Don't have too many of theirs, but went with Imaginos, an underrated classic!  Secret Treaties and Agents Of Fortunes are both pretty close...

Well, at least that's something we have in common. Guess who added them? It wasn't pretty at the time, but thankfully things have mellowed out. Anyway, hard to choose for me - I love all of their albums, even those that are considered "minor". If somebody pointed a gun to my head, though, I'd probably go with Tyranny and Mutation. Incidentally, I also think Imaginos is one of their best albums, and I love the references to H.P. Lovecraft's stories.

Psychedelic Paul wrote: ^^ It's great to see another vote for "Imaginos". I had a feeling I'd be the only one to vote for that album.

All down to a review in Kerrang! at the time.  I had never heard of them at the time.  I was mostly into hard rock and metal back then (late teen years) so anything that got a 5 star rating I was interested in.  I think the review started with "Ask your big brother about Blue Oyster Cult".....  I didn't have one, and my big sister was into Soft Cell, Depeche Mode and Duran Duran (and the like) so I just bought Imaginos and loved it

Yes, I can imagine (or Imaginos) there'd be a big dispute over whether or not Blue Oyster Cult should be added to ProgArchives, although it probably wasn't as big a dispute as the time when Miles Davis was added to the hallowed halls of prog.

Not as familiar with some of their later stuff, although I do have Club Ninja which I found at a CD/Record show a year or two ago.  I did not care for this one much.

I am curious about Imaginos now as I have not heard that one.

Quite difficult to get hold of I think....

 

Imaginos is much MUCH better than Club Ninja.

I'm not sure whether you intended the pun, but it's funny all the same.

Hey, a BÖC poll!

I do love Imaginos and the underrated Mirrors, but I have to vote for C.E.

Not at all. The last remaster appeared in 2013. I see many copies available via the usual outlets.

If I must chose a studio album, I'd have gone for Treaties with Spectres second, but since live albums are allowed, then I went for Enchanted Evening the expanded edition with the Live DVD performance.

Even keeping SEE as a single disc, I like it better than Kness & Feet , but it would be a tie with ET Live.

but I would have to pick from one of the first 3 .. not because they may have been more.. (god I hate that f**kign word)  proggy.. but I simply enjoyed the sound and the energy of those.  Lanier became more prominent on later albums which wasn't a bad thing.. but it did correspond perhaps intentionally in the way Bouchards drumming became less prominent after the first three.  Perhaps it was the adjustment drummers often make as they have to tone down their playing in large arena/stadium settings which BOC was hitting with their 4 album but as great as many of the later albums were.. and they were.. and the great thing of the band.. even the less than great albums still had lots of great songs you'll never hear on the radio or some damn compilation album

but alas they simply didn't flat out sonic assault you the way the first 3 albums did..

the way my favorite especially did.. Tyranny and Mutation.  

I suggest you revisit Cultosaurus Erectus and turn it up to "11"! Get ready for "Black Blade"...!

Secret Treaties - but the first three are superb. The debut especially is an overlooked classic. I remember a rock encylopedia in the 80's calling it 'one of the most extraordinary debut albums of all time'.

Imaginos is another overlloked classic.

Always thought 'Cultosaurus' was easily the best of their mid period ones.

Their last one, Curse of the Hidden Mirror was a rock-solid entry on par with their early '80s albums, IMHO. 

 

 

Don't Fear the Reaper. I'll have some Real Blue Oyster Cult videos coming up for you all soon.

That's the first Blue Öyster Cult album I ever heard, after a friend at school played it for me. It's good to see all of the Live albums have picked up some votes. I'm glad I remembered to include them. I'll have a Top 5 Blue Öyster Cult songs poll coming up before too long, just as soon as I've written the introduction. 

That particular Live album was my introduction to Blue Oyster Cult, so I just HAD to include it in the poll, along with their other two Live albums.  

got to meet them after a 1996 show and pump them for info. Bouchard quit the band and went back to teaching High School in New York. Lanier said kids would yell from their seats with hands raised "Mr. Bouchaaaad Mr. Bouchaaaad! Izzit true you was in Blue Oyster Cult?" 

