Post by soonerbillz on Apr 29, 2024 18:52:15 GMT
Posted today on the rags site.
The Wall Street Journal | Page A013
Monday, 29 April 2024
Blue Öyster Cult’s Breakthrough
As early proto-metal bands go, Blue Öyster Cult was among the most cerebral. Formed by college students as Soft White Underbelly in 1967, the band was handpicked and managed by a rock critic, Sandy Pearlman. A visionary of sorts, he wrote the lyrics to many of the band’s early songs and renamed the group Blue Öyster Cult in 1971, just before it signed with Columbia. The label wanted a gothic hard-rock band that could gnaw into Black Sabbath’s market share.
Pearlman co-produced Blue Öyster Cult’s first two LPs, but those earnest psychedelic-rock efforts didn’t fare well on the Billboard 200 chart, peaking in triple- digit territory. Their third LP, “Secret Treaties,” released 50 years ago this month, did considerably better, reaching No. 53. Many of the songs’ lyrics playfully explored grim themes, forging a template for mid-1970s metal bands such as Judas Priest and Motörhead. The album was a favorite of Alice Cooper, American punk bands and members of the Clash.
The LP’s popularity was assisted by a 1972 tour opening for Alice Cooper and by favorable reviews in the U.S. and the U.K. that applauded the band’s music and campy pulphorror lyrics: “In literary terms, their orientation is shifting from Franz Kafka to Marvel Comics,” wrote Greg Shaw in Phonograph Record magazine in April 1974. “ This is, in a bizarre sort of way, a very humorous album.” In the U.K., “Secret Treaties” in 1975 was voted “ Top Rock Album of All Time” by Melody Maker readers.
Many of the dark, tongue-incheek songs were whimsically bleak and would become a hallmark of heavy metal rolling forward. More compelling than the wordsmithing was the album’s powerful riff-fueled music by rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist Eric Bloom, lead guitarist Donald Roe --ser, rhythm guitarist and keyboardist Allen Lanier, bassist Joe Bouchard and drum --mer Albert Bouchard. Pearlman’s original goal with Soft White Underbelly had been to have the band set music to his trippy sci-fi and surrealistic poetry. In one of his early cryptic works—“ The Soft Doctrines of Imaginos”—he referred to a group of aliens who influence world history as the Blue Oyster Cult. The umlaut was applied later to add a menacing quality to the band’s image. Pearlman would produce BÖC’s albums into the late ’80s and died in 2016 at age 72.
On “Secret Treaties,” lyrics were contributed by Pearlman, Patti Smith (who at the time was in a relationship with Lanier) and Richard Meltzer, whose book “ The Aesthetics of Rock,” written between 1965 and 1968, was one of the first ana-lytic looks at the evolving form. Once the words were set, band members composed the music.
“Career of Evil” opens with a sinister guitar riff and the music feels influenced by Shocking Blue’s “Venus” (1969). Ms. Smith’s lyrics set the album’s grisly tone: “Pay me, I’ll be your surgeon, I’d like to pick your brain / Capture you, inject you, leave you kneeling in the rain.”
Pop permeates “Subhuman,” a midtempo mellow rocker that seems to tear a page from Sugarloaf’s ambling “Green-Eyed Lady” (1970). The BÖC song, with music by Mr. Bloom, features one of his rare guitar solos, and Pearlman’s lyrics entwine the mystical with the macabre: “Oyster boys are swimming for me now / Save me from the death-like creature.”
The record’s first bona fide headbanger is “Dominance and Submis sion,” with wailing guitar solos by Mr. Roeser. Pearlman’s lyrics delve into a dark morality narrative, reflecting on the hypnotic hold of Beatles-era rock on teens in the early 1960s: “ Yeah, the radio was on, can’t you dig the locomotion / Kingdoms of the radio, 45 R-P-M / Too much revolution, then.”
Musically, “ME 262” is the album’s best proto-metal thrasher, loaded with dense guitar power chords and distortion. Unfortunately, Pearlman’s words seem designed to offend. The title is short for “Messerschmitt Me 262,” Nazi Germany’s jet-powered fighterbomber, with his lyrics glamorizing --the Luftwaffe’s perspective: “ They hung there dependent from the sky / Like some heavy metal fruit / These bombers are ripe and ready to tilt.”
The lyrics to “Cagey Cretins” by Mr. Meltzer are little more than a word salad on top of excellent drumming by Albert Bouchard and explosive guitar solos by Mr. Roeser.
“Harvester of Eyes” adapts the boogie flavor of David Bowie’s “The Jean Genie” (1972), and Mr. Meltzer’s lyrics are superbly creepy. Messrs. Roeser and Bloom provide a torrent of metallic guitar. Mr. Meltzer told Martin Popoff, for his 2011 book on the band, that the song’s lick was “lifted from The Grateful Dead’s ‘That’s It for the Other One.’” The music ends abruptly on a minor chord followed by the eerie sound of a music box.
The final two songs, with Pearlman’s lyrics, are compelling ballads. “Flaming Telepaths” includes an early-generation Moog synthesizer, vocal harmony and a fiery guitar solo. The closer, “Astronomy,” is a prog-rock epic about inner turmoil and a walk on a moonlit beach, complete with howling wind at the end.
