Music / Spectres

Come on, come on! There's a new tune playing! Are you ready to rock?!

Spectres is the fifth studio album by Blue Öyster Cult, released in 1977. It's best remembered for the radio hits "Death Valley Nights", "R.U. Ready 2 Rock", "I Love the Night" and, of course, "Godzilla". It was preceded by Agents of Fortune and the next studio LP in 1979 would be the critically disliked Mirrors. The band would return to favour in 1980 with the LP after Mirrors - Cultösaurus Erectus.

Tracklist

Side One

1. "Godzilla" (3:41)
2. "Golden Age of Leather" (5:53)
3. "Death Valley Nights" (4:07)
4. "Searchin' for Celine" (3:35)
5. "Fireworks" (3:14)

Side Two

1. "R.U. Ready 2 Rock" (3:45)
2. "Celestial the Queen" (3:24)
3. "Goin' Through the Motions" (3:12)
4. "I Love the Night" (4:23)
5. "Nosferatu" (5:23)

Personnel

• Eric Bloom: vocals, guitar
• Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser: vocals, guitar
• Allen Lanier: vocals, guitar, keyboards
• Joe Bouchard: bass guitar, guitar, vocals
• Albert Bouchard: vocals, harmonica, drums
• The Newark Boys Chorus: vocals on "The Golden Age Of Leather".
• Ian Hunter: co-author of Goin' Thru The Motions

With some purposeful tropes...

• A Cappella: "Golden Age Of Leather" starts of with the band members singing in unison before the song sets in.
• Breaking and Bloodsucking: "Nosferatu"
  So chaste so calm, she gave herself
  To the pleasure of her dreaded master
  He sucked the precious drops of life
  Throughout the long and cold dark night
• Cover Version: Goin' Thru The Motions was co-written by British singer Ian Hunter ^note Hunter's involvement is possibly the reason why the LP uses British English spelling Spectres and not Specters, as you might have expected.. Hunter recorded a version with his band Mott the Hoople. The big British hit was a cover recorded by Bonnie Tyler in the early 1980's. BOC's version was released as a single in Great Britain but barely charted.
• Drunken Song: "Golden Age Of Leather"
  Raise your can of beer on high
  And seal your fate forever
  Our best years have past us by
  The golden age of leather
• Ethereal Choir: "Golden Age Of Leather" ends with a boy choir whose voices slowly fade away after the orchestra stops playing.
• Face on the Cover: The band seen around a table.
• Gaia's Vengeance: "Godzilla"
  History shows again and again
  How nature points up the folly of men
• Gratuitous Japanese: The intermission of "Godzilla" has a Japanese newscaster talking about the beast's rampage in Tokyo and alerting listeners to run for shelter immediately. During live shows, Eric Bloom recites this part.
• Heavy Meta: "R.U. Ready 2 Rock"
• Heavy Mithril: "The Golden Age of Leather", an operatic piece about a gang of bikers who ride out into the desert and fight to the death after an all-night orgy and meth party, because they've realized they've grown too old to rock anymore. "Nosferatu" summarizes the plot of the classic silent film of that name.
• Kaiju: "Godzilla", about the Japanese film monster of the same name.
• Letters 2 Numbers: "R.U. Ready 2 Rock".
• Light and Mirrors Puzzle: the LP cover illustrates this trope, with a beam of laser light bouncing around the band members.
• Lyrical Dissonance: "Golden Age of Leather" marries West Coast harmonies, surfer music and Beach Boys-style singing to the dark topic of old Hell's Angels going out with one last gang-bang of a ''wanton child, too dead to care, that each could find his pleasure as he might..." followed by a pitched battle to the death.
• One-Man Song: "Godzilla" and "Nosferatu".
• One-Woman Song: "Celestial the Queen".
• One-Word Title: The album title "Spectres" and the song "Fireworks".
• The Power of Rock: "R.U. Ready 2 Rock"
  Come on come on thru the cities of night
  Come on come on everybody's praying
  Come on come on for the wonder of light
  Come on come on there's a new dance breaking
• Record Producer: Murray Krugman, Sandy Pearlman and David Lucas.
• Shout-Out: "Godzilla" is a shout-out to Godzilla and "Nosferatu" to Nosferatu. Interestingly enough two years after the release of this album would Werner Herzog make his acclaimed remake of the classic movie.
  • "Godzilla" in itself has been used as the theme music of many promos for monster movie marathons on American TV.
• Sinister Southwest: The track "Death Valley Nights," which is about the infamous desert, and the rock-operatic track "Golden Age Of Leather", about old Hell's Angels who decide the world no longer has a place for them and choose to die in a blaze of glory in the remote desert.
• The Tokyo Fireball: One of the songs is about Godzilla. Hell, one of the lyrics is "Oh, no, there goes Tokyo."
• Whole-Plot Reference: "Nosferatu" basically tells the plot of the film in song.

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