Rocky Road: Operation: Mindcrime on SHM-CD by Luminator

I spent the latter half of summer 1988 in Honolulu. My friends back home in San Francisco wondered when I'd come back. They could not wait to go out, and play sports, before the school year started. I made three quick long-distance phone calls. I told fellow senior Larry to gather as many of us as he could. Sophomore Skull would bring a boombox, some sports equipment, and cassettes. Wayman asked if he should ask girls to come out. I replied, "Boy or girl; old or young; gay or straight...we just need bodies !"

Unknowingly, our fates would change. Those girls would become our best friends, study buddies, dance partners, prom dates, and even wives. But those are stories for other posts.

When we met at North Beach Playground (above, it would be off the photo, to your right), all that gray concrete set the mood. Skull gave us a heads-up to one of his favorite new albums. He popped in Queensryche's Operation: Mindcrime . Although we were familiar with the band's previous album, Rage For Order , we did not know what to make or call this. We would later just hear writers refer to it as "a concept album of progressive metal."

We knew that, when the school year started, we'd have to bring this cassette to study hall and the Friday after school volleyball club. The girls would squeeze their headphones to their ears, trying to hear as much into the album as possible. They speculated about who killed Mary, and what would become of the other characters. And they hadn't quite heard anything like "I Don't Believe In Love."

We'd soon enough get Operation: Mindcrime on CD, which originally came in the cool-man long box. Sonically, the CD spread out the images, and was generally more stable, but still thin and grainy.

No contest. The SHM-CD gets rid of a lot of noise, which everyone thought was endemic. Without the noise, you can more easily hear into the recording. The images are not as flat. The music itself is bigger, cleaner, and more intelligible (it was originally recorded on 24-track digital tape). Simply put, the album comes alive, involves and immerses you in the drama.