Operation: Mindcrime

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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.

During the tour for 1990's Empire, Operation: Mindcrime was performed in its entirety. The stage show featured video, animation, and guest singers (primarily Pamela Moore as Sister Mary). This live show was successful enough that the band released it as a box set called Operation: Livecrime. The story was initially explored in a series of video clips for MTV in the 1988 VHS video, Video: Mindcrime.

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 2005, Operation: Mindcrime was released as part of a box set with "Nature's Perfect Paneling Machine".

The sequel, Operation: Mindcrime II, was released on April 4, 2006, with Ronnie James Dio taking over the role of "Dr. X".

1 Track listing
2 Story
- 2.1 Mary's death
3 Personnel
4 Charts
- 4.1 Album
- 4.2 Singles
5 External links

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Track listing

"I Remember Now" (Chris DeGarmo) - 1:17
"Anarchy-X" (DeGarmo) - 1:27
"Revolution Calling" (Geoff Tate, Michael 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

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Story

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The album begins with the protagonist, Nikki, lying in a hospital bed, having a flashback about his past. He remembers how, as a heroin addict, he was mesmerized to join a secret network of rebels who work for a person named Doctor X. As he joins the coup, he becomes hypnotized into a state where when Doctor X says the word "mindcrime", Nikki becomes a puppet on a string (akin to The Manchurian Candidate) to commit any murder Doctor X assigns him to do. Doctor X offers a return to Nikki: through one of his friends, a priest called Father William, he offers Nikki the services of a hooker-turned-nun called Sister Mary. (Details are vague whether these services are sexual or simply emotional.) However, through Sister Mary, Nikki begins to turn back to an emotional human being. Doctor X notices this and, seeing a potential threat in Mary, he orders him to kill her and the priest. Nikki visits Mary, he kills the priest, but fails to comply the orders to murder Mary; he decides to quit the operation and goes back to Doctor X to tell him. X, however, reminds Nikki that he's a drug addict and X is the only one who can provide his daily fix. Nikki returns to Mary, only to find her dead. He can't cope with the loss and succumbs to insanity. The police, arriving on the scene, find him with the body and arrest him. Since he's in a near-catatonic state, he's put into a hospital, where he starts to remember...

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Mary's death

Details about the crucial point of the story are ambiguous. The lyrics themselves do not hold clues, and the booklet remains vague about this part of the story.

Three possible situations can be taken into account:

Nikki 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 in his own hands and killed Mary himself. (Or perhaps thru other mindcrimers.)
Mary committed suicide.

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 music video show Dr. X approaching Mary while wrapping a rosary around his fist, likely to strangle her.
The Livecrime tour featured Mary sitting down to a telephone and receiving the same "Mindcrime!"-phone call as Nikki, commanding her to shoot herself. She is unable to resist and complies.

Geoff Tate has said in interviews that the followup, Operation: Mindcrime II solves this mystery.

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