Operation: Mindcrime Totally Explained

Everything about Operation Mindcrime totally explained

Operation: Mindcrime is Queensrÿche's third full-length album, which was released on May 3, 1988. It is a concept album about a man becoming disillusioned with American society, and joining in a conspiratorial plot to assassinate its corrupt leaders, with spoken dialogue between songs that advances the story and ties the songs together. The album is generally considered to be the first, and still one of the most important and popular, progressive metal recordings. In January 1989, it ranked #34 on Kerrang! magazine's "100 Greatest Heavy Metal Albums Of All Time".
   During the tour promoting the 1990 album Empire, Operation: Mindcrime was performed in its entirety. The stage show featured video, animation and guest singer Pamela Moore as Sister Mary. This live show was successful enough that the band released it as a box set called . The story was initially explored in a series of video clips for MTV in the 1989 VHS video, Video: Mindcrime.
   Before filming Video: Mindcrime, the band shot a one-off promotional video in 1988 for the song "Speak" which only consisted of performance footage and didn't include any of the story concepts that dominated the album.
   In the United States, the album was certified gold a year after its release and was certified platinum in 1991.
   In 2003, a 24-bit remastered version of Operation: Mindcrime was released that included live versions of "The Mission" and "My Empty Room" as bonus tracks.
   In 2006, EMI released a deluxe Operation: Mindcrime box set that included the 2003 remaster, as well as an audio disc of a November 15 1990 Hammersmith Odeon concert, with the band performing the entire album, and a bonus DVD containing Video: Mindcrime and bonus clips.
   The sequel,, was released on April 4, 2006, with Ronnie James Dio taking over the role of . The subsequent tour consisted of the band performing both Operation: Mindcrime and its sequel in their entireties, back-to-back, with actors, props, an elaborate stage set, and a video screen. The live act from that tour also definitively answered the long-asked question, "Who killed Mary?"

