I read through the review list yesterday, mainy because I really had nothing better to do. I noticed something really peculiar - unless I'm dyslexic, there is NO Blue Oyster Cult there. They are one of the best bands in rock music and blazed a lot of trails.
In the late sixties, Buck Dharma, Allen Lanier, and Albert Bouchard started a band called the Soft White Underbelly during college. After a while, they replaced their singer and bassist with Bloom and Joe Bouchard. After spending a couple years as a bar band under the names Stalk-Forrest Group and Oaxaca, they changed their name to Blue Oyster Cult and recorded their self-titled debut album for Columbia Records in 1970. Since then, they've continued to release albums and tour. Bloom, Buck Dharma, and Lanier are still in the band today, and they are still touring (I missed out on going to see them because it was an outdoor show and it was raining :upset: ).
I chose to buy their greatest hits instead of their individual albums because, frankly, they have a LOT of albums and I don't have a lot of money. This does pretty much encompass their whole creative career.
Don't Fear The Reaper is their most famous song (mainly because of the cowbell sketch on SNL, you can find that at [URL=http://mrt300.ods.org/snl/]http://mrt300.ods.org/snl/[/URL]), and rightly so. It has a great rhythm guitar bit, enchanting vocals, and some great guitar work by Buck Dharma (this guy is my hero).
Godzilla is probably a close second. The tone of the rhythm guitar is gnarly and, again, Buck Dharma does a good job of making his guitar a focal point.
There are also a few more songs that are complete classics - Burnin' For You is a staple on classic rock radio; Cities On Flame With Rock And Roll is based around one of my favorite guitar riffs (in my opinion, it contends with the opening to Purple Haze); The Red & The Black sounds semi-chaotic, the alternating lead and background vocals are the real strength of this song; and Flaming Telepaths is a great example of how a keyboard can completely change the mood of a song (kind of like Are You Experienced) with some great lyrics and vocals too.
I won't lie to you, this CD isn't perfect. There are some songs that are definitely good but have some weak points to them, like Astronomy, Summer of Love, Black Blade, and Take Me Away. The flip-side to being an experimental band, however, is that not everybody will like all the styles you encompass. There are definitely pop music influences in songs like I Love The Night and In Thee.
All in all, I'm going to give this CD a 3.5/5. If you skip over tracks 7 and 10, it goes up to a 4/5.
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