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Post by luxexterior on Feb 19, 2022 18:12:43 GMT
Yeah a really interesting read. BOC just seem to attract smart interesting rock journalism.
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Post by Buck on Feb 19, 2022 18:33:19 GMT
A lot of fan sentiment in retrospect yearned for BOC to stick to the template of the first three records. The thing about post-Reaper, is everyone wanted hits, from the record label to the band guys. No one except Sandy Pearlman wanted to do an Imaginos record in 1977. Also, that was the time that we drifted away from Sandy's influence, and he as well, as he saw himself as record producer, looking for his _next_ Blue Oyster Cult.
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Post by sirrastus on Feb 19, 2022 19:52:51 GMT
For me AOF and Spectres showed growth or in reality an expansion of what the band had already brought to the table-even the more commercial stuff showed the hooks and creativity of the earlier work.
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Post by duckbarman on Feb 19, 2022 21:56:39 GMT
No one except Sandy Pearlman wanted to do an Imaginos record in 1977. Also, that was the time that we drifted away from Sandy's influence It was earlier than that - if you look at the interviews in the music press by Sandy at the time of OYF (so, we're talking early 1975) he was saying that Imaginos was going to be the next studio record - for example, here's Sandy talking to Max Bell ( NME 15 Feb 75): "Our next studio album is built around a song cycle. It's about a child who grew up in New Hampshire and discovers he has the ability to reconcile the imagined with reality. There's no gap between his imagination and his ability to realise it. He can accomplish what he imagines and imagine what he's going to accomplish. Secret Treaties began the concept with the Desdanova theme. The new thing is called 'The Soft Doctrines Of Imaginos'. See, I like to use naive, densely stupid terms. It's a trick of some Russia literature to totally obliterate metaphors. Anyway, Desdanova is a student at Braun University in Providence who lives there to be close to Lovecraft. He's a Frankenstein figure who achieves through research what Imaginos understood instinctively, he forms the axiom. Desdanova appears in 'Astronomy' and some of the songs yet to come out."NB: "Desdanova" is the spelling as it appeared at the time... So, as far as the fans knew, that's what we were going to get next (in 1976) - an Imaginos studio record produced by the full band at the height of their creative powers... But, of course, between Feb 75 and late summer, the situation had clearly changed... when you read all the subsequent press interviews throughout the rest of 1975, a growing rift soon readily became apparent (perhaps particularly with Allen, or at least, that's how it seemed) - by October 75, it was apparent there had been an internal coup and Sandy's reign looked like it was over... Sandy seemed to disappear from the later articles and interviews and the band members were more regularly featured instead, speaking on their own behalf and expressing dissatisfaction with their general direction and image (eg the ads for OYF with the leather gimp guy with a whip at the pulpit) and maybe with the way the band were being perceived as "Pearlman's puppets" etc... OYF seems to have given BOC the time to reassess what they wanted to do, and this also, of course, coincided with the band being given TEAC recorders to be able to produce their own demos "at home" for the next record... how many of these were going to be Imaginos-themed tracks...? With Sandy's creative input having now been effectively hamstrung, it can't have been any surprise that Imaginos was now no longer in contention and so we got AOF instead. Now, don't get me wrong, I appreciate the finer points of that record as much as the next person, but bloody hell, I just wish the Sandy revolt could have happened the following year, allowing the band to bring their full attention and creativity to bear on Sandy Pearlman's life-long vision... Obviously, that's just my own perspective of the situation as I could perceive it via reading the NME etc... but I concede it was probably a different picture when viewed from inside the BOC tent...
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Post by Buck on Feb 19, 2022 23:21:43 GMT
In retrospect, it's too bad Sandy P. couldn't sing or play an instrument well enough to have fronted his own band. He could have done Imaginos the way he envisioned it done.
And alternately, Columbia should have released the original Imaginos with Albert's vocals in 1981, and let the market decide its worth.
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Post by The Ocean on Feb 20, 2022 15:22:19 GMT
Feh to the whole "this band is dead" idea. I tire of bands who sound the same album after album VERY quickly. AC/DC is great and all, but every album since Razor's Edge just blends together for me. What if Fleetwood Mac had stuck to their roots? We wouldn't have had Rumours. Hell, if The Beatles had stuck to their "roots" and just kept making music like their first three albums, we wouldn't have Sgt Pepper. But, the writer did make me realize for the first time that the cymbals really are mostly ghosts on that first album, and that's an incredible feat of engineering.
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Post by The Ocean on Feb 20, 2022 15:28:38 GMT
For me AOF and Spectres showed growth or in reality an expansion of what the band had already brought to the table-even the more commercial stuff showed the hooks and creativity of the earlier work. This. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with commercial stuff in the first place if the music is good on its own merits. The Cars debut album was VERY commercial, but it was also VERY amazing. Being commercial doesn't invalidate good work.
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Post by luxexterior on Feb 20, 2022 16:53:26 GMT
A lot of fan sentiment in retrospect yearned for BOC to stick to the template of the first three records. The thing about post-Reaper, is everyone wanted hits, from the record label to the band guys. No one except Sandy Pearlman wanted to do an Imaginos record in 1977. Also, that was the time that we drifted away from Sandy's influence, and he as well, as he saw himself as record producer, looking for his _next_ Blue Oyster Cult. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being commercial & wanting hits. AOF is one of BOC's best albums & in my opinion Spectres is chronically underrated, it's a great album. That said I do wonder what Imaginos would have sounded like if it had been released in 1976, it's a pretty safe bet, given that the band were probably at their creative peak, that it would have been fabulous.
Also totally agree that Columbia should have released Albert's first attempt in 1981. I still suspect though that BOC Imaginos 1976 still would have been better.
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