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Monday, September 29, 2014

Blue Öyster Cult: Agents Of Fortune

BLUE ÖYSTER CULT: AGENTS OF FORTUNE (1976)

1) This Ain't The Summer Of Love; 2) True Confessions; 3) (Don't Fear) The Reaper; 4) E.T.I. (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence); 5) The Revenge Of Vera Gemini; 6) Sinful Love; 7) Tattoo Vampire; 8) Morning Final; 9) Tenderloin; 10) Debbie Denise.

Sometimes live albums are just live albums, and sometimes live albums mark off, or summarize a certain period — been there, done that, recapitulate, draw a line, time to move on. This is one of those cases: the Blue Öyster Cult of Agents Of Fortune is not the Blue Öyster Cult of Secret Treaties or any previous records. Goodbye, heavy metal — hello, pop rock.

Of course, it's not as if the band had always been a stranger to «softer» forms of music: from ʽRedeemedʼ to ʽWings Wetted Downʼ to ʽAstronomyʼ, their repertoire had frequently had its nods to folk, art-pop, and «progressive» styles. Nor is Agents Of Fortune completely devoid of riff-based tunes: ʽTattoo Vampireʼ has a riff as gritty as anything they'd done previously. But it would be futile to deny that the accents have seriously shifted — with the band being more pre­occupied with melody and harmony now, rather than the good old kick-ass routine.

Case in point: if there is one logical predecessor to the album's big hit song and the one number that is today most commonly associated with Blue Öyster Cult — ʽ(Don't Fear) The Reaperʼ — it would hardly be any of the hard rock bands, but rather The Byrds circa 1966-67. Buck Dharma's famous «jangly» riff is like a minor variation on the riff that opens ʽSo You Want To Be A Rock And Roll Starʼ, and the gentle folksy harmonies, culminating in the simplistic la-la-las of the chorus, sound as if coming straight out of sunny California, rather than the twisted, post-modern alleys of New York City. Add to this that Roeser envisioned the song as a fairly straightforward invitation to get rid of the fear of death — nothing ironic in that — and the "seasons don't fear the reaper" line, with its associations with ʽTurn! Turn! Turn!ʼ, and there you have it. Oh, and don't forget all the raga influences in the guitar break, too, which just about clinches it.

Why the song became such a big hit and such a ubiquitous staple is hard to tell — it was popular way before Will Ferrell and co. immortalized it for the hip crowds in the «more cowbell» SNL sketch, but I am not altogether sure that the cowbell itself could have had such a hypnotic effect on the public. Maybe its «optimistic melancholy», embodied in Roeser's unusually tender singing, filled in some sort of spiritual niche that was empty in 1976, or something. It is a good enough folk rock song, for sure, but hardly a classic example of «The BÖC Special» — knowing the band through this tune is a bit like knowing The Rolling Stones through ʽMiss Youʼ (which, I guess, could also be quite an option for a young person circa 1978).

Now if we take ʽThis Ain't The Summer Of Loveʼ, now we're talking: for all the difference that Agents Of Fortune makes, it opens in classic-traditional fashion, with heavy distorted guitars, eerie grinning vocals ("this is the night we ride!"), and a mock-apocalyptic message that is only a little bit set back by the raucous barroom-rock abandon of the chorus — the hookline is delivered by a bunch of bozos who've had one too many, rather than the Four Horsemen in their prime. You should not read too much profundity into the song — by 1976, everyone in the world knew fair well that «the summer of love» had ended with Altamont seven years back, or so they said — but this is not to say that the song has no snap, or has that snap misplaced. Most importantly, they can still generate that snap through music rather than words: the heavy riffage on ʽTattoo Vampireʼ, for instance, is so much more engaging than the silly lyrics about the protagonist's adventures in a tattoo parlor that the song may have worked better as a mean, fast-paced, athletic instrumental. (On the other hand, the endless references to vampires, daggers, demons, and flying skulls do a good job of directing one's mind to various «dark» associations for the music — otherwise, it might just as well be a modernistic tribute to Link Wray).

But the bulk of the record is far softer than that — you have your Band-style ʽTrue Confessionsʼ, dominated by honky-tonk piano and oddly plaintive vocal harmonies resolving in a falsetto hook; your arena-rock-oriented ʽExtra Terrestrial Intelligenceʼ, with bombastic guitars and anthemic choruses (all that's missing is a stadium and a neon-lit flying saucer landing in the middle); more falsetto harmonies on ʽSinful Loveʼ, mostly memorable for its bizarre refrain ("I love you like sin, but I won't be your pigeon"); more cowbell on ʽTenderloinʼ, where Eric Bloom suddenly decides to introduce a little bit of croon into his vocals and the whole thing ends up sounding like a slightly toughened up Billy Joel rocker; and ʽDebbie Deniseʼ, which is their softest album closer since ʽRedeemedʼ — pop harmonies all around and a chorus that, from my perspective, borders on sea shanty (or maybe it is just because I keep mishearing the "where I was out rolling with my band" line as "where I was a-rowin' with my band").

