I was hoping I would have a brilliant insight to impart to you this Friday, but I don't. So let's enjoy this photo...
I haven't signed up on SinglesNet.com, but I'm pretty sure this girl wouldn't be on there if I did. If she was, it would be interesting to be captured between her flotation devices.
In any event, it's nice of the SinglesNet people to offer us this stimulating picture for free. I have used it to decorate my blog. You may now use it however you wish.
The Greatness of BostonWell that was pleasant, wasn't it? And now, let me tell you about an album you've already been listening to for years.
Back in the mid `80's Boston had a "comeback" with the album
Third Stage. A guy who was coming to my house all the time for guitar pointers brought that over and also their debut album, which he mistakenly referred to as their "greatest hits." Even with my passing knowledge of Boston I knew that was their debut, not a greatest hits, and it had been the biggest-selling debut album of all time. I think I copied
Third Stage from him but I don't think I copied the first album. Back then I probably had the mindset that the newest album should be the best one.
Third Stage was utterly unimpressive in the face of competition from Motley Crue and Ratt, and I never listened to it again.
The suicide of Brad Delp has come up in conversation the past couple of years, and that along with seeing Boston's debut album for sale at the used CD store has put them on my mind. So I decided to take a listen to the debut record, even though these songs have been branded into my brain by 96 Rock for 30 years.
As I say I don't think I copied the debut album when I had the chance. I couldn't have, or I would've been listening to this album for YEARS!
There's not a second of this CD that's not astounding. It's like Tom Scholz used his MIT degree to scientifically create the most hook-filled songs in history, and then cooked them over a Bunsen burner, marinated in the best production that's ever graced an album. I'm reeled in from the first murmured notes of "More Than a Feeling" and it just pulls me along from there. Yes, I've heard all these songs a thousand times before, but there's something that's different about hearing them back-to-back in the context in which they were meant to be heard. It's like I heard Tom Petty on the radio so much I wanted to scream, but when I got his greatest hits and heard the songs concurrently I realized how brilliant the guy was.
The follow-up,
Don't Look Back, has some good stuff (in contrast to most people I like the second half better than the first), but it's mortal next to the debut. I also revisited
Third Stage and I had it right when I was 17: really weak. The debut has entered my Top 10 favorite albums of all time, though, and may even make Top Five!
Scholz should've used this debut as a springboard for a songwriting and production career. Surely people would've been lining up for his skills back in `76 and he'd be like a Rick Rubin or Brendan O'Brien today. They could've released the rest of the worthwhile Boston tracks as an EP and called it
Quitting While We're Ahead.
Anyhow, I just had to gush about how much I'm liking this record.
The second album, in 1978, was half-finished when CBS demanded it from Scholz. I suppose he must have said "Never again will I be rushed," since it wasn't until 1986that "Third Stage" was released. There are three great songs on that one, "Amanda," "Can'tcha Say" and "We're Ready."
1994's "Walk On" and 2002's "Corporate America" were uneventful. Pleasant but not necessary. But check out Kimberly Dahme, the babe that's been in the group for a few years now. Yowsa!
I just want to Wal-Mart where I got the remasters of the first album and Don't Look Back in a two-pack for $11.88! I couldn't believe it! I've also ordered the original CD versions off of Amazon, though, because as a SteveHoffman.tv forum member I know you have to check different masterings. Such an audiophile I am.