What a classic 80s headbanger album. I got a serious beer buzz goin’, just put this on the stereo. On CASSETTE! Still sounds pretty good.
“I awoke on impact
Under surveillance from the camera eye
Searching high and low
The criminal mind found at the scene of the crime
Handcuffed and blind, I didn’t do it
She said she loved me
I guess I never knew
But do we ever, ever really know?
She said she’d meet me on the other side
But I knew right then, I’d never find her”
I’ve always had a fondness for this record. Certainly the lyrics and wordplay have a level of intelligence and sophistication above and beyond the repetitive, dumbed-down fare common in pop songs.
The subject matter is gritty and dark, about a poor, disenfranchised urban white youth who is shunned by society and ultimately forced into life as an assassin. Unfortunately, the material would be better served to the gangsta rap audience, as they can’t get enough of the killer-worship.
Sadly, you simply cannot sing about raison d’etre to the downtrodden (as was done in I Don’t Believe In Love) as those in the audience who are unlikely to have attended any sort of higher education are prone to think you might be singing about the California Raisins’ negative credit card balance.
The struggling white kids who might relate to the theme had already migrated from the stoner children of the working class in the 70s to the yuppie spawn of periodontists in the 80’s and who will ultimately embrace the flannel grunge movement in the 90’s. And post 9/11, a protagonist who is essentially a terrorist will not do.
The other group of people who can relate to the poor white guy are listening to country music, but that genre is permeated with bucolic bumpkins which is quite a different setting than our Operation, Mindcrime.
I thought the love story element was not believable and it felt like De Garmo shoe-horned it in for shock value and in a bid to get us to care about the main characters. In the end, I got the impression that the hero was a stupid horny teen pining for an unavailable woman who happened to treat him nicely once. But that isn’t really something I can get behind and I never really rooted for him. So, the operatic tragedy they were going for fails for me because I didn’t care about any of the characters, so I didn’t care if crap happened to them.
The guitars, drums, and vocals were all technically excellent, though.
AWESOME, love it! I wish I could be there jamming with you!
I saw Queensryche live in a small club about 5 years ago and it is one of the best shows I have ever been to!
BTW, Interesting analysis by The Controvert.
I agree that the main character (Nikki) is kind of a pathetic kid. In some ways, the concept reminds me of the Catcher in the Rye. I first read it as an adult, so Holden was always a whiny brat that needed a kick in the butt. I feel the same way about Nikki, but it adds to, rather than detracts from, the album for me.
If it weren’t Dr. X, it would have been a cult, or a gang, or something else. Nikki needed a way to act out against society, and he found it. To me, it’s the story of what disaffected youth can become if they are left behind.
I like the ‘love story’ because it seems to me like a messed up kid with a crush on a sort-of authority figure who doesn’t reciprocate at all.
Operation: Mindcrime 2 is actually a really, really good follow-up. Nikki gets out of jail and faces what his world has become. Dio sings Dr. X, and Sister Mary is back.
I’ve heard exactly the opposite, that OM:2 sucks (though I haven’t heard it for myself…yeah, I know, judging a book my its cover and all that.)
Operation: Mindcrime is a landmark album, it literally gave birth to the progressive metal genre. Never got to see the band perform the whole album in concert, but I saw them play half of it when they opened for Metallica in '88. Gotta admit, on first listen, I wasn’t so impressed, especially with the music which sounded rather two-dimensional, but it’s certainly an album that improves with age like vintage wine – it’s a classic, hands down.
This was one of my favorites when it was out and I think it holds up well today.
IIRC, Eyes of a Stranger and I Don’t Believe in Love were the first songs written, then they had the idea to grow the work into a concept album. Someone made the comment that the love story seemed tacked-on. This may be partly due to the order the songs were written in; the need to incorporate the existing material.
One thing that always bothered me about the videos was that Nikki had hair, while the lyrics clearly state that he was a skin head.
Oh, and I remember arguing with a friend about whether Nikki shouts “I don’t want to take a bath!” near the end – good memories.
