Boston (1976)

My summer listening this year is heavily slanted towards 1976, so when I've seen 40-year-old albums in the used CD bins lately, I've been picking them up (expect more in the coming weeks). So while I already owned 5 of these 8 tracks on a Boston compilation disc, here ya go. It's been a blast rolling down the windows in my truck and blasting this music while wearing aviator shades. I'd love to have the wind blowing in my long hair, but that ship sailed long ago as I now need to wear a hat to protect my scalp from the sun. But I digress.

If the term "Corporate Rock" wasn't invented for Boston, the group probably had a hand in it. No matter. Yes, all Boston songs sound pretty much the same, but since I dig said sound, no harm done. The Cars like to joke that they released their greatest hits album as their debut album. Same could easily be said about this album. Tom Scholz usually gets all the Boston press, but Brad Delp had one of the greatest, high-flying voices in rock and roll. It slowly became popular to ridicule the group for its formulaic, arena rock, but contrary to that particular line of revisionist history, many critics originally liked the album.

Press of the time:

• Rolling Stone: "Boston surfaces from the melting pot as a refreshingly original band."
• Robert Christgau (C): "When informed that someone has achieved an American synthesis of Led Zeppelin and Yes, all I can do is hold my ears and say gosh."
• Record World: "fame will not be localized for long"
• High Fidelity: "we will be hearing more from Boston"
• CashBox: "an extremely impressive debut effort"
• Billboard: "an unusually auspicious debut"

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #3
• CashBox: #2
• Billboard Pop CD: #5
• CashBox Top CD: #4

Tracks: All tracks are solid and still in rotation on classic rock stations - yes, all 8. Three hit the Top 40 and if Billboard had a rock chart back then, this album and its songs would have been all over that one, too. My favorite cut is the rockin' boogie Smokin', the b-side to More Than A Feeling with a sweet organ solo, but there's nothing to skip. Like my friend Ron Popeil says, "Set it and forget it!"

Exclusive CD longbox photo courtesy of
Dirk Digglinator of the Hambonian Archives.

This album got the band nominated for the Best New Artist Grammy Award. They famously lost to the Starland Vocal Band.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: (stolen from a previous post): Anytime I hear Boston music, I'm back in Odessa in the '70s: Winwood Mall, UTPB, summers at the country club pool, Permian football games, the Ector movie theater, etc. The picture below is of my childhood home, taken in August 1978, weeks before my family moved from West Texas to the Gulf Coast. That's my mother's 1975 Pontiac Catalina in the carport.

Previously revisited for the blog:
Greatest Hits (1997)
Don't Look Back (1978)

Boston - Don't Look Back (1978)

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)

Boston - Greatest Hits (1997)

GREATEST HITS FORTNIGHT (FEBRUARY 6-19, 2012)

Most Boston music sounds the same and that's fine if you like that music (and I do). Great writing guitar playing by Tom Scholz and incredible singing from the late Brad Delp, who had one of the best rock voices in history. I know there's lots of drama and infighting in the band's history and I could care less. Growing up in the '70s, these songs were all over the radio. All these years later, these songs are still getting their fair share of playing time on the classic rock stations. Since they didn't include We're Ready, the only song I liked from the band's third album, I probably would have been better off just buying the group's first two albums instead.

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: #47 (June 21, 1997)

Tracks: There are three new tracks (four if you count both versions of Higher Power) and none are any good. The best songs are the ones you've heard many, many times: More Than A Feeling, Peace Of Mind, Don't Look Back, Party, Foreplay/Long Time, Rock & Roll Band, and Smokin'. I'm really not interested in much of the later stuff, including Livin' For You and Amanda. The completely unnecessary rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner offends me both as a musician and as a US citizen.

Song	Year	Hot 100
Tell Me	1997	-
Higher Power	1997	-
More Than A Feeling	1976	5
Peace Of Mind	1977	38
Don't Look Back	1978	4
Cool The Engines	1986	-
Livin' For You	1994	-
Feelin' Satisfied	1979	46
Party	1978	-
Foreplay/Long Time	1977	22
Amanda	1986	1
Rock & Roll Band	1976	-
Smokin'	1976	-
A Man I'll Never Be	1978	31
Star-Spangled Banner/4th Of July	1994	-
Higher Power (Kalodner Edit)	1997	-

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: Anytime I hear Boston music, I'm back in Odessa in the '70s: Winwood Mall, UTPB, summers at the country club pool, Permian football games, the Ector movie theater, etc. The picture below is of my childhood home, taken in August 1978, weeks before my family moved from West Texas to the Gulf Coast. That's my mother's 1975 Pontiac Catalina in the carport.