This should not, however, be taken as a criticism, for one simple reason: most of these songs are fun. They are imaginative, intriguing, (sometimes) lyrically challenging, memorable, and, most importantly, they come alive — it's almost as if the band were temporarily rejuvenated by gaining the right to step away from the hard rock formula and explore some contiguous territory. I mean, they even get Patti Smith to not only continue supplying some of the lyrics, but — now that her own musical career had kicked off with Horses a year ago — actually acquiring the right to duet with them on one of the tracks (the vampire anthem ʽRevenge Of Vera Geminiʼ): regardless of whether you are partial or not to the idea of Patti's warbling voice echoing Bloom, this is evi­dence of the band frantically searching for new solutions.

It all smells of a little campiness, where even ʽThe Reaperʼ might eventually begin to look like a parody on the «serious life-and-death message» song than the real thing, but ideologically, the album is not all that different from the early «meta-rock», «post-modern», «intertextual» etc. BÖC — most of the songs really work whichever way you want them to work, so that ʽVera Geminiʼ may look creepy one moment and hilarious the next one. In any case, ʽReaperʼ or no ʽReaperʼ, the record as a whole is a success, hard as it is to understand exactly what is so special about it. Maybe it's just that whole aura, a mix of sleaze, sarcasm, and «modernist spirituality», and the amazing discovery that it still stays relevant and involving even as the band rejects the gritty hard rock stomp as the primary means for conveying it. Thumbs up.

11 comments:

  1. "knowing The Rolling Stones through ʽMiss Youʼ"
    Miss You was hit indeed, but any teen listening to the radio on a regular base around 1978 knew Satisfaction, Angie, Let's spend the night together and several others. I have never had a RS album on my turntable and CD-player - so how do you think I know their songs?
    At the other hand the only BOC song I have known for decades was (Don't fear) the reaper. I never was impressed by it, mainly because it's repetitive. But I'm surprised that you think it an optimistic song - I always thought it a bit dark, perhaps because of the instrumental break. To me it has an apocalyptic feel. Unfortunately it's way too short.

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    1. I think it is about time for you to start listening to Rolling Stones, in order to refine your taste. Better late than never.

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  2. The Reaper is a doom-laden song: invitation to suicide of one lover whereas the other one is on the other side. Roeser wrote it when felt seriously depressed.

    It is jangly, eery, full of mistique, and FM friendly. No wonder it was a hit. The mid-break and continued guitar solo always give me goosebumps like no other song.

    Overall, AoF is an excellent album, almost a masterpiece, if there weren't two skippers, like True Confessions and Sinful Love.

    And it is maybe a pop-hard-rock album, but certainly not soft-rock.

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. Want to know how evil that middle break is? The Christian parody band ApologetiX redid it as Don't Fear the People (kinda dumb even for their standards, which in itself is a little scary) and didnt even touch it.

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  3. By the way, Albert Bouchard sings on Vera Gemini together with Patti Smith.

    And also, there is another "non-fun", but pretty song, Joe Bouchard's 'Morning Final', that you forgot to mention. Something about the horrors of living in New York of 70's.

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  4. It's BOC's most radio friendly, "accessible", album by far, although "best" is maybe stretching it. I'm mainly a fan of the first album, although most of them do have their moments. BOC, despite being the very examplar of a hip, progressive minded, "album band", never really delivered fully consistent albums. "Cultosaurus Erectus" and "Fire Of Unknown Origin" are strong late period releases, but anything after that is strictly for diehards.

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  5. I can't agree with Malx regarding their first two 80s albums which already began the band's descent into cheese (Black Blade!), though they have a few decent songs. Imaginos, however, is NOT strictly recommended for diehards rather it should be heard by anyone with a vague interest in the band because it's actually brilliant.

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  6. I lost interest in BOC after Club Ninja. Based on your recommendation, I will be checking out Imaginos. Thanks

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  7. “E.T.I” was the first song that captured my attention after “…Reaper” oversaturated the airwaves. I assume that’s a 70’s-type talkbox guitar leading into that very catchy hook. The first seven tracks are, in fact, full of great hooks. Patti Smith was one person I wouldn’t have expected to show up on a BOC album (and she wouldn’t have, if her drummer wasn’t her boyfriend) but she really makes “..Vera Gemini” extra creepy. For me, the album runs out of steam after “Tattoo Vampire”. I can never remember the last three songs when the album isn’t playing. Overall, though, the original album is a very entertaining listen.
    The remastered version has four bonus tracks. It’s interesting that you think that “..Reaper” sounds like the Byrds. When I first heard the demo (taken at a slower tempo than the final version), I was reminded of Tom Petty, although Petty would never have written those lyrics. There’s also a demo of “Fire of Unknown Origin”. I don’t know the final version, so I don’t know if it was improved. There’s also a demo of a song by Albert Bouchard called “Sally”, with some rather obnoxious, sexist lyrics which don’t really fit the band at all. It’s a good thing this song never made it to their “real” albums.

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