Crawford are cool tracks, but that 80's synth is so cheesy!
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_KvYRm_0ip2E/SudknnTsfPI/AAAAAAAAA3A/9sygeJWNRK4/s320/eebdc0a398a0d2d2fce3b110.L.jpg)
Thanks, but not to helpful.
I would like to know as well ;D I wonder what albums inspired "GHOST"?? hahaha
Start at the s/t & go chrono from there. Once you hit a meh stop.
BOC is like Scotch....an acquired taste.
Quote from: libertycaps on January 02, 2012, 07:31:37 PM
Start at the s/t & go chrono from there. Once you hit a meh stop.
BOC is like Scotch....an acquired taste.
That's pretty accurate. The first 3 are pretty great. Tyranny & Mutation is probably my favorite, especially side one. Ghost seems to be more inspired by Agents of Fortune, Spectres, Mirrors and Fire Of Unknown Origin.
If i had to pick one? Spectres.
Secret Treaties is the best, in my opinion but Fire of Unknown Origin is my favorite.
BOC isn't really a very "heavy" band. That have certain songs that are pretty heavy but the albums, overall, are hit and miss. Both live things are good, though. I'd recommend Extraterrestial Live as the better of the two (I'm sure there are many more than two - but "official" live releases, anyway).
Edit: Now that I think of it, Cultosaurus Erectus is a fairly "heavy" outing due to the fact that the album was a conscious shift to more heavy material after the more commercial/pop tunes on Mirrors. As far as Fire of Unknown Origin, a lot of that album comes from the Heavy Metal soundtrack, (though only "Veteran of the Psychic Wars" appears on the s/t). Tunes like "Vengeance (The Pact)" (or is it the other way around?), "Heavy Metal: Black & Silver", and, I believe, "Sole Survivor" were all written for the movie but didn't make the cut as the creative element behind HM decided to go with a more varied soundtrack as opposed to just one artist (BOC).
One of my first 'favorite' bands. Start with the first four studio albums:
Blue Öyster Cult
Tyranny and Mutation
Secret Treaties
Agents of Fortune
Stop there, IMO. (I've never heard the live album "On Your Feet or On Your Knees", I should probably fix that, but I'm way too far into other music.) They start relying heavily on keyboards after that, and sounding more commercial (dipping their toe in the water with Agents of Fortune) which makes later albums basically worthless IMO. I don't think I like any BOC after that, not even the 'hits'. Nothing.
Best album: Tyranny and Mutation, in my opinion.
(I should probably try Spectres again -- I forgot about "Godzilla" and "Goin' Through the Motions" but why...? Too many other things I'm more interested in now. First four studio albs. are where it's at).
Secret Treaties is an excellent tape. Probably is their most consistent.
I like all their major label albums up through Imaginos. My favorites are Mirrors, Cultosaurus Erectus and Fire Of Unknown Origin.
Yeah. The cheese is flowin' 'n gooey on most of Fire Of Unknown Origin, but isn't that part and parcel for the Heavy Metal genre? Esp. in the 80's? Not many old school 70's bands were spared from the cheesedemic that continued on into that cornball decade.
Quote from: libertycaps on January 02, 2012, 07:31:37 PM
Start at the s/t & go chrono from there. Once you hit a meh stop.
BOC is like Scotch....an acquired taste.
A taste I haven't
quite developed. I keep trying though.
I'm talking about BOC - I quit trying with Scotch a while back. Bourbon and Rye for me.
I think Secret Treaties was their peak but there is a few other gems scattered throughout their catalog. They were not the most consistent band around. Funny enough they are my wife's favorite band and she owns every album, single, DVD, Video in existence. Every time they play near here, she drags me along to see them. I am not a huge fan of their albums apart from the first three but they are always great live.
The live stuff is the best, and this is the best of the live stuff:
http://soundaboard.blogspot.com/2010/02/blue-oyster-cult-live-in-west-1975.html
As far as official releases are concerned, On your Feet or On Your Knees is the one, but all three live albums have their moments.
