YMMV / Operation: Mindcrime

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• Alternative Character Interpretation: Some fans of OM1 prefer to think that both Dr. X and the anti-government conspiracy only exist in Nikki's paranoid mind. In this view, Mary was either a complete fabrication, or an innocent nun whom Nikki fixated upon, and eventually murdered in his delusional state.
• Anvilicious: The band's dislike of problems such as religious and political corruption, income inequality, and drug addiction is not exactly expressed subtly here.
• Awesome Music:
  • The original Mindcrime has been lauded as one of the best heavy metal albums of all time. It is also considered one of the first examples of Progressive Metal.
  • In specific to the album, the last track concludes with an increasingly louder and more congested cacophony of music, sounds and voices from the rest of the album, which — if you have allowed yourself to fall into the world the album creates — very effectively feels like what the inside of Nikki's head must sound. Then, as it reaches a crescendo (screaming into the words "REVOLUTION!"), it rings to a sudden, complete, spine-tingling silence with just Nikki's voice saying, "I remember now"
• Complete Monster: In this famous Concept Album Rock Opera duology, Dr. X is the mysterious and charismatic leader of Operation Mindcrime. Dr. X preys on the disillusioned and hopeless, taking advantage of their dissatisfaction with society and their addictions to make them assassins to kill "political" targets, actually just people in Dr. X's way, so that he can amass more wealth and power for himself. When Nikki attempts to leave the group, Dr. X arranges for the death of Nikki's lover Sister Mary and frames Nikki for the crime to send him to an asylum and keep Dr. X's involvement secret. Years later when Nikki escapes, he discovers Dr. X has simply taken advantage of society to grow more and more wealthy and powerful, his rhetoric after defeating corruption a total lie.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Many fans weren't too pleased with the storyline of OM2, especially the second half, and consider only the original album as canon. (Imagine the vindication they felt when Michael Wilton admitted that the second album suffered from Geoff Tate doing an I Am the Band.)
• Hilarious in Hindsight: "Spreading the Disease" features the lyric "As the one percent rules America".
• Narm: The end of "My Empty Room" OM1. Geoff Tate could not sound any more overdramatic even if he tried:
  "NOW WHO WILL CO-ooOOOOO-OME
  TO WASH AWAY MY SINS?!
  CLEAN MY ROOM, FIX MY MEALS,
  BE MY FRIEEEEY-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEND?!?"
• Narm Charm: The first album, like the rest of Queensryche's output from that time, is almost offensively Eighties, but the music just rules so fucking much that you won't care.
• Sequelitis: Most critics and fans consider Operation: Mindcrime II to be nowhere near as good as the original.

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