I think your analysis of who could relate to this album is incomplete. Personally, I didn’t relate to any of the characters, nor did I find Nikki particularly sympathetic. What I related to was the overall cynical theme; the concepts laid out in Revolution Calling. I think I related more toward Tate (or the band) and the message that he delivered. So while I sung along to the album, I guess I put myself into the place of the band performing a story about characters that make terrible decisions. I’m not sure that is typical for others, but it was my point-of-view.
This is one of my favorite albums.
Here’s something cool – It’s going to be a Broadway musical.
It’s just an underground revolution working overtime.
I have friends who practically want to be buried with that CD they love it so much. I have heard it my share of times, but never really sat down and immersed myself in it. I just did that recently with OK Computer and have OM on my list to do that with as well - for me, it was always a bit to proggy and rock-opera to just get into easily. I struggle with both dimensions - with Tommy and American Idiot, but have the rock opera part but are less prog, so I got into the rock/pop melodies more…
A thoughtful analysis, Controvert. Many of the characteristics that you attribute to the audience for this album applied to me, although I was in my mid-twenties when I first heard it. Like CaveMike I was drawn to the cynicism (and dystopian feel) of the lyrics more than the specifics of the narrative. The combination of great guitar work and tone, well crafted lyrics delivered with unique and powerful vocals and an anti-authority, “stickin’ it to The Man” attitude grabbed me then and now. Crank-it-up arena rock done with more depth and sophistication than much of the competition at the time, for sure.
CaveMike wrote: “One thing that always bothered me about the videos was that Nikki had hair, while the lyrics clearly state that he was a skin head.”
Yeah, I remember at the time the idea of someone voluntarily having a skin-job haircut and liking it seemed pretty radical! It was all big hair and mullets around here.
I saw Queesryche live when they were touring to support thier next album (Empire) but I think they were focused on promoting the new stuff. I don’t recall them playing much from Mindcrime. They were great though!
To each his own. I think the band did a great job of allowing evolution while sticking to the base sound. It’s comes off to me as a guy 15 years or whatever after the fact thinking, “What have I done, and what do I do with my life now?” It’s mature angst that makes sense to me, as opposed to the adolescent angst that Nikki had for the first album. I never anticipated that I would like the CD, but bought it for the sake of having a complete collection (I even have the album that shall not be named that came out in 2000), but two or three listens gave me a real appreciation for it.
For me, both of those albums required a lot of listens before they clicked, but now each are on my all-time favorites list.
It seems like it would be a challenge to learn to appreciate OM in 2009 though. Given that the days of hair metal, prog metal, etc. are long gone. I mean, Queensrÿche even have an umlaut in their name…
I’ve been a Queensryche fan since I first saw them open for Kiss in 1985 (another of my favorite bands that I discovered opening for Kiss!!) the day before I went to boot camp. I thought they were awesome musically. Mindcrime was excellent, especially live with Pamela singing.
OM:2 was just awful in my opinion. Campy, follow-up just to do one. I saw them do the whole suite live, opening set was Mindcrime 1 and the second set was Mindcrime 2, complete with the stage show. I liked it even less then.
Their latest stuff is pretty good though. I can’t wait to see them August 1 in Washington DC!!
I can see how that could work but I would hope they would keep the hard metal edge on the music.
This is definitely one of the best metal albums ever made IMO. I stopped listening to hair metal for about a decade and this is one of the albums I bought a second time and still loved it.
Geoff Tate says the band is going to be heavily involved in it, so I think they’re going to try to keep it as edgy as possible.
I’ve always fely like Mindcrime owes more to Pink Floyd’s The Wall than to Opera’s like Tommy. I mean, it doesn’t sound musically like Floyd, but it uses a lot of the same kind of conceptual ideas – the sound effects, the snatches of spoken dialogue, the ringing phone. I’ve always liked to describe it to people unfamiliar with it as a cross between Iron Maiden and Pink Floyd.
I always thought it was unfortunate and frankly, a bit lazy, that they relied on stock foley sounds for the hospital intercom.
It always bumps me when I hear “Doctor David, Doctor David” on some completely unrelated television show.
Wild, all these years and I didn’t realize that those were stock sounds. I remember hearing the “Paging Doctor David…” sound in a movie a few years later, but it never clicked that they were stock.
But it does seem lazy that they would use them instead of sending someone back to a studio for a few takes. Next, you’re going to tell me that some of the riffs were scammed from The Number of the Beast.