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Track Listing
DISC 1:
1. Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll
2. A Redcap Before the Kiss
3. Stairway to the Stars
4. Transmaniacon MC
5. Buck's Boogie
6. The Red and the Black
7. O.D.'d on Life Itself
8. Screaming Diz-Busters
9. Career of Evil
10. Flaming Telepaths
11. Astronomy
12. Hot Rails to Hell
13. Harvester of Eyes
14. Me 262
15. Born to Be Wild

DISC 2:
1. Don't Fear the Reaper
2. This Ain't the Summer of Love
3. E.T.I. (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence)
4. Godzilla
5. I Love the Night
6. Goin' Through the Motions
7. In Thee
8. Black Blade
9. The Marshall Plan
10. Veteran of the Psychic Wars
11. Joan Crawford
12. Burnin' for You
13. Roadhouse Blues
14. Shooting Shark
15. Take Me Away
16. Dancin' in the Ruins

Album Notes
Blue Oyster Cult: Eric Bloom (vocals, guitar, keyboards); Joe Bouchard (vocals, bass); Albert Bouchard (vocals, drums); Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser (vocals); Allen Lanier (guitar, keyboards); Rick Downey (drums).Producers includes: M. Krugman, S. Pearlman, D. Lucas, Blue Oyster Cult, M. Birch.Compilation producer: Bruce Dickinson.Recorded between 1971 & 1983. Includes liner notes by Tom Terrell.Liner Note Author: Lenny Kaye.Photographers: Don Hunstein; Sandy Speiser; Art Maillett.Since the mid-'90s, Blue ™yster Cult have had their catalog pillaged for hits collections on almost a yearly basis, so the appearance of yet another such beast isn't the welcome return of an old friend that it should be. True, there was a time when a greatest-hits collection was sorely needed, but the double-CD set Workshop of the Telescopes took care of that in 1995, and if that was too massive a retrospective, there was 2000's single-disc Don't Fear the Reaper: The Best of Blue ™yster Cult. Add to those a number of re-recordings and misleadingly packaged live collections and it's hard to justify The Essential Blue Oyster Cult. However, if you look at the collection saga of Blue ™yster Cult as a perfecting of the formula -- a thinning of the herd -- then Essential starts to prove its worth as a lean machine -- all killer, no filler. No BOC collection can stand without their biggest acknowledged hits, "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" and "Burnin' for You," and both of those are here. So is the over-the-top madness of "Godzilla" and the cult hit -- yes, cult, BOC is a band whose fan base is so disparate there are mainstream and underground fans -- "E.T.I. (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence)," which somehow slipped by the previous single-disc collection. Others, like "Veterans of Psychic Wars" and "Harvester of Eyes," carry equal heft and help Essential live up to its name. ~ Wade Kergan