Can we take a few minutes out of your day to let Jared stand on the soapbox and rant about one of his favorite albums for a few minutes? What if we told you it was one of the most influential albums of all time - Boston's debut self-titled album? We're pretty sure if you've listened to a classic rock station, you've run across this album.
Check out the album! Tell us your thoughts!
I looked out this morning when my son was gone Turned on some music to start my dream And lost myself and I went with my son I called my eyes out to go home Anyway, I'm just going to interrupt your day right now for a couple of minutes to get on my own little soapbox and talk about one of my favorite albums and that is Boston's self-titled their 1976 self-titled debut, Boston and here's the thing, I'm going to jump my little soapbox here for a second and really take America and the world to task I hate absolutely despised and cringe every time I hear the term "classic rock" It really grinds my gears to me that term "classic rock" is never going to stop Stuff from 20 years ago, Blink when I need to, Foo Fighters They're all now considered "classic rock" weirdly as we're getting older I'm on the cusp of turning 30, so I'm expecting that stuff to fall into the canon here soon This album to me is like the quintessential "classic rock" album Considering every song on it has become like a mainstay on major stations in the US And I think we're thinking about this the wrong way guys Like this album has done so much for hard rock and pop music in general that I don't think it necessarily goes appreciated as much as it should Critics have praised it constantly over the decades And it took me until probably about five or ten years ago to really like listen to it and pay attention and understand like this is a vision of one person when you actually get into the story and the details This wasn't like one of the first albums that I ever bought with my own money It was this Dave Matthews every day and like two other like compilations I picked out of an FYE we love FYE And I only knew this album because more than a feeling was on it And it was when I had just started playing guitar hero And I was like oh I know that song, I like that song and bought it And listened to it through it the whole way a couple times Like this is pretty good, I like it at 12 years old Come to find out about 10 to 15 years later The holy shit like there's a lot of stuff going on production wise Between like layered guitars, harmonized vocal rules that like Then became the mainstay of like what became the Boston sound that Aerosmith kind of took over from like mid 70s, late 70s on And I can't get enough of this album, it's no skips the whole way through And I came to realize at one point that this was all pretty much the vision Of one person, Tom Scholes Basically the mastermind behind this band who had like jumped around In the Boston music scene during the early 60s Early late 60s and early 70s He was an MIT grad who went to school for mechanical engineering And was working for a company basically doing product design for them During the day and then at night we'd go play music And he built him and some collaborators built like a home basement studio And this entire album was pretty much recorded in that studio Which I still can't wrap my head around He was pretty much recording most of it on his own I think it was Brad Delp, the singer was like doing vocal tracks But over the years, Tom was creating demos And sending them out to record labels, they weren't picking them up Some of them thought it was trash and then CBS came knocking Offered them a deal on Epic said that they had to record in Los Angeles For union reasons, well they basically said screw you, we're not doing that And the label rep that came to visit was like no, you're going to stay here in Boston I clearly can tell you know what you're doing and what you're talking about Took the rest of the band out to LA to like hold off the record label And if you listen to the album the whole way through Let me take you home tonight, it's the last song on the album And it sounds so different from everything else Because that was the only song Tom did not have a writing credit on And it was written as a distraction for the record company Because it was taking so long to get the album out I don't wanna doubt you, I wanna make you hide If you could see your way to me, come on and let me try Let me take your home tonight So to listen to more than a feeling, peace of mind Before play a long time, hitch a ride, like going through this whole album front to back I can clearly tell this is one person who just wants the right music Just when you look at it through the lens of an artist's first album Like I don't wanna work a day job, I just wanna write music The very first line on more than feeling is I woke up this morning, the sun was gone I turned on some music to start my day, like we're getting ready And just trying to write the rest of the day, and the rest of the album just plays out In the sense of this feeling of this is what I wanna write about This is what I wanna do, this is a passion project of mine And because of that, like I can't get enough of listening to this album I find something new almost every time I go back to it [Music] I also, I love this album, I've listened to this so many times Rock and Roll Band, I love that song so much It's such a good song, all the guitar parts in four play long time Ugh, just, this whole album is amazing Everything about it is like, this is my go-to, like, classic rock album If I have to put on a classic rock album, this is the one I love that he pushed the classic rock your word on you My, I think that's a bigger conversation for another day But I agree that things can just be rock Things can just be metal or whatever they were classified originally I think you can just keep that, although I do think Boston is one of those bands that will always be in the public eye Uh, I think we're regardless of what you categorize them in They will always be around And this album is definitely one of those ones where like I'm not a big Boston fan, but I've been listening to the radio for the past 30 years So like, I know all those songs very well Even if I've not consciously went out and found them And I think it says a lot that almost pretty much Seven out of eight songs in there have gone into like, heavy rotation on, on radio Like that, that just doesn't happen That they've all become staples in one way or another Very few albums, very few bands, very few artists have achieved that kind of success And just the amount of like innovation and ingenuity that went into building the instruments And building, uh, part of the idea behind writing this album Was to basically experiment with different sounds And like start layering stuff And to make it as loud and big as possible And part of the vision was that it had to have been replicated live too So when they would play it live, like what you got on the record Was what you were getting in front of you at the same time This is just me on a soap box for five minutes Raining about, about Boston and their debut But I think this needs like a full-blown re-examination At like the 50th anniversary in a couple years of just how much this truly has inspired Like musicians for the past 50 years Absolutely Go listen to the album front to back, tell us your thoughts and opinions I would absolutely love to hear what you think [Music]
