What does /mu/ think of Blue Oyster Cult?

They were once the U.S.'s answer to Ozzy era Black Sabbath.

Good stuff.

The first album was the best one. Later albums (like Agents of Fortune) had a too indirect production for my taste.

Shitty dadrock.

>>71828195
>>>/reddit/

I never really did like Don't Fear The Reaper and not because it's overplayed.

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Blue Oyster Cult [Columbia, 1972]

Warning: critics' band, managed by Sandy Pearlman with occasional lyrics by R. Meltzer. Reassurance: the most musical hard rock album since Who's Next. (Well, that's less than six months, and this is not a great time for hard rock albums.) The style is technocratic psychedelic, a distanced, decisively post-Altamont reworking of the hallucinogenic guitar patterns of yore, with lots of heavy trappings. Not that they don't have a lyrical side. In "Then Came the Last Days of May," for instance, four young men ride out to seek their fortune in the dope biz and one makes his by wasting the other three. B+

Tyranny and Mutation [Columbia, 1973]

Says S. Pearlman: "We want to be disgusting, not trans-repulsive." Says R. Meltzer: "This is really hard rock comedy." Musically, Long Island's only underground band impales the entire heavy ethos on a finely-honed guitar neck, often at high speed, which is the punch line. And the lyrics aren't inaudible, just unbelievable--a parody-surreal refraction of the abysmal "poetry" of heavy, with its evil women and gods of hellfire. Which is not to suggest that it doesn't become what it takes off from. But is that bad or good? B+

Secret Treaties [Columbia, 1974]

Sometime over the past year, while I wasn't playing their records, I began to wonder whether a cross between the Velvet Underground and Uriah Heep was my idea of a good time. The driving, effortless wit and density of Buck Dharma's guitar flourish in this cold climate, but Eric Bloom couldn't project emotion if they let him, and I'm square enough to find his pseudo-pseudospade cynicism less than funny. Subject of "Dominance and Submission": New Year's 1964 in Times Square. B

Good shit. Secret Treaties is best album.

>>71829207
the problem with this guy is that if he didn't put down a grade i would have no idea if he liked the albums

>>71829249
This 100 times
Debut is their second

>>71827966
Severely underappreciated beyond the dadrock radio hits. You posted their best album.

>>71829207
So basically he's saying "These guys are cool because they deconstruct heavy metal, which I hate."

Spectres was the last good album. Either punk rock or Sandy Pearlman's departure or both finished them off.

>>71829207
He had Agents of Fortune in his top 15 for 1976.

>>71829672
I listened to it, but like I said, I preferred the more direct sound on the first album with the guitars and vocals up front.

>>71829606
Hard rock/metal groups usually run out of gas after 3-4 albums.

>>71829919
Holy shit why is this so universally true now that i think about it, to name the most cliche examples
>zeppelin
>metallica
>sabbath

>>71829919
Christgau said this in his review of Aerosmith--Rocks and I also remember some other guy making the same observation.

The only thing that sucks about Secret Treaties is that Eric Bloom sings everything except Dominance and Submission and parts of Cagey Cretins. Most of the songs would have been better off given to other members like on all their other albums. I only really like Bloom on Astronomy. Also the outtake Boorman the Chauffer is better than half the songs on the album.

>>71829672
Tracks 1 and 7 are the best songs on there. Track 7 is a pretty furious song especially when most rock was slow-as-fuck stoner tunes.