Tyranny and Mutation Tracklist
Tyranny and Mutation (stylized on the cover as THE BLVE ÖYSTER CVLT: TYRANNY AND MVTATION) is the second album of Blue Öyster Cult. Released on 11 February 1973, the album was recorded with songs that were written during the first album’s tour.
It was more commercially successful than the first album, reaching No. 122 on the Billboard’s charts. This was also the first contribution of Patti Smith for Blue Öyster Cult.
“Tyranny and Mutation” Q&A
-
What have the artists said about the album?
Eric Bloom talked about the album in an interview for Music Radar:
We went on tour with Alice Cooper and stayed out for a while. Most of Tyranny was written in hotel rooms. We had to do it that way, because the second we were off the road, we had to get another album out. In those days, you put an album out every year, or else you were forgotten about.
The second we were ready with the material, we were shuffled into the studio to produce. And then we had to get back on the road so that we could eat. We were all on small salaries, and we were just getting by. Record, tour, record, tour – it was already becoming a pattern.
Patti Smith is credited on one song, Baby Ice Dog. She never sat in a room and worked on anything with us. Mostly, Allen would take her lyrics from stuff she gave him or from her books of poetry. He’d take a set of lyrics and whip it into a song, or sometimes we’d work en masse in a band room with the words, creating the parts of the songs around the lyrics.
One of the fun things about Tyranny is that we took I’m On The Lamb But I Ain’t No Sheep from the first record, rearranged it, re-recorded it and called it The Red And The Black. It’s the same song, same chords, but somehow nobody could tell.
Album Credits
