Imaginos | Loppylugs

Submitted by Lesley on 27 October 2013 - 8:36pm

Cover:

Artist:

Blue Öyster Cult

album-ID:

a_140

Nationality:

USA

Year:

1 988

Release-year:

0000

Num-of-tracks:

Track-listing:

I Am The One You Warned Me Of*Les Invisibles*In The Presence Of Another World *Del Rio's Song*The Siege And Investiture Of Baron Von Frankenstein's Castle At Weisseria*Astronomy*Magna Of Illusion*Blue Oyster Cult*Imaginos

Length-in-mins:

Nominator:

Bean

meeting-ID:

m_54

Now-num:

2 013

Grooveshark-URL:

Imaginos/300564

Short-title:

imaginos

nominator-ID:

u_96

Meeting-date:

Thursday, 19 December 2013

MusicBrainz-URL:

8d383792-f5a8-3469-ba5f-92f7134e90c0

Wikipedia-URL:

Imaginos

Discogs-URL:

Blue-Öyster-Cult-Imaginos/master/68064

Allmusic-URL:

imaginos-mw0000196710

code

Some global variables used across pages

code

this is code for each album page, to be hidden

review-form data

guest-list data

108

109

117

reviewers-IDs data

-96-

-2-

-14-

-13-

-1-

80

reviewed by

Lesley

The Gloriously Bonkers World of Imaginos

1-2-5-6-7-9

This was the first Blue Oyster Cult album I bought. I bought it in 1988 when it came out. I was 13. I’d heard BOC before from my dad; he had the Agents of Fortune and Secret Treaties albums. I think I’d heard ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’ on the radio and taped it and had asked my dad who it was by and he’d told me it was by BOC and given me his two albums to listen to. I was already into Black Sabbath and their sounds are similar (they did a co-headliner tour in 1980 Black and Blue – they took it in turns to play songs on the set list). I think this is actually quite a heavy album, a good mix of heavy rock and melodic tunes. I was fascinated by the story of Imaginos, it was so gloriously bonkers and that really appealed to me at the time and still does. I only recently discovered it’s what you call a ‘concept’ album and has been described as a ‘rock opera’. This is a hugely nostalgic album for me, but I actually think it has aged well and I still really enjoyed listening to it. Hearing songs like ‘In the presence of another world’ with lyrics like ‘your master, evil monster’, it probably sounds a bit camped up to contemporary ears, but that just makes me like it more! It is definitely my favourite BOC album as I think musically it has a lot more going on, some of their later albums like Club Ninja and Fire of Unknown Origin were quite mainstream, bland rock in comparison, but this is much heavier, more like their earlier stuff. Apparently it took about eight years in the making and I think that shows. ‘Astronomy’ is my favourite song – it’s actually a re-mix of a song from an earlier album it first appears on the album Secret Treaties and also on the live album Some Enchanted Evening. This is a more haunting version I think.
60

reviewed by

Matthew Baker

Oooh imaginos!

ooooh imaginos, ooooh ooooooh ooooh imaginos!
58

reviewed by

Richard Norbury
58

reviewed by

Neil Hornsey

This style of music has never been my thing, in fact it's the style I most distanced myself from, both in terms of the music and the people who liked it. Perhaps that's why I actually found this album strangely enjoyable at times, not having had my mind brainwashed with it for the last three decades. There's something exciting and invigourating in the sheer drama and power of the music, and some of the guitar solos are exhilirating. There's no shortage of hits, some memorable tunes and choruses and decent structures. It probably won't remain on my Walkman but an interesting listen nonetheless.
50

reviewed by

Glyn Lewis

They are the ones you warned me of

6-8

1-2-5

Although released in 88, I read that a lot of this album was produced around 81-83 – there was a big sea change just before this time in music. Most heavy rock / progressive bands felt they had to respond to this change and quite a few changed tack and made some interesting offerings. These sound like a band who dug their heels in and stuck at what they were comfortable with. I guess in America you could much more easily get away with that, I would say that is not necessarily a good thing.

I think the danger with concept albums is that instead of the creatives concentrating on constructing varied music with original sounds and clever counterpoints and harmonies, they're getting distracted into thinking about their Chamber of Jade under the sea or whatever. The music is a slave to their thematic drives. In spite of whatever the lyrics might say they have lost sight of where they are in the musical landscape and can end up wandering down cul-de-sacs. Magna of Illusion is probably a prime example of that, it's just a long sprawl of story telling ideas which, if you ignore the words, feels like a shapeless and chaotic piece of music. It is a kind of fascinating car-crash of a song.

Some bits are amusing in their cod opera grandioseness and some pieces are more straight-forward US-flavor heavy rock, metal-tinged stuff which is pretty well done. A bit of a mixed bag but interesting to hear.