![]() ![]() But you only know that if you’re probably more than 40 years old.įirst of all, the band is known as the de facto, go-to American biker band – covering such hog anthems such as “Born to be Wild” will only help you to bolster your claim to that fan base. Still, to those of a certain age who remember the band when they were in their prime, this is a welcome set for a group that actually straddled different audiences back in the day. And, yes, as this new boxed set proves – as it contains all 14 studio and live albums recorded during the ‘70s and ‘80s for Columbia Records, plus a rarities disc, a radio broadcast disc, a concert DVD and a coupon that allows you to download even more live material – the band certainly had some dross in their catalogue, especially when they tried to recapture the lightning in a bottle that was “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper”. Which is a bit of a shame, as the band delivered a number of solid, consistent albums that rank up there in the metal and hard rock/classic rock pantheon. So, sure, young people really don’t get or know the real Blue Öyster Cult it seems. Telling, there’s a line in the Blue Öyster Cult song “Flaming Telepaths” that goes “And the joke’s on you.” I guess you could say that the joke ultimately wound up being on the band, at their expense, in the world of popular culture. I don’t know if the makers of Police Academy were making a comment on the Blue Öyster band with their naming of the bar (and I could find nothing while doing a cursory search of Google to make any sort of connection), but all I know is that I had to start singing a few lines from “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper” back at my colleague before he understood. ![]() The reason? The name of the stereotypical gay biker bar depicted in those films when that music plays is called the Blue Oyster. When I told a colleague at my current workplace, who is a year or so younger than me (I’m 37), that I got the new, monster Blue Öyster Cult boxed set called The Columbia Albums Collection to encapsulate for this Web publication, he immediately started humming the “El Bimbo” theme from the Police Academy movies. (The app would play a cowbell sound if you shook the phone, punctuated occasionally with Walken’s lines from the piece.)īut there’s more to the band’s joke status than just an SNL parody. The ensuing popularity of this skit is such that, when I worked at a digital design agency in Toronto, Canada, in 2008, I knew a guy who actually had a “More Cowbell” app on his new iPhone. You know this as the “More Cowbell” bit, in which Walken plays a fictional record producer, modeled after long-time producer and band manager Sandy Pearlman, who tries to coax Ferrell’s character to play his cowbell louder on the song. The reason for this is that most people are painfully aware of the classic and by now infamous 2000 Saturday Night Live sketch featuring Christopher Walken and Will Ferrell, which fictionalized the recording of the band’s biggest hit, “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper”. If you’re south of the age of 40, chances are that you probably think of Blue Öyster Cult as a joke band, or as a punchline to a joke. ![]()
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