MetaChat - Don't Fear The Reaper.

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14 August 2010

Don't Fear The Reaper. Since we're all admitting our uncool music crushes this week, here's mine: Blue Oyster Cult. I love them unabashedly and unironically, and have done since I was a kid.→[More:]

They devolved into an ugly self-parody in their very latest years, but there's just no denying the awesomeness of many of their songs.

The best BOC cover I've heard lately has been by The Peptides, who covered "Don't Fear The Reaper": video song

post by: BoringPostcards at: 18:42 | 30 comments

There is nothing uncool about BÖC.

posted by Hugh Janus 14 August | 18:53

Oh I think there is nothing to be embarrassed about with BOC. I will admit that I hated Don't Fear the Reaper and Godzilla and everything they did after that. I felt like they had sold out.

I still have my copies of their first 3 less-commercial albums on vinyl. I think my wife would look at me funny if I played them though.

posted by DarkForest 14 August | 19:05

BOC and Deep Purple are a couple of my guilty pleasures.

posted by ecrivain 14 August | 19:07

None of the live versions of my favorite BOC song live up to the one on the album, IMO. I wish Quentin Tarantino would make a movie based on this song; I think it'd be right up his alley.

posted by BoringPostcards 14 August | 19:18

That guitar in the first link is gorgeous. I wish there were more clear close-ups of it. I have major respect for BÖC.

posted by Ardiril 14 August | 19:21

Incidentally, I wish the guitarist on that Peptides cover hadn't had nylon guitar strings on his guitar. They're way too squeaky even for what they're doing with the song.

posted by BoringPostcards 14 August | 19:34

Deep Purple and Uriah Heep are, in my view, the inspirations for Spinal Tap.

posted by Doohickie 14 August | 19:42

This is where I say it once and never again: Styx.

posted by rainbaby 14 August | 19:47

Your brazen honesty is one reason I love you, rainbaby.

posted by BoringPostcards 14 August | 20:06

I'm burnin' I'm burnin' I'm burnin' for you . . . .

posted by JanetLand 14 August | 20:07

Thud rock bands like AC/DC and early Judas Priest were much closer in sound to what Spinal Tap did.

posted by Ardiril 14 August | 20:09

And STYX! For years I've been trying to get SOMEbody to tell me what's wrong with Styx. Nobody can ever say anything coherent about it.

posted by JanetLand 14 August | 20:10

And, seriously (sorry to rant but I've taken a one-night break from not having alcohol), what IS it that makes some bands not cool? Who gets to decide this? Why can no one articulate that? "I don't like it" or bleeding ears or whatever is not a good enough explanation.

posted by JanetLand 14 August | 20:12

I liked most of Styx ("Renegade" is one exception) until Kilroy. For arena rock bands, their coolness factor drops with each Top 40 single.

posted by Ardiril 14 August | 20:17

STYX.

posted by ecrivain 14 August | 20:20

what IS it that makes some bands not cool? Who gets to decide this?

Sadly, it's a class/politics thing. Bands loved by poor/lower-middle-class white people are uncool because poor LMC white people tend to have shitty political views. Therefore their music tastes suck.

posted by BoringPostcards 14 August | 20:29

I saw Blue Oyster Cult in concert when I was a teenager. I love them. I didn't know they were uncool. ;-)

posted by LoriFLA 14 August | 20:42

I'm jealous, LoriFLA, since that had to be the original band. :)

posted by BoringPostcards 14 August | 20:44

(I'm older than LoriFLA but I never got to see BOC back in the day)

posted by BoringPostcards 14 August | 20:45

Yeah, they came to Daytona Beach for a Spring Break concert. I think they have been coming here for Spring Break for years prior to that. I saw them outdoors at the bandshell on the beach. It must have been in the late eighties. Unfortunately I was too young to appreciate them fully but I have always loved their music.

ha, speaking of, I'm watching the Patriots pre-seaon game and they are playing Don't Fear the Reaper.

posted by LoriFLA 14 August | 20:50

I just love a man who works with his hands. You know. Against impossible odds. A blue collar man.

posted by rainbaby 14 August | 21:07

Bands that sing about science fiction are often considered uncool by people who choose to define their taste less by things they themselves like and more by things other people shouldn't like. Which is an enormous number of people who are probably only dicks when it comes to music and other matters of personal taste.

posted by Hugh Janus 14 August | 21:23

Styx's arc from cool to uncool is something that must be studied. I mean, I thoroughly enjoy Pretentious Progressive Rock but "Kilroy" seemed a little off. I think once Journey and REO Speedwagon set a type for similar-sounding bands (and vocalists), Styx didn't fit in.

But Blue Öyster Cult just shouldn't have ever tried to top "Reaper". If there was ever a One Hit to build One Hit Wonder status on, that was it. "Godzilla" tried to follow it but failed and "Burning For You" was kind of a statement of surrender.

posted by oneswellfoop 14 August | 21:50

BUT... After "Burning For You", BÖC went back to being BÖC, and with only the two hits, they managed to regain most of their cred fairly quickly.

posted by Ardiril 14 August | 22:08

MacArthur Park. JUST KIDDING OK, I admit it. A song by Bread.

posted by Kronos_to_Earth 14 August | 23:14

The only song of BOC I've ever heard is 'Reaper'. It's one of those songs that I find myself singing along to on the radio without even realising that I know the lyrics - they must be embedded in my memory from way back.

posted by Senyar 15 August | 03:12

I'm sorry, Hugh, I didn't take your suggestion.

posted by oneswellfoop 15 August | 03:53

I never have anything to admit when it comes to the "uncool music I still happen to like" threads because I don't nor did I ever care if music I liked was considered cool or not. I just like music. In general. A lot. :)

*boogies to yma sumac* Oh wait, is that cool or uncool now? I don't know.

posted by dabitch 15 August | 14:12

In my mid-30s, I developed a sudden appreciation for Dokken. George Lynch is the best player in this style of metal that I've ever heard. Don Dokken has a strong, well trained voice. And they were above-average songwriters for the genre.

I think "Kiss of Death" is their best song.

posted by Joe Beese 15 August | 16:40

"...Days of May" is indeed a great song, all around.

I love BOC and you should too. Their early stuff is good, and they got me to read "The King in Yellow" and learn about "The Motif of Harmful Sensation" (now a victim of Wikipedia's deletion wars; assholes).

I never got into the Imaginos stuff, though.

posted by Eideteker 16 August | 11:26

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