Imaginos

From Music Radar interview with Eric Bloom: “Imaginos is like the Blue Oyster Cult album that isn’t a Blue Oyster Cult album. It was kind of an Alan Parsons Project-type thing that Sandy worked on with Albert – this was after Albert was let go from the band in 1981. It’s really a concept album the two of them did. The label didn’t want to put it out for a while, but it was eventually issued as a BOC record.

“I wrote the song called Subhuman in the band house in Eatons Neck. It was on the Secret Treaties album. Originally, it was called Blue Oyster Cult, but we couldn’t call it that because it was the name of the band. It reappears as Blue Oyster Cult on Imaginos.

“The album was Sandy’s long, epic poetry that he wrote in the ‘60s. He and Albert did it with studio musicians. It took three years and hundreds of thousands of dollars for it to finally be finished, and then Columbia didn’t want to put it out. It sat on the shelf.

“Finally, it was put to us that the label would put it out if it was called a Blue Oyster Cult record and if Donald and I sang the material. Buck and I went into the studio, we played and sang, and that’s how it ended up what it is. On one hand, it sounds like a BOC record, but on the other hand, it’s kind of a left-field record. For a concept record, it works. It’s definitely different.”

Eric Bloom talks Blue Oyster Cult's studio albums — MusicRadar

"Harry Nilsson walked out on our audition. I thought, That's it. We're through." Although they've become one of the most popular and durable hard rock bands around, in their early days, most people didn't give Blue Oyster Cult much of a chance. "We were struggling for a long time," says guitarist and lead vocalist Eric Bloom.