Of late, I've been obsessed with Queensryche's "Operation Mindcrime" CD, even waking up with

[Little Wing]

Revolution Calling in my head, and other tracks from the same CD.

All you have to do is replace the false 'communist' threat with 'terrorist' threat and it's immediately up to date.

For a price I'd do about anything
Except pull the trigger
For that I'd need a pretty good cause
Then I heard of Dr. X // bush
The man with the cure
Just watch the television // russert and the rest of the sunday morning hacks
Yeah, you'll see there's something going on // indeed

Got no love for politicians
Or that crazy scene in D.C.
It's just a power mad town
But the time is ripe for changes
There's a growing feeling
That taking a chance on a new kind of vision is due

I used to trust the media // Fox News - or anyone for that matter
To tell me the truth, tell us the truth // fair and balanced
But now I've seen the payoffs // Russert + Matthews and Libby
Everywhere I look
Who do you trust when everyone's a crook? // more Cheney

Revolution calling
Revolution calling
Revolution calling you
Revolution calling
Revolution calling
Gotta make a change
Gotta push, gotta push it on through

I'm tired of all this bullshit
They keep selling me on T.V. // more Fox News - well, all of them - see Anna Nicole Smith
About the communist plan // switch with terrorist
And all the shady preachers // falwell, roberston, right-wingers in Congress
Begging for my cash
Swiss bank accounts while giving their
Secretaries they slam // More Libby

They're all in Penthouse now // Vanity Fair
Or Playboy magazine, million dollar stories to tell // Vanity Fair
I guess Warhol wasn't wrong
Fame fifteen minutes long // Abramoff, Dick Feith, "curveball"
Everyone's using everybody, making the sale

I used to think
That only America's way, way was right
But now the holy dollar rules everybody's lives
Gotta make a million doesn't matter who dies // Cheney, Bush, Bremer, Bush 41, Wolfowitz, Perle, Carlisle, plenty of others

Revolution calling
Revolution calling
Revolution calling you
Revolution calling
Revolution calling
Gotta make a change
Gotta push, gotta push it on through

I used to trust the media
To tell me the truth, tell us the truth
But now I've seen the payoffs
Everywhere I look
Who do you trust when everyone's a crook?

Revolution calling
Revolution calling
Revolution calling you
Revolution calling
Revolution calling
Gotta make a change
Gotta push, gotta push it on through

=================================

Then comes the song "Speak" a song spoken as an agent caught up in it all

They've given me a mission
I don't really know the game yet
I'm bent on submission
Religion is to blame
I'm the new messiah
Death Angel with a gun
Dangerous in my silence
Deadly to my cause

Speak to me the pain you feel
Speak the word
The word is all of us

I've given my life to become what I am
To preach the new beginning
To make you understand
To reach some point of order
Utopia in mind, you've got to learn
To sacrifice, to leave what's now behind

Speak to me the pain you feel
Speak the word
The word is all of us
Speak the word
The word is all of us

Seven years of power
The corporation claw
The rich control the government, the media the law
To make some kind of difference
Then everyone must know
Eradicate the fascists, revolution will grow

The system we learn says we're equal under law
But the streets are reality, the weak and poor will fall
Let's tip the power balance and tear down their crown
Educate the masses, We'll burn the White House down

Speak to me the pain you feel
Speak to me the pain you feel
Speak the word (Revolution)
The word is all of us
Speak the word (Revolution)
The word is all of us
Speak the word
The word is all of us
Speak the Word
The word is all of us

SPEAK!!

[ShortnFiery]

1. You have excellent taste!

There was also a couple of videos that I viewed on MTV when the CD was first out (late 80s?).

I know that I'm dating myself, but those were EXCELLENT videos - I wouldn't mind seeing them again. :-)

[Little Wing]

3. Youtube has them all

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIX6B2tcezA

for starters

[ShortnFiery]

5. Thank you!

:hi:

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

2. Queensryche. Thanks, I'd forgotten how good they were.

:yourock: MKJ

[Klukie]

4. one of my favorites....

I have seen them in concert a few times back n the day.

[nebenaube]

6. from a slightly older fart...

analyze "sabbath bloody sabbath" or "children of the grave"...

[AtheistInBabylon]

10. Plenty of Sabbath/old Ozzy stuff, for that matter...

Nah, that doesn´t make you older, it just means you know your rock n´ roll :thumbsup: :hi:

How about "Bombers (Can Open Bomb Bays)" from Bill Ward´s solo album "Ward One: Along the Way" (feat. Ozzy on vocals)?

[AtheistInBabylon]

7. Heeding the call

Salute from another Queensryche fan :patriot:

Good to see others around here, and to share the exact same feelings you expressed. There is little doubt that Queensryche´s work from "Rage to Order" (1986) to "Promised Land" (1995) was a major factor in awakening the political consciousness of many music fans, myself in my teens included. Although written as a repsonse to the Reagan years, the "Operation Mincdrime" concept album (1988) is equally as topical in light of the Bush years, and indeed, it suffices to exchange a few words in the original lyrics to update it fully. I´ve enjoyed their subsequent work no less, although it tends to focus more on the difficulties of inter-personal relationships and purely psychological perspectives, and although I´m aware that many others don´t share my enthusiasm for these latter releases (Tribe (2004) and Operation Mindcrime II (2006) being the exceptions). Queensryche are absolutely one of the finest, most talented and most intelligent bands to ever represent the hard rock genre, and "Operation Mindcrime" in its totality is, in my own estimation, the single greatest rock album ever made.

