Tenderloin (Blue Öyster Cult) (LP 411 - 412)

Blue Öyster Cult Agents Of Fortune (Vinyl, CBS, 1976) ****
Blue Öyster Cult CultÖsaurus Erectus (Vinyl, Columbia, 1980) ***

Genre: Heavy Metal

Places I remember: Real Groovy (Auckland, NZ); Amoeba Records (Hollywood)

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Sinful Love (featuring the immortal line: I love you like sin but I won't be your pigeon)




Gear costume:  (Don't Fear) The Reaper; Revenge Of Vera Gemini; Tattoo Vampire; Debbie Denise  

Active compensatory factors: Patti Smith appears on the track The Revenge Of Vera Gemini (she was dating Allen Lanier at the time), but that's only one of the highlights on this sparkling album of thinking person's metal.

Of course (Don't Fear) The Reaper looms large over this album but there are other songs here that could have been as huge with repeated exposure: Sinful Love; Tattoo Vampire; This Ain't The Summer Of Love; The Revenge Of Vera Gemini; Morning Final; Debbie Denise; Tenderloin...each one has catchy hooks and great presence.

Only one weak song - True Confessions, means this is a flawed classic.

In truth I only bought CultÖsaurus Erectus for the cover (Spectres and Mirrors were disappointing after Agents Of Fortune and CE is in the same vain), as it's a thing of true beauty!

The album is not bad, it's produced by Martin Birch so it sounds terrific! 


Where do they all belong? On reflection, I'm not sure how much Blue Öyster Cult belong in the Heavy Metal genre - too smart and too much invention, but there's no denying those guitars!