Blue Öyster Cult - Original Album Classics (2011) [5CD Box Set] RE-UP

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Blue Öyster Cult - Original Album Classics (2011) [5CD Box Set] RE-UP

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allmusic.com biography: Blue Öyster Cult was the thinking man's heavy metal group. Put together on a college campus by a couple of rock critics, it maintained a close relationship with a series of literary figures (often in the fields of science fiction and horror), including Eric Von Lustbader, Patti Smith, Michael Moorcock, and Stephen King, while turning out some of the more listenable metal music of the early and mid-'70s.

Blue Öyster Cult, their debut album, was released in January 1972 and made the lower reaches of the charts. Columbia sent a promotional EP, Live Bootleg, to radio stations in October, and followed with BÖC's second album, Tyranny & Mutation, in February 1973. Their third album, Secret Treaties, was released in April 1974 and became their first to break into the Top 100 bestsellers. (It eventually went gold.) BÖC released a live double album, On Your Feet or on Your Knees, in February 1975. In May 1976, came their fourth studio album, Agents of Fortune, including the Top 40 (Top Ten on some charts) hit single "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" (featured in the classic John Carpenter horror film Halloween), which became their first gold and then platinum album. (On Your Feet went gold shortly after.) BÖC's sixth overall album, Spectres, was released in October 1977 and went gold in January 1978. In September 1978 came a second live album, Some Enchanted Evening, which eventually would become BÖC's second million-seller, followed by the studio album Mirrors in June 1979. A year later, BÖC released its ninth album, Cultosaurus Erectus, with the gold Fire of Unknown Origin, containing the Top 40 hit "Burnin' for You," following in June 1981.

In the summer of 1981, drummer Albert Bouchard was replaced by the band's tour manager and lighting designer, Rick Downey. BÖC's third live album, Extraterrestrial Live, was released in April 1982, followed by the studio album The Revolution by Night in October 1983… …

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Blue Öyster Cult - Original Album Classics (2011) [5CD Box Set] RE-UP

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Blue Öyster Cult - On Your Feet Or On Your Knees (1975)
EAC-FLAC with CUE & LOG - 451 MB | 76:02 mins | MP3 CBR 320 Kbps - 178 MB

allmusic.com says: On Your Feet or on Your Knees, Blue Öyster Cult's first live album (there would be two more), was also their first to peak inside the Top 40 best-sellers, which is more of an indication of the audience the group was building up through extensive touring than of its quality. Songs that had a tight, concentrated impact on studio albums got elongated here, and that impact was dissipated. And the song selection left a great deal to be desired if this was to be a fitting summation of the band's career so far. Perhaps by their 1974 tour, BÖC had dropped such classics from their first album as "Transmaniacon MC," "I'm on the Lamb But I Ain't No Sheep," and "Stairway to the Stars," but the less impressive material from the third album was no substitute. The album did mark the first commercial release of a version of "Buck's Boogie" as well as covers of the Yardbirds' "I Ain't Got You" and Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild."

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Blue Öyster Cult - Original Album Classics (2011) [5CD Box Set] RE-UP

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Blue Öyster Cult - Some Enchanted Evening (1978)
EAC-FLAC with CUE & LOG - 255 MB | 38:07 mins | MP3 CBR 320 Kbps - 88 MB

allmusic.com says: Blue Öyster Cult marks time with a second live album on which they turn out good, if redundant, concert versions of recent favorites like "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" and "Godzilla" and add to their repertoire of live covers such oldies as the MC5's "Kick out the Jams" and the Animals' "We Gotta Get out of This Place." A perfectly acceptable, completely unnecessary souvenir record from a hard-touring band of the '70s. (It should perhaps be noted that the mid- to late '70s was a period when more live albums than usual were being released, especially in the wake of Peter Frampton's massively successful 1976 album Frampton Comes Alive!.)

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Blue Öyster Cult - Cultosaurus Erectus (1980)
EAC-FLAC with CUE & LOG - 288 MB | 41:53 mins | MP3 CBR 320 Kbps - 96 MB

allmusic.com says: Signing on with Deep Purple/Black Sabbath producer Martin Birch, Blue Öyster Cult made more of a guitar-heavy hard rock album in Cultosaurus Erectus after flirting with pop ever since the success of Agents of Fortune. (They also promoted this album by going out on a co-headlining tour with Sabbath.) Gone are the female backup singers, the pop hooks, the songs based on keyboard structures, and they are replaced by lots of guitar solos and a beefed-up rhythm section. But the band still were not generating strong enough material to compete with their concert repertoire, so they found themselves in the bind of being a strong touring act unable to translate that success into record sales.

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Blue Öyster Cult - Fire Of Unknown Origin (1981)
EAC-FLAC with CUE & LOG - 264 MB | 39:05 mins | MP3 CBR 320 Kbps - 88 MB

allmusic.com says: Who would have thought that in 1981, after a pair of limp, unfocused studio offerings, and two mixed – at best – live outings, that the once mighty Blue Öyster Cult would come back with such a fierce, creative, and uncompromising effort as Fire of Unknown Origin. Here was their finest moment since Agents of Fortune five years earlier, and one of their finest ever. Bringing back into the fold the faithful team who helped articulate their earlier vision, producer Sandy Pearlman, Richard Meltzer, and Patti Smith all helped in the lyric department, as did science-fiction and dark-fantasy writer Michael Moorcock. The band's sound was augmented by a plethora of keyboards courtesy of Allen Lanier, but nonetheless retained a modicum of its heaviness, and the sheer songwriting craft that had helped separate the band form its peers early on was everywhere evident here – especially the gloriously noir-ish Top 40 single "Burning for You," written by Meltzer and guitarist Buck Dharma. Other standouts on the set include the plodding, über-riff pyrotechnics of "Heavy Metal: The Black and the Silver," and the Mott the Hoople- and Queen-influenced glammed up roots rock of "Joan Crawford." The terrifying images of desecration and apocalyptic war in "Veteran of Psychic Wars," with words by Moorcock, feature huge synth lines, dual leads by Dharma and Eric Bloom – as well as a tom-tom orgy from Albert Bouchard – offered a new pathway through the eternal night of the Cult's best work. Fire of Unknown Origin has aged well, and deserves to be remastered in the 21st century.

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Blue Öyster Cult - The Revolution By Night (1983)
EAC-FLAC with CUE & LOG - 270 MB | 42:15 mins | MP3 CBR 320 Kbps - 97 MB

allmusic.com says: Blue Öyster Cult seemed to regain their direction with Fire of Unknown Origin, but simultaneously, the band was starting to fragment, with founding member and notable songwriter Albert Bouchard departing. On The Revolution by Night, BÖC brought in various hired guns, such as Aldo Nova and former Alice Cooper bandmember Neal Smith, and turned to Loverboy's producer, Bruce Fairbairn, who gave them a similar radio-ready rock sound. Although The Revolution by Night lacked a distinctive identity, the album brought BÖC their fourth (and final) singles chart entry in "Shooting Shark."