Blue Oyster Cult...the time has come?

Based on the graphic magazine of the same name, this full-length animated movie runs the gamut of animation styles and futuristic alien story lines. "Veteran of the Psychic Wars" is featured during a segment that might better have fit the song "Sole Survivor". BLue Oyster Cult wrote several songs based on the different stories in the movie, which are on the "Fire of Unknown Origin" album.

The members of the band began to come together in the late 1960s, as a band called "Soft White Underbelly", then changed into “Stalk-Forrest Group” in 1968. The name "Blue Öyster Cult" came from a 1960s poem written by manager Sandy Pearlman. It was part of his poetry, later used more extensively in their 1988 album Imaginos. In Pearlman's poetry, the "Blue Oyster Cult" was a collection of aliens who had to secretly guide Earth's history. The addition of the umlaut above the vocal “o” was suggested by either Allen Lanier or Richard Meltzer. Other bands later copied the practice of using umlauts or diacritic marks in their own band logos such as Motörhead and Queensrÿche also. It is the alchemical symbol for lead, one of the heaviest of metals. Pearlman considered this, combined with the heavy and distorted guitar sound of the band and coined the description "heavy metal" to describe Blue Öyster Cult's music.

The self-titled debut album Blue Öyster Cult was released in 1972. Its striking black&white cover featured the now famous hook & cross symbol prominently which the band adopted as their logo and one of their most famous tracks to date: “Cities on Flame With Rock and Roll”. The second record Tyranny and Mutation was built on the first album's basis moved towards harder (The Black side) and richer sounds (The Red side). After that, the band aimed to make an album with more emotional impact for their third outing. When Secret Treaties was released in 1974, it gained critical acclaim and it's still now by many considered their most “proggy” effort of the seventies with such songs as “Astronomy” and “Flaming Telepaths”.

In the late 1990s, BÖC are continuing to perform. Two studio albums have been released, Heaven Forbid and Curse of the Hidden Mirror (1998 and 2001), followed by another live record and DVD.