BOC: Imagining Imaginos

[Bolts of Ungodly Vision]

In the midst of swirling Emails:
>>While I love this album, IMHO (of course) it is not as good as some
>other concept albums I have heard.

>Well, you can have your opinions on which concept album is best (and I
>certainly am a big fan of *Dead Winter Dead*).  The biggest problem with
>*Imaginos* as a concept album, IMHO, is that because it was not "
>"complete", and because the songs aren't really in the right order (I
>still say "Random Access History" is a fabricated myth to explain the
>bad sequence on the final product), it can be confusing to follow the
>"story" (o.k., we educated fans know what's going on, but to the
>uninitiated, do they really hear these songs as all part of a complete
>story?  My guess is no).

Not to mention the fact that the story _Imaginos_ attempts to tell is one
of the most fantastic, detailed and atypical conceptual pieces ever to set
down on vinyl.  Then again, (especially on the first 3 LPs) the quantity of
non-standard lyrical subjects was enormous in comparison to most other
popular guitar based rock groups of the day.  To choose a handful of
artists as an example, Rush's concept album period, the entire Led Zep
catalog (save for the few mythologically derived tunes), King Crimson
(which was just musically odd. Lyrically they did do some neat stuff, but
it wasn't completely out there material), and Jethro Tull (OK they have a
flute, but the lyrics still had some footing in normalcy) don't hold a
candle to the macabre domain of BOC's verbiage at the time.  The songs, as
is the whole Imaginos saga itself, have a particularly isolated footing to
stand on from the real world and require one to enter into it without
baggage save for imagination.  As Albert once said about Tyrrany & Mutation
on the list, they wanted to make the scariest LP they could.
BOC's words back then, in and out of the Imaginos context, were not for the
weak of mind nor  faint of heart.
(Of course, Club Ninja's tunes were also pretty darn scary, but for other
reasons)

Spout yer werds and waive your banners,
Jason