Streets: A Rock Opera

Streets: A Rock Opera, the sixth album, came out on Atlantic in the United States on 15 October 1991 (the CD is 7 82320-2); East West Japan issued it on 28 November as AMCY-304. The credits call it based on Paul O'Neill's rock theatrical musical Gutter Ballet. According to the old official FAQ, O'Neill had written it in 1979 and kept it in a drawer at home until Criss Oliva found it and proposed it for the band's next record; the title alone had already gone on the 1989 album. D.T. Jesus starts out as a big drug dealer on New York's Lower East Side. He becomes a rock star, falls into the drugs he used to sell and loses his record deal; a comeback with the help of his road manager Tex ends when the dealer Sammy kills Tex. He questions God in St. Patrick's Cathedral, and finds peace after staying with a dying derelict and seeing a child's spirit rise, as the official site's synopsis tells it. Jon Oliva's own life at the time can look like the character's, but the old official FAQ says the story is fiction and not autobiography. It was recorded and mixed at 321 Studios in New York between January and July 1991, according to the credits, and earMUSIC dates the start of the work to October 1990. The old official FAQ says a double album was planned, and the narration tracks were cut apart from the spoken intro to "Jesus Saves". The children's choir at the start sings from Mozart's The Magic Flute. It came out days after Nirvana's Nevermind and struggled commercially, as Guitar World recounts, and in 1992 Jon stepped down as lead singer; it is the last album on which he sings every lead vocal until Poets and Madmen in 2001. It reached number 31 on Billboard's Heatseekers chart, and the 2022 vinyl reissue went to number 9 in Germany. The running order here is the American CD's as printed, which groups several pieces into single indexed tracks.