 

micky wrote: ^ yeah the shear awesomeness of Golden Age of Leather and Nosferatu raise the level of Spectres to greatness.  The rest of songs are good enough to keep it there.. ie no junk to bring it down.  though Goin' Through the Motions walked a fine line of doing that. Not bad.. just not the very good you expect and they delivered on pretty much everything to that point (their first 4 albums. .with no a single damn weak spot)

I got into BOC when 'Some Enchanted Evening'* was released. On subsequently hearing 'Spectres' I found it disappointing by comparison. The versions of Godzilla and (especially) RU Ready 2 Rock on 'Some Enchanted Evening' smoke the studio versions. I don't think it's just because I heard them first.  Similarly I thought the album before 'Fire' - 'Cultasaurus Erectus' was their best 77-86 studio album, but it never gets any love for some reason.

* In the late 70's era of ubiquitous double live albums, 'Some Enchanted Evening' is one release that really should have been a double!

 

Agents of Fortune (1976)

 

 

Mirrors (1979)

 

I gave it an attentive listen yesterday and it's definitely their most mellow work.

Some of them are good but some...well, others have done it much better

I'm not a big metal or hard rock fan so am a bit biased but I think they did their best work in the confluence of those styles with a more melodic rock slant, and that is basically most of Fire of Unknown Origin

no it wasn't bad..honestly... BOC simply did not make bad albums... but the production of it they did detest. it was the first album they did without Sandy producing it and they didn't like the overly polished sound of it so they went more to their classic sound with Cultosaurus.

Fire of Unknown Origin (1981)

 

 

disappointed.. what did one expect of it..   Secret Treaties???  It was much like the vast majority of their post FOUO albums...  none bad. again. BOC DID NOT MAKE BAD ALBUMS.. they were that good a band

 perhaps none were truly great.. but all contained really good songs..even great pnes. When the War Comes for example..  classic BOC.. a f'ing great song... and Dancing in the Ruins has always been a favorite of mine.

 

 

Unfortunately, none of those three albums are available on YouTube at the moment, but this one is......

 

The Curse of the Hidden Mirror (2001)

 

at times Paul.. I do wonder if you are Pedro's long lost son... perhaps you'll tell me which planet you all came here from... and don't pull a Pedro on me and tell me you don't heavily smoke you some mother nature man..

Easily! It's also better than Revolution by Night and Club Ninja. 

So you must be the other guy who voted for it! Cool! 

A big ditto from me on all these points! "Take Me Away" should have been a humongous hit, and "Shadow of California" is superb.

indeed darling.. ok.. we've well established this group ruled and had so SO many great songs.

but let's flip this..

what.. in everyone's opinion.. is the WORST song BOC ever did.

to me.. and her.. there is only one option.. but curious as to what others think.

Yes, I'll go along with that.  But it was Martin Birch, wasn't it? It's not like his production style was unexpected.

It had a very clean style, which made the proggy-metal tracks like 'The Vigil' sound very BIG, but there were a couple of tracks (e.g. 'In thee') that just sounded MOR.  Mind you, that song would have been MOR if it'd been recorded on a mono cassette deck in someone's garage.

Martin Birch produced Cultosaurus and Fire of Unknown Origin. Mirrors was produced by Tom Werman.

Promo photo which came with my US radio version of 'On your feet..' but I suspect its probably earlier..

It wasn't this guy?

"More cowbell!"

nope this one...

"f**k my life"

Ah, I knew I should have bothered to check.

^^ I love the band so much, I now have three BOC threads currently running.

 

 "Spectres" is a big favourite of mine too with a couple of classic tracks: "Godzilla" and "Celestial the Queen".

Yeah, 'Club Ninja' was the only BOC album from their original period which I couldn't find anything to really like about.   Even the poorly received 'Revolution By Night' had several excellent songs (Shadow of California, for instance) in between the dross.

"Shooting Shark" was another favourite of mine from the Revolution by Night album, but I'd be hard-pressed to name a stand-out song on the Club Ninja album. Maybe it's time to give it another listen.