Despite the album’s fetish for the lurid and shock symbolism, the music remains a captivating breakthrough. As “Secret Treaties” proved, heavy metal required a gruesome touch, but bands also had to deliver what listeners wanted most: as much guitar as possible. Mr. Myers is the author of “Rock Concert: An Oral History” and “Anatomy of 55 More Songs” (Grove
The Wall Street Journal | Page A013
Monday, 29 April 2024
Blue Öyster Cult’s Breakthrough
As early proto-metal bands go, Blue Öyster Cult was among the most cerebral. Formed by college students as Soft White Underbelly in 1967, the band was handpicked and managed by a rock critic, Sandy Pearlman. A visionary of sorts, he wrote the lyrics to many of the band’s early songs and renamed the group Blue Öyster Cult in 1971, just before it signed with Columbia. The label wanted a gothic hard-rock band that could gnaw into Black Sabbath’s market share.
Pearlman co-produced Blue Öyster Cult’s first two LPs, but those earnest psychedelic-rock efforts didn’t fare well on the Billboard 200 chart, peaking in triple- digit territory. Their third LP, “Secret Treaties,” released 50 years ago this month, did considerably better, reaching No. 53. Many of the songs’ lyrics playfully explored grim themes, forging a template for mid-1970s metal bands such as Judas Priest and Motörhead. The album was a favorite of Alice Cooper, American punk bands and members of the Clash.
The LP’s popularity was assisted by a 1972 tour opening for Alice Cooper and by favorable reviews in the U.S. and the U.K. that applauded the band’s music and campy pulphorror lyrics: “In literary terms, their orientation is shifting from Franz Kafka to Marvel Comics,” wrote Greg Shaw in Phonograph Record magazine in April 1974. “ This is, in a bizarre sort of way, a very humorous album.” In the U.K., “Secret Treaties” in 1975 was voted “ Top Rock Album of All Time” by Melody Maker readers.
Many of the dark, tongue-incheek songs were whimsically bleak and would become a hallmark of heavy metal rolling forward. More compelling than the wordsmithing was the album’s powerful riff-fueled music by rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist Eric Bloom, lead guitarist Donald Roe --ser, rhythm guitarist and keyboardist Allen Lanier, bassist Joe Bouchard and drum --mer Albert Bouchard. Pearlman’s original goal with Soft White Underbelly had been to have the band set music to his trippy sci-fi and surrealistic poetry. In one of his early cryptic works—“ The Soft Doctrines of Imaginos”—he referred to a group of aliens who influence world history as the Blue Oyster Cult. The umlaut was applied later to add a menacing quality to the band’s image. Pearlman would produce BÖC’s albums into the late ’80s and died in 2016 at age 72.
On “Secret Treaties,” lyrics were contributed by Pearlman, Patti Smith (who at the time was in a relationship with Lanier) and Richard Meltzer, whose book “ The Aesthetics of Rock,” written between 1965 and 1968, was one of the first ana-lytic looks at the evolving form. Once the words were set, band members composed the music.
“Career of Evil” opens with a sinister guitar riff and the music feels influenced by Shocking Blue’s “Venus” (1969). Ms. Smith’s lyrics set the album’s grisly tone: “Pay me, I’ll be your surgeon, I’d like to pick your brain / Capture you, inject you, leave you kneeling in the rain.”
Pop permeates “Subhuman,” a midtempo mellow rocker that seems to tear a page from Sugarloaf’s ambling “Green-Eyed Lady” (1970). The BÖC song, with music by Mr. Bloom, features one of his rare guitar solos, and Pearlman’s lyrics entwine the mystical with the macabre: “Oyster boys are swimming for me now / Save me from the death-like creature.”
The record’s first bona fide headbanger is “Dominance and Submis sion,” with wailing guitar solos by Mr. Roeser. Pearlman’s lyrics delve into a dark morality narrative, reflecting on the hypnotic hold of Beatles-era rock on teens in the early 1960s: “ Yeah, the radio was on, can’t you dig the locomotion / Kingdoms of the radio, 45 R-P-M / Too much revolution, then.”
Musically, “ME 262” is the album’s best proto-metal thrasher, loaded with dense guitar power chords and distortion. Unfortunately, Pearlman’s words seem designed to offend. The title is short for “Messerschmitt Me 262,” Nazi Germany’s jet-powered fighterbomber, with his lyrics glamorizing --the Luftwaffe’s perspective: “ They hung there dependent from the sky / Like some heavy metal fruit / These bombers are ripe and ready to tilt.”
The lyrics to “Cagey Cretins” by Mr. Meltzer are little more than a word salad on top of excellent drumming by Albert Bouchard and explosive guitar solos by Mr. Roeser.
“Harvester of Eyes” adapts the boogie flavor of David Bowie’s “The Jean Genie” (1972), and Mr. Meltzer’s lyrics are superbly creepy. Messrs. Roeser and Bloom provide a torrent of metallic guitar. Mr. Meltzer told Martin Popoff, for his 2011 book on the band, that the song’s lick was “lifted from The Grateful Dead’s ‘That’s It for the Other One.’” The music ends abruptly on a minor chord followed by the eerie sound of a music box.
The final two songs, with Pearlman’s lyrics, are compelling ballads. “Flaming Telepaths” includes an early-generation Moog synthesizer, vocal harmony and a fiery guitar solo. The closer, “Astronomy,” is a prog-rock epic about inner turmoil and a walk on a moonlit beach, complete with howling wind at the end.
Despite the album’s fetish for the lurid and shock symbolism, the music remains a captivating breakthrough. As “Secret Treaties” proved, heavy metal required a gruesome touch, but bands also had to deliver what listeners wanted most: as much guitar as possible. Mr. Myers is the author of “Rock Concert: An Oral History” and “Anatomy of 55 More Songs” (Grove
