Entertainment For Lively Minds
Guilty Pleasure Time - Don't Look Back by Boston
Posted by rhinoneil on 5 December 2009 - 1:01pm.
Heard 'Don't Look Back' by Boston on my local classic rock radio station the other day and can't get it out of my head.
How can something so wrong feel so right? I know I shouldn't but I can't help myself. Punk was supposed to kill this sort of stuff once and for all but thank god it didn't. Courtesy of Spotify I've had a fling with this song over the last couple of days and had more guilty pleasure than Tiger Woods!
I'm now really tempted to go the whole hog and pay a quick visit to FOPP to buy the first two Boston albums as I need to be able to listen whilst driving - that way nobody else need know what I'm up to.
Try it yourself - just wait to the chorus and you'll be hooked too.
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The Debut Album
is great , it still stands up in my opinion.
So wrong? In what way wrong exactly?
Tom Scholz was a studio genius who wrote some cracking, catchy tunes and recorded them in a style perfectly attuned to the style of the day. In addition, he did it using 'proper' old-fashioned analogue kit, much of which he designed and built himself, recorded in a studio he built himself, in the face of record company indifference - how 'punk' was that? :-)
He had an aversion to synthesizers (well, no-one's perfect!) and preferred to only use processed guitar and Hammond sounds - the effects boxes he built went on to be sold through his Rockman SR&D company which, for a time, was almost as successful as Boston
Whilst adopting this purist attitude, he also managed to sell millions of albums around the world - not something ideologues often do.
He always made a point, when playing live, of explaining that every noise the audience heard was produced, in real time, by the musicians on stage - no tapes, no computers, no synthesizers.
Sounds to me like something to celebrate rather than snigger about
Not sniggering Stimpy
Just a light hearted post on a band that had largely passed me by. Thanks for background info - what albums are the best ones to go for?
the first one
A classic of the soft rock genre, and as noted, incredibly well recorded. Very much of its time but there is no reason to feel guilty about it. It's only music!
The first was the HUGE seller
and is, I gather, still the most successful debut album ever (well over 15 million sold in the US).
Personally, I prefer the third album (Walk On) but that's the studio rat in me - it took the best part of 8 years work and is, with a few small exceptions, entirely played by Scholz. There's some great playing on there although the material isn't perhaps the strongest.
If you were asking me for ONE recommendation; I'd go with the second album (Don't Look Back) - it's the start of the Scholz studio insanity but still has the catchy tunes and big choruses that made the first album such a big hit.
I'd go with this order
Don't Look Back
Walk On
The Third Stage
Boston
Cheers
Thanks for the recommendations guys!
For Bargepole
the first album is excellent, the second very good and the subsequent ones totally forgettable.
I like the fact that Scholz barely appears in his own video
and the fact
that it seems to be performed there by the cast of Dark Star ...or is that just me ...
Completely Agree
The first two are fantastic albums but after that the quality falls away a bit - some great tunes on Third Stage and Walk On but as whole albums they can't compare to the first two.
Innocent until proven...
I think it's awful - and I did when it came out but that's not the point. Why should anyone feel guilty about liking a song? I can understand why it might be applied to the consumption of large bars of chocolate but I've yet to comprehend why it should apply to music. If I like a song then I like it why should I feel guilty?
Edinburgh 1979 or 1980
I tried to upload 2 photos from the Edinburgh concert but I must be doing something wrong.
Here are the direct links -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigsteviecook/4159561293/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigsteviecook/4160315488/
Don't feel guilty....they were great!! I'm afraid that only the first 2 albums worked for me though.
sorry Big Stevie
hope you don't mind, but this shot is crying out to be an album sleeve
back to the topic
if I had to take one Boston track (and I love the first two albums) it would be A Man I'll Never Be, the guitar break on that still makes the hairs on my arm stand up
I don't mind....I'm glad you like it!
Couldn't be a Little Feat album on account of his plates being size 13!
