Blue Oyster Cult Some Enchanted Evening

Blue Öyster Cult marks time with a second live album on which they turn out good, if redundant, concert versions of recent favorites like "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" and "Godzilla" and add to their repertoire of live covers such oldies as the MC5's "Kick out the Jams" and the Animals' "We Gotta Get out of This Place." A perfectly acceptable, completely unnecessary souvenir record from a hard-touring band of the '70s. (It should perhaps be noted that the mid- to late '70s was a period when more live albums than usual were being released, especially in the wake of Peter Frampton's massively successful 1976 album Frampton Comes Alive!.)

The 2012 box set Original Album Classics rounds up the five albums BOC released between 1975 and 1983: On Your Feet or on Your Knees, Some Enchanted Evening, Cultosaurus Erectus, Fire of Unknown Origin, and Revölution by Night. Every one of these CDs is packaged as a mini-LP in a paper sleeve, making this a handsome, affordable way to get the prime of Blue Öyster Cult in one fell swoop.

Blue Oyster Cult - The Columbia Albums Collection brings together the group's 14 official Columbia Records albums–including newly-mastered editions of On Your Feet or on Your Knees, Fire of Unknown Origin, The Revolution by Night, Mirrors, Cultosaurus Erectus, Extraterrestrial Live, Club Ninja and Imaginos–alongside two newly-curated bonus discs: Rarities and Radios Appear: The Best of the Broadcasts (a special collection of classic live performances).

Agents Of Fortune (1976). If ever there were a manifesto for 1970s rock, one that prefigured both the decadence of the decade's burgeoning heavy metal and prog rock excesses and the rage of punk rock, "This Ain't the Summer of Love," the opening track from Agents of Fortune, Blue Öyster Cult's fourth album, was it. The irony was that while the cut itself came down firmly on the hard rock side of the fence, most of the rest of the album didn't. Agents of Fortune was co-produced by longtime Cult record boss Sandy Pearlman, Murray Krugman, and newcomer David Lucas, and in addition, the band's lyric writing was being done internally with help from poet-cum-rocker Patti Smith (who also sings on "The Revenge of Vera Gemini"). Pearlman, a major contributor to the band's songwriting output, received a solitary credit while critic Richard Meltzer, whose words were prevalent on the Cult's previous outings, was absent…

Though seen as a commercial disappointment following 'Agents of Fortune,' 'Spectres' still managed to sell more than half a million copies while giving the world the classic ode to giant monster "Godzilla." The band became a bit more polished on 'Spectres' but without shunning their identity. "I Love the Night" remains one of their most haunting songs, while the less-celebrated "Goin' Through the Motions" may be their most pop-tastic moment.