Blue Oyster Cult Don't Fear The Reaper: The Best Of Blue CD

Blue Oyster Cult: Eric Bloom (vocals, guitar, keyboards); Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser (vocals, guitar); Joe Bouchard (vocals, bass); Albert Bouchard (vocals, drums); Allen Lanier (guitar, keyboards); Rick Downey (drums).
Producers include: M. Krugman, S. Pearlman, D. Lucas, Blue Oyster Cult, Martin Birch.
Compilation producers: Bruce Dickinson.
Recorded between 1972 & 1983. Includes liner notes by Scott Schinder.
Digitally remastered by Vic Anesini (Sony Music Studios, New York, New York).
With 16 cuts spanning 1971-1983, this is a briefer, single-disc counterpart to the 1995 double-CD Workshop of the Telescopes compilation. This has taken care -- perhaps too much care -- to draw evenly from all of their first nine studio albums, with one or two songs from each (except for Spectres, which is represented by three). The early years are a little under-represented, with just a tune apiece from Blue Öyster Cult and Tyranny and Mutation. For listeners on a tight budget, this is satisfactory. ~ Richie Unterberger
Not to be confused with CBS Special Products' collection of the same name (which, technically, was titled (Don't Fear) The Reaper), Sony Music Special Products' Don't Fear the Reaper is a ten-track budget-line sampler of Blue Öyster Cult's classic recordings for Columbia Records. Like most budget-line discs, Don't Fear the Reaper is a bit of a hodgepodge, containing genuine hits ("In Thee," "Shooting Shark") with alternate versions of hits (a live version of the title track) and album cuts (pretty much everything else, including "The Red and the Black," "Nosferatu," and "Buck's Boogie"). The end result may be uneven and frustrating, but it's entertaining enough, considering its price and sampler nature. In fact, many casual fans may find it worth its bargain price. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Fans of Blue Oyster Cult have always touted them as the thinking man's heavy metal band. To their detractors, however, Blue Oyster Cult are pretentious poseurs peddling watered down Celine (the French writer, not Ms. Dion) to an audience of credulous adolescents.
What this best-of anthology shows, however, is that while both descriptions are true to an extent, Blue Oyster Cult get away with it because the band also have a sense of humor. Few others, for example, could pen a song about a Japanese movie monster with the line, "History shows again and again, how nature points up the folly of men," repeated four times, no less, without tempting ridicule, but Blue Oyster Cult are seemingly immune. DON'T FEAR THE REAPER... is a solid compilation, with representative cuts from nine of the band's albums between 1972 and 1983 highlighting their more conventional, commercial material.