You left out some equally relevant stuff:

(From "Spreading the Disease", Operation Mindcrime, (1988))

Religion and sex are powerplays
Manipulating people for the money they pay
Selling skin, selling God
The numbers look the same on their credit cards
Politicians say no to drugs
While we can pay for wars in South America (South America was replaced by Saudi Arabia on earlier tours, and Iraq on recent tours)

Fighting fire with empty words
While the banks get fat
And the poor stay poor
And the rich get rich
And the cops get paid
To look away
As the one percent rules America

Spreading the disease
Everybody needs
But no one wants to see
The way society
Keeps spreading the disease

NOTE: The lyrics seem simple enough but combined with the rest of the messages on the album and the musical crescendo that accompanies them, the effect is extremely powerful.

("Empire", from Empire (1990))

Last night the word came down, ten dead in Chinatown.
Innocent, their only crime was being in the wrong place, at the wrong time
Too bad, people say what's wrong with the kids today
Tell you right now they've got nothing to lose

They're building EMPIRE!

Johnny used to work after school
at the cinema show.
Gotta hustle if he wants an education
he's got a long way to go.
Now he's out on the street all day
selling Crack to the people who pay.
Got an AK-47 for his best friend
business the American way.

Eastside meets Westside downtown.
No time, the walls fall down

Can't you feel it coming? EMPIRE! Can't you hear it calling?

Black man, trapped again. holds his chains in his hand.
Brother killing brother for the profit of another,
Game point, nobody wins. Decline, right on time.
What happened to the dream sublime?
Tear it all down, we'll put it up again. Another EMPIRE?

Eastside meets Westside downtown.
No time, no line, the walls fall down.

Can't you feel it coming? EMPIRE!
Can't you hear it coming EMPIRE!
Can't someone here stop it...??!!

NOTE: interlaced with nice samples of Bush I and a ream of military and other spending statistics.

("I´m American", from Operation Mindcrime II (2006))

I gotta have it, gotta drink the high life.
I'll buy a new suit, black skinny necktie.
I'll mingle with elite and imitate
And they'll never even get it 'til I hit 'em.

I've got no fear 'cause I've weathered the breakdown,
San Quentin to the edge of the Big Town.
I'm a man of the people,
In the home of the brave, and I'm no man's slave.

Because I'm free,
I deserve everything I can get.
I'm American.
I'm American.

If you voted for the man you're wasting time.
He's got his fingers dipped in everyone's pie.
The news can't wait to promote
All the bullshit this government is selling.

I've got this plan in motion, countdown.
Assassinate, terminate, smack down.
There's a war in my head and it needs to be said.
If they think they can take me they're dead.

Because I'm free,
I deserve everything I can get.
And I'll get everything I can get.
I'm American.
I'm American.

What do you believe in?
What are you living for?
Do you want what they're selling you,
Another television war?

I can't stop! I feel I gotta have more!
That's right, more!
I want more!
More!

Because I'm free,
I deserve everything I can get.
I'm American.
I'm American.

Because I'm free,
And I'll get everything I can get.
I'm American.
I'm American.

Are you free?
You deserve everything you can get.
I'm American.
I'm American.

Yeah I'm free,
I deserve everything I can get.
I'm American.
I'm American.

("The Great Divide", from Tribe (2004))

I'd reconciled my anger got outside of danger.
I was waiting for some signal, a sign from angels.
When the tide turns against you
it's a strange sensation, a revelation of imagination.
I could change my course and face the flow,
reap the seeds that I had sewn or follow that old river south.
Here's what I found out.

I was standing on the Great Divide looking out across America.
Trying to find my truth, define it for myself.
I died the day when I saw this place.
I saw what I could lose.

A very simple mechanism separates the fool from wisdom.
The lines between us are not real.
Conditioning is what makes us feel ignorant.
And apathy will feed our hate.
So we can never give in.

There I was standing at the Great Divide, looking for the truth in America.
For all that time I searched, when I closed my eyes,
I found the thing I was looking for.
I had it all the time.

So are we standing at the Great Divide?
Is there hope for America?
Take the flag we wave, the freedoms that we sing.
Without respect for one other,
it doesn't mean a thing



And there´s so much more... A rock band for democrats, without the shadow of a doubt. Geoff Tate (vocals, high intelligence) calls it like it is every time.

[judaspriestess]

8. they were my first true all time favorite band

in the 80's it started with "The Warning" Operation Mindcrime is where I stopped....

They are awesome

[Initech]

9. One of my favorite albums ever made. EVER.

Ranks #2 in my all time top 10, second only Frank Zappa's Freak Out.

Amazing how current the lyrics still are.