1974: Blue Öyster Cult – Secret Treaties

Aside from a loyal fanbase of 50-year-old Long Island gearheads (hi, dad) and some devout followers of early hard rock and heavy metal, most people who know of Blue Öyster Cult, when pressed, can name exactly three of their songs: “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper,” “Burnin’ For You,” and “Godzilla.” These are all undeniably great in their own right, but apart from the epic solos, infectious hooks, and earth-moving power chords, they hardly paint a full picture of the prodigious instrumentalism and wholly uncompromising lyricism that the pioneers of ass-kicking once known as Soft White Underbelly have put forward time and time again. At best, they offer an incomplete, if beautiful, sketch — an outline of three different rock/metal composites, each assembled with equal parts traditional craftsmanship and alchemic wizardry.

To truly appreciate BÖC, one should start with their first three albums, the black and white LPs Blue Öyster Cult, Tyranny and Mutation, and this writer’s personal favorite, 1974’s Secret Treaties. Co-written by Patti Smith, the album’s opening track, “Career of Evil,” features a demented guitar/organ riff that could provide the score to a cannibalistic cabal’s cross-country carnival — a fitting starting point considering that at this time a good portion of the band’s fanfare was a result of their frequent touring. When lead vocalist Eric Bloom declares, “I’d like to do it to your daughter on a dirt road/ And then I’d spend your ransom money/ But still keep your sheep,” he demonstrates a good-humored malevolence that serves as the rock star yin to producer Sandy Pearlman’s Lovecraftian yang.

The next track, “Subhuman,” and the album’s closer, “Astronomy,” are both inspired by the alien conspiracy mythos laid out in Pearlman’s unreleased poetry collection, The Soft Doctrines of Imaginos. That’s a whole story unto itself, and so you could spend all day picking apart the metaphysical meanings of verses like “Hellish glare and inference/ The other one’s a duplicate/ The queenly flux eternal light/ Or the light that never warms,” but the true genius lies in the fact that these abstractions are propped up by a familiar tale of youthful indiscretion: “Come Susie dear, let’s take a walk/ Just out there upon the beach/ I know you’ll soon be married/ And you’ll want to know where winds come from.” A brilliant ballad no matter how you slice it, “Astronomy” would reappear on several future BÖC releases, including the live album, Some Enchanted Evening, and 1988’s Imaginos.

Secret Treaties’ standout track — the one that really and truly bangs — is “Flaming Telepaths.” In today’s age of irksome irony, when we see such a title on an album’s tracklist we tend to scoff, and rightfully so I suppose. The title is over the top, as is its prog-heavy pre-stadium rock intro, as are lyrics like “Poisons in my bloodstream/ Poisons in my pride,” as are the consecutive keyboard and guitar solos that make up about a quarter of the song — but taken altogether, it works now in 2012 just as well as it did in 1974, maybe even better. The reason is this: Blue Öyster Cult’s members are smarter, tighter, and more talented than your favorite musicians, plus even when they’re fucking around, they ain’t fucking around. Look again at the front cover of the album. That’s a drawing of the band standing next to a German World War II plane marked with their hook-and-cross insignia and piloted by death himself. Donning a cape, the lead singer holds at bay four German Shepherds.

On the back cover, those same dogs lie sprawled in pools of blood.

DeLorean

There’s a lot of good music out there, and it’s not all being released this year. With DeLorean, we aim to rediscover overlooked artists and genres, to listen to music historically and contextually, to underscore the fluidity of music. While we will cover reissues here, our focus will be on music that’s not being pushed by a PR firm.

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