The '70s was an interesting time for music or at least that's what I hear. Being that I wasn’t born until halfway through the decade, I only have the music and movies of the time to transport me back to the times of shag-carpet and Valium.
Being that most of my all time favorite albums were made before 1990, and many before I was even born, or before I was a toddler, I love the idea of a good album being re-issued. It's especially pleasant when an album I've never heard, like Spectres by Blue Öyster Cult, is re-issued for my personal enjoyment. Originally released as the band's fifth album in 1977, Spectres is being unleashed again for the pleasure of a whole new generation of fans.
Of course I'd previously heard "Godzilla," the albums first but extremely overplayed track, and I have always enjoyed the song for the sarcastic social statement it makes. The rest of the album however was new, and refreshing, to my musical ears. I was pleasantly surprised with tracks like "Golden Age of Leather" and the vampire tribute "Nosferatu." I heard a lot of similarities to one of my all time favorite bands, The Guess Who, throughout the album and was also reminded of the melancholy tunes of Three Dog Night.
Still, and this is rare for reissues in my opinion, the best surprise on the album is one of the four "bonus tracks." Blue Öyster Cult's take on the classic Ronettes' song "Be My Baby" is aural ecstasy. I remember hearing this song on the radio years ago and made a quickly lost mental note to track the song down.
My only complaint is that the penny-pinchers at Columbia Records sent the CD in a plain plastic sleeve and denied me the experience of the "new" liner notes and packaging in its full artistic glory. Still, free music is nice, but I won't feel bad next time I see that record sales are down. Didn't anyone learn anything from Payola?
Article comments
1 - Vern Halen
Glad you got a copy of this decent little album by BOC - I call it little because although it enjoyed some commercial success, the previous 4 studio & 1 live album were all heads and tails better.
Try & track down the reissues of the first self titled album, Tyranny & Mutation, Secret Treaties, and especially Agents of Fortune, which I always considered just decent until they reissued it with excellent remastering. It made a world of difference.
Born in the 70's? Glad you like some of that music - a lot of the really great stuff you'll probably never hear unless you go looking for it. See if you can track down The Sensational Alex Harvey Band for starters.
2 - Mark Saleski
i saw BOC on the Spectres tour (in fact, it was my first real rock concert).
...gotta get this remaster.
3 - JR
Tyranny and Mvtation better than Spectres? That is simply not a rational statement. The second side of T&M is easily the weakest side of music BOC produced in the seventies. The mix on that album is as overly bright as the first album's is dull (though the first album suffers more from poor production). Of the three good songs on T&M, one of them is just a remake from the first album.
Spectres is BOC's best album.
4 - Vern Halen
I tend to listen to T&M as part of the "Black & White" series (BOC's first three albums). Yes, it's the weakest of the three, but Spectres pales after Agents, and the next studio album was... Cultosaurus Erectus I think, or maybe Mirrors, both of which are pretty good. Is Spectres a better apple than T&M? Maybe - maybe not, but it was already a different band of oranges by then.
I saw them on the tour with Todd Rundgren's Utopia as the opener - an excellent r'n'r show.
5 - JR
Agents... only has the one really great song. "E.T.I." is the only other song that might have gotten some airplay, although I would say that the songs on the second side are better.
From Spectres I used to regularly hear "Godzilla", "Fireworks", "R.U. Ready 2 Rock", "Goin' Through the Motions" and "I Love the Night" on the radio - although it took me a while to realize they were all the same band. Three or four of those could and should have been hits in themselves. Spectres continued the bands move toward the mainstream (although still far from it, as something so lyrically and musically unconventional as "Godzilla" demonstrates); as such the album is better stocked with great songs than Agents...
Now the case could be made for Secret Treaties, in that while the tunes may not be quite as strong, the band is staking out a completely individual conceptual territory and they've gotten their production and consistency problems out of the way. I don't think anybody has ever done anything like BOC's black and white period. I mean, anybody who can repeat the refrain "Junkers Jumo 004" (totally mispronounced, but whatever) is really hanging it out there. You gotta respect that. Plus that guitar solo on "Dominance and Submission"!
6 - Mark Saleski
anybody own any of the "modern" BOC? after seeing them at a club date i bought "Heaven Forbid", which i thought was quite good.
7 - JR
The most recent thing I have is Imaginos, which I found a bit of a disappointment considering that it reunited the major players in their initial success.
Given the failure rate of "comebacks", and the fact that new releases tend to be priced above most of the great jazz recordings on my wish list, I haven't kept up with many of my favorite seventies bands.
8 - Vern Halen
Club Ninja killed them for me. I too bought Imaginos - not what it was hyped to be. A friend of minne claims their last three albums (released in the past ten years I think) are quite good.
Ah, JR - I Love the Night - one of BOC's best songs - how could I forget that! I really think because it's on Spectres - we're really going to have to disagree here - I always thought it was a lame attempt at commercialism, and I never could sit through it. Agents had that weird Patti Smith vocal on Vera Gemini, too; and This AInt the SUmmer of Love.... oh yeah - I'm gonna give it a spin tonight. Maybe Spoectrs too, just to see if I can get into it after having dismissed it for so long.
9 - Mark Saleski
i really like the very first record, despite the lousy sound quality.
10 - Vern Halen
You want lousy sound quality? For years I only had that album on 8 track.
Yes, it's a good'un.
11 - Tim Hall
anybody own any of the "modern" BOC? after seeing them at a club date i bought "Heaven Forbid", which i thought was quite good.
"Heaven Forbid" is a good one, if a little patchy. "See you in Black" and especially "Harvest Moon" are as good as anything they recorded after their very early years. The followup, "Curse of the Hidden Mirror" was a weaker. It's less uneven, but lacks any real standout cuts.
12 - Tim Hall
The most recent thing I have is Imaginos, which I found a bit of a disappointment considering that it reunited the major players in their initial success.
Well, sort of. It began life as a solo project from former drummer Albert Bouchard, recorded with a whole load of session players, including Joe Satriani. Then it 'became' a BOC album, and they dubbed on some vocals from Eric Bloom and Buck Dharma, plus a couple of guitar solos.
I still thought the end result was a great album, even though it's not really BOC.