Day 184: Boston – Boston

Today’s album is another necessary addition to the internal rolodex, as it’s one of the best-selling rock albums of all time. There will come a day when I’ll be chased out of some sort of a tavern by serious rock fans if they find out I’ve only ever really listened to “More Than a Feeling”, I’ll be exposed as a charlatan and ran out of town. Can’t have that.

Album cover courtesy of Epic Records

Boston started with Tom Scholz, then an engineer working in product development at Polaroid. He had been in various bands in the Boston music scene over the years, but things came together when he met drummer Jim Masdea, who shared his vision of a perfect rock band  “with crystal clear vocals and bone-crunching guitars”. They built a studio in Scholz’s basement to record at as part-time musicians and hobbyists. They then joined a band called Mother’s Milk and recorded a demo.

The demo got them signed with Epic Records and the band changed their name to Boston. The label wanted them to record something that sounded just like the demo but was recorded professionally in Los Angeles, so the band lied and claimed they’d gone to a studio on the West Coast, when in reality they just re-recorded most of it in Scholz’s basement with Scholz playing nearly every instrument.

First of all, I like the lack of thought that went into the name.  Where are you from? Boston. What’s your band called? Boston. What’s your album called? Take a wild guess, buddy. It’s very much an album of classic ‘70s rock, so much so that I’m hankering to get Farrah Fawcett hair and a pair of flares and go follow the band in some sort of a van with a ragtag gang of freewheeling individuals, but I’m a good 50 years too late for that.

Boston is very much arena rock that follows the vision that Scholz had for his perfect band: crystal-clear vocals with big guitars and a sound that tells you it’s made to please a crowd. There’s something about it that just doesn’t take itself too seriously, it’s clearly an album to have fun to. There’s also a very specific type of charm to it, which is especially evident in songs like “Let Me Take You Home Tonight”,  that probably emanates from Scholz, who does sound charming:

 I was basically a dork that hit the books and liked to build things and did all of the things that you weren’t supposed to do to be popular. But somehow I ended up onstage, playing guitar in front of everybody else.

I love it when the dorks of the world do well. I’m giving Boston an 8/10.