Blue Öyster Cult’s “Agents”: The Album of Summer ’76?

As the nation celebrates 250 years of independence, we can look back just 50 years to the summer of 1976, when Blue Öyster Cult brought the world one of the best albums of that summer. Agents of Fortune was an eclectic set of music that denied being categorized, drawing from hard rock, jazz, pop, and British Invasion styles.

The album would be BOC’s 4th effort. As the band had not had much commercial success up to that point (only selling in the 200,000- 400,000 unit neighborhood per album), lead guitarist Donald Roeser (stage name “Buck Dharma”) has said that, upon reflection, he was amazed that their label (Columbia) did not drop them before being able to approach Agents. The collection would eventually achieve their first and only Platinum release.

The opening song delivered the album’s overall tone immediately. “This Ain’t the Summer of Love” opens with staccato hard guitar riffs, exploding into memorable power chords as vocalist Eric Bloom announces:

“This ain’t the Garden of Eden, there ain’t no angels above, and things aren’t what they used to be, and this ain’t the summer of love.”

Three producers were used for the project: Murray Krungman, Sandy Pearlman, and David Lucas, to whom Darhma called “Chaotic at times, but very helpful.” At that point in his career, Lucas was best known for writing jingles such as “Reach Out and Touch Someone” for AT&T. With his encouragement, Agents was the only BOC album in which each member took a lead vocal performance, as well as each writing at least one song. Lukas strived to also “better commercialize” the band’s hard rock sound and invited the Brecker Brothers (Randy and Michael) to add horns (a first for a BOC recording) with a memorable sax solo debuting for the album’s second track “True Confessions.”

The album’s highlight comes early in the shape of “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper.” With its memorable opening guitar riff, the song was destined to become a staple of Classic Rock radio for the next 50 years. The track would serve as BOC’s first hit single, reaching #12 in the USA market, receiving various supporting reviews at the time:

• Rolling Stone– “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper is the song of the year” (1976).
• GQ– “The most upbeat death song ever,…will be a permanent part of popular culture through radio, films, television, and countless cover versions.”
• The Guardian– “The song’s appeal lies in the contrast between its gothic storyline and its bright, Byrds-inspired guitar melody”.

Mojo magazine ranks “Reaper” among its “100 Greatest Singles of All Time”, placing it at No. 80 in its 1997 list. It would be featured in director John Carpenter’s horror film Halloween.

Later, the song would achieve iconic status when Christopher Walken played a fictional producer in the now-famous “More Cowbell” sketch airing on Saturday Night Live’s April 8, 2000, broadcast.

His dramatic statement, “I got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell,” became one of SNL’s more famous catchphrases. This gave the cue for Will Ferrell to depict a hilarious overenthusiastic cowbell player. In the real world, Albert Bouchard, BOC’s drummer, has claimed ownership of the cowbell performance. He remarked in a public appearance at Stony Brook University in 2015, “When we recorded it, I remember I asked the producer to turn down the volume on the cowbell; I didn’t like it that much. I couldn’t believe Will Ferrell even heard it enough to make a skit out of it.”

Singer/guitarist Eric Bloom was the band’s sci-fi geek, often tinging his lyrics with astronomical wordplay. His track “ETI – Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence” could be his very best, as its funky riff and storyline of interplanetary intrigue moved BOC into another new musical area. Bouchard shared writing credits with Patti Smith in two dramatic songs: “The Revenge of Vera Gemini” and “Debbie Denise.” The music press attempted to create a lame scandal out of Bouchard’s writing partnership with Smith, as she was dating BOC’s keyboardist Allen Lanier at the time. Fortunately, the song’s results outperformed the gossip.

There are plenty of good old ’70s hard rock tracks included within Agents. “Sinful Love” and “Tattoo Vampire” stand with some of BOC’s best rockers, with Dharma showing off his chops as one of the best hard-lead guitarists of the era. But the band hits a different level in their performance in bass man Bouchard’s “Morning Final,” a track depicting a senseless murder on a New York subway, an event that was very prominent (and sadly too often) in the news during the summer of 1976. Blue Öyster Cult had not been a band reflecting current affairs up to that point, and the complex arrangement of the track would soon influence others. Listening to the album today, we can hear some of the roots of what Dire Straits would be doing in just a few years.

UK’s New Musical Express magazine called Agents of Fortune their album of the year that summer. Fifty years later, their efforts still stand as one of the very best.

-Steven Valavano

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