With Club Ninja, there were four songs that the band did not write. Of those, I liked White Flags. Perfect Water was pretty good. And the last three songs, from When the War Comes with the Howard Stern spoken word intro to Madness to the Method.  

I was actually in a band who played two BOC songs in our setlist, and I used to sing lead vocals on Shooting Shark - the only time they let me do anything but backup vocals, for good reason. 

 

I'd love to upload every track from every Blue Oyster Cult album here, but if I did that, it'd probably take forever for my slow laptop to load up the whole page.

 

I can start with this track though: my all-time favourite BOC song, from the Imaginos album, featuring one of the finest rock singer's that no one's ever heard of: Joey Cerisano

 

I used to do a late night FM rock show. In 1988 I collared another presenter, raving about 'Seige and Investiture'.     He was skeptical.

About a month later he came up to me with a list of his top 100 songs of all time, and 'Seige' was #1.

BTW, sorry, but I've always hated that video.

 

I'm sorry you didn't like the video.

Micky asked what the band's worst song is. It's on this album, and it's a Bob Halligan song that was recorded by Lee Aaron for her third album Call of the Wild, the year before:

"Beat 'Em Up"

One of those gifted singers who should've fronted a long-running hard rock band. He toured with Transsiberian Orchestra from 2000-2003. but I've not heard of anything he's done since. He was a busy session guy for many years. Over here, his is the voice in a famous commercial: "Be...all that you can be!" (Yes, that commercial!)

Cerisano's first band with a record was Elderberry Jak. Their sole album Long Overdue was released in 1970!!

Cerisano's only other regular band was the early '80s AOR outfit Silver Condor. This is from their second and final album, Trouble at Home. Future Autograph guitarist-vocalist Steve Plunkett and Dust/HSAS/Billy Squier bassist Kenny Arronson were both part of this lineup!

I voted Secret Treaties ,but that first one is  still is one of my favorite old hard rock lp's of all time.

BTW.. a shout out to Sandy Pearlman who was essential to their origins, sound/theme direction , and early songwriting.

Yeah, whenever Sandy was MIA they became a lot more mundane. Still excellent, but generally missing that X factor.

notice you didn't When the War is Over..  where ye put it.. the great, or good. I thought it was the best thing on the album

now as far as worst...  can't blame you for overlooking the single worst thing BOC ever did.  Raff and I would love to forget we ever heard it except we grew to love to use the song as a warped . sh*t... never mind..

I say we settle this.. old school PA's way... two enter.. one gets out alive..

That's right, I didn't. The correct title is "When the War Comes."

Maybe you're thinking of Asia's "After the War." Gotcha! 

Then stop listening to it! 

Yeah, that song sucks. But so did about half the album, including nearly all of side two. I only ever bothered listening to 'Take Me Away', 'Shooting shark' and 'Shadow of California'. 

That was awesome!  So great to hear this.  Total BOC groove, that jam put a big smile on my face.

stegor wrote: I’m surprised at so many votes for Imaginos. It’s not even a proper BOC album. It was more of a side project by Sandy Pearlman with BOC members as guests. The remake of Astronomy, possibly their best song ever, which they actually perfected live on Some Enchanted Evening, is so inferior to the original I can’t stand to listen to it!

I agree the version of Astronomy isn't up to the Some Enchanted Evening or ST versions, and I'll add that 'Blue Oyster Cult' is a somewhat questionable take on 'The Subhuman'. But they fit into the sonic palete of this album. And the originals on this album are often superb. AFAIC the great studio BOC albums are the first three, then this one.  And I disagree that it isn't a proper BOC album. I'd say it's not a proper Albert Bouchard & Sandy Pearlman album.

 

My favourite album "Imaginos" also includes my favourite Blue Oyster Cult song: "Frankenstein" - with Joe Cerisano, the best rock singer who no one's ever heard of.

It's down at the very bottom for me.  There's some nice lead guitar on there, though.  

it surprised me.. though it shouldn't have .. BOC simply does not make bad albums. That said..

rather than start a new thread...

complete the sentence...

I would say Imaginos.. The Symbol is a really good album.. but IMO you don't have to go that far back to find a better one.