Some Enchanted Evening

Enjoying great success in music, film, television, and the stage, Dean Martin was less an entertainer than an icon, the eternal essence of cool. A member of the legendary Rat Pack, he lived and died the high life of booze, broads and bright lights, always projecting a sense of utter detachment and serenity; along with Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr. and the other chosen few who breathed the same rarefied air, Martin – highball and cigarette always firmly in hand – embodied the glorious excess of a world long gone, a world without rules or consequences. Throughout it all, he remained just outside the radar of understanding, the most distant star in the firmament.

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!.)