Music / Cultösaurus Erectus

Lots of monsters, in our minds

Cultösaurus Erectus, released in 1980, was the seventh studio album released by the Blue Öyster Cult. Following the critically acclaimed Spectres in 1977, the next studio LP was the equally critically unacclaimed Mirrors, which represented an experimental departure from the usual heavy rock style of the band and had been chart-orientated towards AOR, with tracks that experimented with country-and-western (In Thee) and even disco-themed rhythms and beats (Doctor Music).

Cultösaurus Erectus saw a return to the band's traditional and harder rock style and returned them to the realms of big LP sales and profitable tours.

It was preceded by Mirrors (1979) and would be followed by Fire of Unknown Origin (1981)

Tracklist

Side One:

1. . "Black Blade" (6:34)
2. . "Monsters" (5:10)
3. . "Divine Wind" (5:07)
4. . "Deadline" (4:27)

Side Two:

1. . "The Marshall Plan" (5:24)
2. . "Hungry Boys" (3:38)
3. . "Fallen Angel" (3:11)
4. . "Lips in the Hills" (4:24)
5. . "Unknown Tongue" (3:55)

Personnel:

• Eric Bloom: vocals, guitar, percussion
• Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser: vocals, guitar, percussion, synthesizer
• Allen Lanier: vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards
• Joe Bouchard: vocals, bass, piano
• Albert Bouchard: vocals, drums, acoustic guitar, percussion, harmonica
• Michael Moorcock: author of Black Blade.
• Don Kirshner: spoken part on The Marshall Plan
• Mark Rivera - saxophone
• Martin Birch - producer

And it tropes! It tropes like Hell!

• Black Swords Are Better: The Black Blade.
• Cool Sword: Black Blade.
• Drugs Are Bad: Hungry Boys is about heroin suddenly arriving in a town that never had it before.
• Eagle Land: the popular mood expressed in Divine Wind, which expresses the view, according to current events in 1980, that Iran needed a really good kicking.^note [ Whether this represents America The Boorish or America The Beautiful is a point of view.
• Fallen Angel:
  Gonna rise up from Hell! I am a fallen angel!
• The Fundamentalist: Margaret, heroine of "Unknown Tongue'', is a fervent Christian who develops not only religious mania, but also the stigmata - Christ's wounds to hands and feet. This being the BOC, there is a suspicion she helped God's Will along by means of her father's razor.
• Groupie: Suzie, the faithless girlfriend who abandons Johnny at a rock concert to run off in the band's limousine. This motivates Johnny to become a rock star himself in the hope this will win her back.
  And there goes his Suzie, in the band's limousine - yeah, well that's the way it goes, at these rock and roll shows!
• Heavy Mithril: Michael Moorcock wrote "Black Blade" based on his titular character, from The Elric Saga.
• Homage; The Marshall Plan, about a hopeless dreamer who becomes a rock star, features a couple of tribute bars of Deep Purple's Smoke on The Water.
• Jazz: Mark Rivera's underpinning saxophone and full-blown solo on Monsters.
• Music Genre Dissonance: Monsters is a space rock anthem about the last survivors of Planet Earth falling out and fighting among themselves on their escape ship. Rather than something akin to Hawkwind-style Space Rock, it is played as an upbeat jazz-pop number complete with saxophone solo.
• Rock Star Song: The Marshall Plan, in which a hopeless dreamer becomes a big star, but cannot find his girl anywhere.
• Take That!: Divine Wind was written at a time (1980) when the USA's issues with Iran revolved around American hostages who had been incarcerated for over a year by the Ayatollah Khomeini. The band tapped into the popular sentiment that the USA should go in hard and mercilessly against Khomeini's regime, which had labelled the USA as The Great Satan.
  If he really thinks we're the Devil - then let's send him to Hell!