Thanks for the info folks . :)
I basically agree with 'conventional wisdom'.
Blue Öyster Cult
Tyranny and Mutation
Secret Treaties
On Your Feet Or On Your Knees
For the sake of comparison, they're way beneath Sabbath in terms of creativity, consistency and overally quality, imo; but they were pretty cool for awhile- significant enough to claim a place in the early 70's Hard Rock/ Metal pantheon- for TYRANNY & MUTATION, if nothing else.
For guitar solo flash, they are up there with almost anybody you can name... Richie Blackmore (is he still considered good? LOL) Michael Schenker, whoever. You pick 'em.
D.Roeser's solos > Tony Iommi's solos. (sorry dudes)
The whole mission of the band seemed to change around album 4 (play more upbeat, chart-worthy tunes) which was hard for me to accept, I guess. Tyranny & Mutation is probably my most-played album of all time (back in the day, you might only own a handful of albums, or a short stack... crazy, huh?)
Donald Roeser (er, Buck Dharma, -sorry Isabellcat! :D), is a very talented guitarist. But I'm not sure I agree with you that he's as flashy or as talented as Schenker or, maybe, Uli Jon Roth. But for a seventies hard rock guitar hero, he's definitely up there.
BOC's trajectory is much like an early 70's mainstay hard rock band. Great, ground breaking stuff in the early albums, waning focus (shift to more commercial radio styled rock) in the mid to late 70's, and then the 80's, which brought confusion in terms of direction/sound.
Quote from: GodShifter on January 06, 2012, 10:15:01 AM
and then the 80's, which brought confusion in terms of direction/sound.
Sometimes that resulted in "happy accidents" such as Modern Medicine by Doc Holliday...
I'm a pretty big fan of 80's hard rock/AOR stuff, so I'm not complaining, for the most part, but I don't think anyone would argue that many great 70's hard rock/rock acts lost their way during the 80's. It was a tough time for a lot of bands in terms of direction/loss of fan base, and trying to stay "current" sounding.
"For guitar solo flash, they are up there with almost anybody you can name... Richie Blackmore (is he still considered good? LOL) Michael Schenker, whoever. You pick 'em."
Lump, Ritchie is the man. :D
Just as good as Jeff Beck or Duane Allman or Richard Betts, and right under Jimi Hendrix, imo.
"D.Roeser's solos > Tony Iommi's solos. (sorry dudes)"
Nope, but the comparison is not an insulting one- for either- they're more or less in the same ballpark, both great guitarplayers.
Roeser is perhaps more technically proficient, whereas Tony (and Geezer, for that matter) is brilliant.
If you're looking for a good sample of 80's synth tainted rock The Revolution by Night is a guilty pleasure of mine other than "Take Me Away" not an ounce of heavy after that, for some reason it goes really well with Signals by Rush and Making Contact by UFO.
blue oyster cult is better in theory....pretty meh band imho....great album covers though!!!!
godzilla!
This has an awesome vibe, and a good beat for the freakout dance patterns of the late 60's.
I was the biggest BOC fan in the 1980s and I still think Buck Dharma is a great guitar player. My favorite album was Cultasaurus Erectus, but I also loved Agents of Fortune.
I can't seem to get back into them, however. I recently downloaded Agents of Fortune, and I don't get the same pleasure from it as I did before. I did see them live in the House of Blues years ago and the show was great.
Its kind of hard to say which album is heaviest because they cover a lot of ground on just about every album.
Every album has got some heavy songs but BOC is not just about the heavy.
Some of the heavy songs to check out:
Black Blade
Take Me Away
Heavy Metal
Cities on Flame
A few that are not so heavy but really cool:
Monsters
Veteran of the Psychic Wars
Nosferatu
Vengeance
Quote from: cat shepard on January 14, 2012, 12:15:29 PM
This has an awesome vibe, and a good beat for the freakout dance patterns of the late 60's.
yeah, cool song. first album is their best imo.