NUMBER ONE ALBUMS WEEK (MAY 5-11, 2014)
Note: the CD I listened to was the 2006 remaster.
Some people call this corporate rock as if that's a put-down. If it works, people like it, and it makes money, who cares what you call it? Basically an extension of the group's self-titled debut album, there's plenty of overdubbed guitar, double bass drum, and wailing lead vocals over walls of background vocals. Tim Sendra over at allmusic comes up with better similes than I:
the songs are overflowing with hooks, there are plenty of riffs to air guitar to, and the songs stick in your head like dirt on a dog...even though the band was treading water they were treading it like Esther Williams.Maybe more importantly, these singles sounded great on a cheap AM tuner, coming out of the stock speakers of a mid-'70s American-made Ford land yacht.
Press of the time:
- Billboard: "hard rock underlined by a sweet, melodic base"
- CashBox: "undeniably an appealing, consistently engaging affair."
- High Fidelity: "While nothing here repeats what we've heard before, neither is anything totally new or untamed"
- Stereo Review: "Boston is very, very good at what it does"
- Robert Christgau (B-): "Debut pomposities having been excised, a pure exploration of corporate rock remains."
Album chart peaks:
- US Billboard Top 200: #1 (2 weeks, Sept 16 & Oct 7, 1978)
- Billboard Pop CD: #18
- CashBox: #2
- Rolling Stone: #8
Tracks: The album is certainly brief: 8 tracks in only 34 minutes. In the CD liner notes, Tom Scholz admits that "the album should have had one more song." Half the songs here were later included on the band's greatest hits compilation (the title track, Feelin' Satisfied, Party, and A Man I'll Never Be). Admittedly, almost all of Boston's songs sound the same, and I like that sound, so I'm liking the four tracks I've never heard until today. As soon as the pool water heats up another 10 degrees, I'll be adding this album to my poolside listening queue.
Personal Memory Associated with this CD: I was 12 when this album was released and all the high school kids in the neighborhood immediately had copies blaring from the their muscle cars. So when I listened to Boston, it made me feel cool because, in my mind, I was just like the high school kids.
Previously revisited for the blog:
Greatest Hits (1997)
I'm digging this theme week thus far.
ReplyDeleteI won this album along with the band's first album and a few others in a school-wide trivia contest so it has always held an extra special place in my collection.
Back then, we had no idea about Tom Scholz's perfectionist tendencies - we just knew the guitar sound was out of this world, equally rewarding via headphones or turnt up loud on the car stereo or, like you said, out by the pool. And Brad Delp's vocals were every bit as enthralling as Scholz's guitar playing. Two years between albums didn't seem like much and it only got worse from there.
In my mind's eye, I had pictured what the band looked like but my first memory of actually seeing them was on the cover of the June 1977 Song Hits magazine, where they were the featured Pop Stars Of The Month. Not what I imagined at all.
The music of Boston continues to rock my world to this day though I have no interest in a post-Delp lineup. Their latest album is woefully mistitled - Leftovers, Outtakes and Rejects suits it better.