Track Listing

"I Remember Now" (Chris DeGarmo, Geoff Tate, Michael Wilton ) – 1:17

"Anarchy-X" (DeGarmo) – 1:27

"Revolution Calling" (Tate, Wilton) – 4:42

"Operation: Mindcrime" (DeGarmo, Tate, Wilton) – 4:43

"Speak" (Tate, Wilton) – 3:42

"Spreading the Disease" (Tate, Wilton) – 4:07

"The Mission" (DeGarmo) – 5:46

"Suite Sister Mary" (DeGarmo, Tate) – 10:41

"The Needle Lies" (Tate, Wilton) – 3:08

"Electric Requiem" (Scott Rockenfield, Tate) – 1:22

"Breaking the Silence" (DeGarmo, Tate) – 4:34

"I Don't Believe in Love" (DeGarmo, Tate) – 4:23

"Waiting for 22" (DeGarmo) – 1:05

"My Empty Room" (Tate, Wilton) – 1:28

"Eyes of a Stranger" (DeGarmo, Tate) – 6:39

2003 Remastered Bonus Tracks

"I Remember Now" (Chris DeGarmo, Geoff Tate, Michael Wilton – 1:17

"Anarchy-X" (DeGarmo) – 1:27

"Revolution Calling" (Tate, Wilton) – 4:42

"Operation: Mindcrime" (DeGarmo, Tate, Wilton) – 4:43

"Speak" (Tate, Wilton) – 3:42

"Spreading the Disease" (Tate, Wilton) – 4:07

"The Mission" (DeGarmo) – 5:46

"Suite Sister Mary" (DeGarmo, Tate) – 10:41

"The Needle Lies" (Tate, Wilton) – 3:08

"Electric Requiem" (Scott Rockenfield, Tate) – 1:22

"Breaking the Silence" (DeGarmo, Tate) – 4:34

"I Don't Believe in Love" (DeGarmo, Tate) – 4:23

"Waiting for 22" (DeGarmo) – 1:05

"My Empty Room" (Tate, Wilton) – 1:28

"Eyes of a Stranger" (DeGarmo, Tate) – 6:39

"The Mission" (Live) (DeGarmo) - 6:11

"My Empty Room" (Live) (Tate, Wilton) -2:43

Story

The album begins with the protagonist, Nikki, lying in a hospital bed. He lies in a nearly catatonic state, unable to remember anything but snippets from his past. Suddenly, Nikki has a violent flashback in which his memories come flooding back in a torrent ("I Remember Now", "Anarchy-X"). He remembers how, as a heroin addict and would-be political radical frustrated with contemporary society, he was manipulated into joining a supposed secret organization dedicated to revolution ("Revolution Calling"). At the head of this organization is a political and religious demagogue known only as Dr. X, who, manipulating Nikki through a combination of his heroin addiction and brainwashing techniques (à la The Manchurian Candidate), uses Nikki as an assassin. Whenever Dr. X uses the word "mindcrime" Nicky becomes his docile puppet, a state which Dr. X uses to command Nikki to undertake any murder that the Doctor wishes ("Operation: Mindcrime", "Speak"). Through one of Dr. X's probable associates, a corrupt priest named Father William, Nikki is offered the services of a prostitute-turned-nun named Sister Mary. Details are vague whether these services are sexual or simply emotional ("Spreading the Disease"), though the lyrics for "Suite Sister Mary" seem to indicate that's the first time they engage in sex ("Your precious cross is gone. It made me wait so long for what you gave to everyone"). However, through his friendship and growing affection toward Sister Mary, Nikki begins to question the nature of what he's doing ("The Mission"). Dr. X notices this and, seeing a potential threat in Mary, orders Nikki to kill both her and the priest. Nikki goes to Mary's church and kills the priest, but after confronting Mary fails to comply with the command to murder her ("Suite Sister Mary"). He and Mary decided to leave the organization together, and Nikki goes to Dr. X to tell him that they're out. Dr. X, however, reminds Nikki that he's an addict, and that he's the only one who can provide his daily fix ("The Needle Lies"). Nikki leaves conflicted and returns to Mary, only to find her dead ("Electric Requiem"). He can't cope with the loss, as well as the possibility that he himself may have killed her and not known it, and begins to succumb to insanity ("Breaking the Silence", "I Don't Believe in Love"). The police, arriving on the scene, arrest him for Mary's murder and the murders he committed for Dr. X ("Waiting for 22"). Because he's in a near-catatonic state, he's put into a hospital, where he starts to remember… ("My Empty Room", "Eyes of a Stranger").

Mary's death

Details about this crucial point of the story are ambiguous (in the album itself). The lyrics themselves don't hold clues, and the booklet remains vague about this part of the story.
Four possible situations can be taken into account:

Nicky killed Mary in a brainwashed state under X's command, thus he doesn't remember.

Dr. X realized Nikki won't be able to perform the murder, so he took matters into his own hands and killed Mary himself. (Or perhaps through other mindcrimers.)

Mary committed suicide.

There was a third party involved There are some possible interpretations on some existing clues:

Chris DeGarmo in an interview has noted that "Electric Requiem" is how "Nikki comes back to the church and finds Mary dead hanging by her rosary", but states that "You don't quite know who killed her. Was it X or Nikki?", excluding her suicide.

The cinematic video snippets shown during the Livecrime concerts and in the "I Don't Believe in Love" and "Eyes of a Stranger" music videos show Dr. X approaching Mary while wrapping a rosary around his fist, likely to strangle her.

The band released a VHS recording called Video: Mindcrime in 1989. At the time of its release, EMI claimed that Video: Mindcrime contained the answer to the question of who killed Mary. It contained videos for several songs on the album, as well as a "hidden" bonus video for the song "I Don't Believe In Love," which appeared after the ending credits. The video featured split-screen images which "match" only once, toward the end of the song, to form the word "suicide." In the live performances of the Operation: Mindcrime album (An Evening With Queensrÿche) in 2004, Mary was shown sitting down by a telephone and receiving a "Mindcrime!" phone call from Dr. X, similar to Nikki's earlier; he commands her to shoot herself; she's unable to resist and complies.

Feature film

In April 2006, while doing press for sequel, vocalist Geoff Tate told MTV.com that there were plans to make feature films out of both Operation: Mindcrime and its sequel. While details since then have been virtually nonexistent, Tate stated in the interview that he'd worked on a script with a screenwriter named Mark Shepherd and that the band was shipping the completed script to various Hollywood studios.

Personnel

Band

Geoff Tate - Vocals

Chris DeGarmo - Guitar, background vocals

Eddie Jackson - Bass, background vocals

Michael Wilton - Guitar, background vocals

Scott Rockenfield - Drums, percussion, keyboards

Cast

Pamela Moore - as Sister Mary

Anthony Valentine - as Dr. X

Debbie Wheeler - as the Nurse

Mike Snyder - as the Anchorman

Scott Mateer - as the Preacher

The Moronic Monks of Morin Heights - Choir

Credits

Peter Collins - Producer

Michael Kamen - Orchestral arrangement

James Barton - Engineer, Mixing

Jim Campbell - Assistant Engineer

Bob Ludwig - Mastering

Paul Milner - Assistant Engineer

Paul Northfield - Engineer

Ronald Prent - Mixing Assistant

Glen Robinson - Assistant Engineer

Snakemeister - Conductor

Charts

Album

Billboard (North America)

Year	Chart	Position
1988	The Billboard 200	50

Singles

Year	Name	Chart	Position
1989	"Eyes of a Stranger"	US Mainstream Rock Tracks	#35
1989	"I Don't Believe in Love"	US Mainstream Rock Tracks	#41

Further Information

Get more info on 'Operation Mindcrime'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://operation__mindcrime.totallyexplained.com">Operation: Mindcrime Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.