BOC fall off

John A Swartz jswartz at MBUNIX.MITRE.ORG
Fri Jan 5 09:03:40 EST 1996


Ross says:

>No.  and it wasn't coincident with Albert leaving.

It was, at the peak of their popularity, when following Specters
we got SEE, then Mirrors, then CE.  Three duds in a row!



Well, BOC's popularity may have dipped in the '78 - '81 timeframe,
but there was IMHO a much larger decline over the '81 - '86 period,
and as I previously pointed out, that's associated with the loss of
Albert.  Sure, BOC's peak may have been '76-'77 (AOF and Spectres),
but it was still strong through the rest of the '70's.  I think other
factors like the rise of disco and punk had more to do with BOC's
decline during those times than BOC's albums -- which I have to disagree
with you about "3 duds in a row".  First of all, SEE is considered by
many to be their finest live album, and was certainly a popular album
during that time period (one might question the need for another live
album, but it did sell very well), so I hardly think one can call it
a dud.  Mirrors, while it has it's fans and does have some good songs
on it, was probably less of a commercial success, and when you compare
it to AOF, then maybe you can call it a dud.  However, CE is certainly
no dud from a standpoint of BOC's music (maybe in terms of commercial
success) - some very heavy stuff is on that album.  Unfortunately, by
this time, BOC was receiving little support from it's label for
promotion, which I think is much more a reason for CE's lack of commercial
success than it's musical content.

John



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