I enjoyed yet another write up Brian - good stuff!
Thanks Scott!
For me personally, I remember that era well. By that time, I had become a big fan as I mentioned earlier, so I waited with baited breath for their new album. I remember Last Time in Paris getting a lot of airplay at the time (I think around the same time Don Dokken's Up From the Ashes was getting a lot of airplay too) and I loved the track. While it was different from O:M, that didn't phase me at all, any more than RFO and the EP were different from O:M - I loved it all.
However, the first few times I heard Empire (the song), it took a little while for me to get into it. It just struck me as a bit strange, and I couldn't put my finger on why. In any case, there was a massive music store that I remember had a huge display in the front window, preparing us fans for QR's upcoming new album. But the album cover was just soooo....simple. I didn't like it. Just very weird to me. The tri-ryche itself was cool, but I hated how it was so pixellated, and then the letters to "Empire" were in a weird building-block type of style. It just didn't seem right for a band like QR, especially given all the other album art they had up to that point (aside from the debut EP).
Nonetheless, I picked up the album soon after it was released and dug right into it. For the most part, I really liked everything on it. But for me, to this day, I've never been a big fan of Jet City Woman or Another Rainy Night - neither of them have ever done much for me, and with the former getting so much overplay, I won't mind if I never hear that song again. Silent Lucidity has become much the same way (overplay) altho I really enjoyed it initially. The two songs that really stand out to me as favorites, aside from the title track and Anybody Listening are Hand on Heart and One and Only. In particular I love everything about One and Only, both musically and lyrically. To me it's a shame that it's such an underrated track.
Finally, I remember being hyped to see QR live. And then one of my cousins just had to get married on the same day in the upper peninsula of Michigan! D'oh! Even more frustrating when I found out later that the show I would've gone to (Milwaukee) was one of the shows they filmed. Still one of my greatest regrets in terms of shows I missed. Ah well.
edit: Forgot to mention that I was surprised/disappointed to find that Last Time in Paris wasn't on Empire, but I eventually got over that too!
Cool story. See, I had no idea "Last Time in Paris' existed. I had never heard it once, and didn't until well into the 1990s. And I agree about "One and Only." Great tune. One of the few after the EP that are credited to DeGarmo/Wilton alone.
My story with EMPIRE is a little personal, but it meant a lot to me. So, if you have followed my posts, you know I discovered QR in summer 1987 with Rage, became a massive fan with Mindcrime. Well, in June 1990, my family was completely uprooted and we moved to rural Pennsylvania. Suffice it to say, a kid who turned 14, from Long Island, now in the middle of Pennsylvania, having to start anew (again). It was a difficult time. The whole summer was brutal. But I kept waiting for news on Queensryche. And then, one day, I remember an MTV announcement that they'd be debuting the new video, "Empire," from Queensryche. It was like gold (it was the little things then).
I remember waiting by the TV, and finally seeing the video and hearing "my band" again, with something new, that I immediately loved with no hesitation. It was like a ray of light in a really difficult time for me. We lost cable shortly after that (wouldn't have it again until 1991, I think), but I managed to record the song on a tape, with an old tape recorder I had held against the TV speaker. It was like gold, and really held me over during a difficult period. That was all I had. I started 9th grade, and as you can imagine, some kid whose family was poor, starting school at a tough age with people who thought I talked funny, it was tough. We moved back to Long Island about a month into 9th grade. Spent like two months in one town, and then we settled in the town I'd graduate from right before Christmas. Thankfully, it was school district that I had been in previously. It was now Christmas 1990.
My parents were able to get me a single CD/cassette stereo boom box (AIWA brand, as I remember), and two CDs for Christmas. I got Empire and The Simpsons. The latter obviously was what it was, but YES, FINALLY, my own copy of Empire, on CD (my first CD). My Aunt got me Mindcrime (I had that on cassette) on CD that Christmas as well.
But I'll never forget just how much joy knowing Queensryche had another album out, and the first song being so dark and bad ass, brought me during a tough stretch for my fam. And when I finally got settled that year, and into 1991, it was nice to be surrounded by other kids who dug Queensryche just as much as me. Most of it due to Empire, but I didn't care. The record was an ice breaker for me, and a bit of a savior.
Fast forward to the end of that school year, and everyone was asking me if I was going to see Queensryche at Nassau Coliseum in July 1991. I wasn't. I was so bummed out. My parents wouldn't let me go, and although I was 15 by the time the show rolled around, they just wouldn't budge. It was a major downer when we started school in September 1991, in 10th grade, watching all my buddies walk around in Empire tour shirts and talking about how amazing the show was, and how the record was killer, and Mindcrime spectacular. Although it'd be another four years, my mom realized the error and made it up to me (by then the fam was in a little better position). But I'll share that and my thoughts on PL when we get to that record...