How can you post pics from there and I can't?
guilt?
"Carry On My Wayward Son" - Kansas - feel plenty guilty about that one
I always had a bit of a soft spot for the Leftoverture album
A debate ensued
chez Bargepole recently as to the correct title of that - carry on wayward son,carry on my wayward son or carry on you wayward son.
To Bargepole's annoyance the first option is the correct one, not the third as he had always thought!
Isn't it
'Carry On, Wayward Son' (with a significant comma?)
Ultimate muso wig-out.
dead good as well
Christmas Boston
Try Mark Vidler's (as interviewed on the podcast) Boston mash-up 'Christmas Time in Boston'
Can't find it on his site anymore
http://www.gohomeproductions.co.uk/
but it is on this compilation,
http://www.djbc.net/christmas/
For me
it's this one-the obvious one I know-that gets turned way up on the iPod whenever it comes around
will now always remind me of the city (Mass not Lincs).
Candidate for best guitar solo ever
The first album remains a classic and Don't Look Back is worthy of this revisit. I remember the long wait for DLB, such that the record company had to put ads in the music press saying 'it's coming, be patient', like the 'Stevie's almost ready' ads for Songs in the Key of Life.
It's a pity Boston get lumped in with inferior bands like Styx and REO.
Goes very well with this I think..
..
I'll see your Journey
and raise you this
and I'll trump it with this...
Has to be this
American Heartbeat - Survivor
I can feel..
..a 'tache and a mullet coming on.
don't forget
the stone-washed stretch denim and cowboy boots
Asia - Heat of the Moment
The debut Asia gig was, I think, the last gig I attended
at Wembley Arena. I was sitting toward the back and the slapback from the rear wall was unbearable.
Build Carl's drumkit ...
Can't resist that one myself-went a'Googling to see if anything of Palmer's P.M survives on video (does anyone else remember an excruciating radio 1 interview ?) but it seems not ... however ...
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-5742523071131354016&ei=VsIcS-...
Love 'em all
Boston, Kansas - love 'em all. Both Wayward son and "Don't look back" are on my "Wake up!" playlist for the mornign train. Don't look back - how many layers of lead guitar harmonies can you have? Never enough!
Are Toto allowed?
No Zebras were harmed in the making of this video
Have a soft spot for this,
Have a soft spot for this, and More Than a Feeling, the only two Boston tracks I've heard. Will explore more.
Jane by Jefferson Starship
'Jane' by Jefferson Starship has to walk away with the dubious honour of the 'Cream of AOR' - Hairs are standing up on my arms at the mere mention of it ! Bit of an IT buffoon so if anybody can do the YouTube malarkey thing it would be appreciated.
consider it done
Barry thanks Bargepole
Barry thanks Bargepole
Done
And Stimpy
Cheers
Hmmm... great minds and all that
Ooh aye..
Now that's what I call AOR.
Quality. Total. What's not to like?
Oh Yes
The ultimate AOR track.
Oh Yes
The ultimate AOR track.
Owner of a Lonley Heart (sic)
Without a doubt the worst wardrobes in the history of popular music, or possibly in all sartorial history. Great tune though, (and the first Yessong I ever heard)..
Foreigner 4
classic and probably not written in an attic
Indeed
Probably written standing backstage in the rain, hearing the sound of one guitar!
Apparently he couldn't get a ticket either,
It was a sold-out show
Which is a shame because...
He had always got into gigs before.
But now he knows what it feels like the first time.
"mmm, that was the mighty Styx
and "Babe". Great stuff mmmm. Reports coming in of hold-ups near the Cirencester turn-off on the A419. But if you're stuck in traffic, just relax and take it easy. In fact, Tke it on the Run...news at the top of the hour ...here's REO Speedwagon..."
Try this...
And this
maybe we should all adjourn to the new thread on this started by the good uncle!
Looks like they were on fire that night...
(coat)
Go on then ...