It’s another band I really got into during the 90’s and I’ve posted my record collection of Boston here.

It was a Guitar World issue that got me interested to hear Boston as it spoke about the making of the album, Tom Scholz diligence to sound and it also had a transcription of the opening track, “More Than A Feeling”. At 445.7 million plus streams on Spotify, it’s a monster track.

At 29 years of age when the album was released, Tom Scholz wasn’t your typical rock star in waiting, working as a project manager for Polaroid with a Master’s degree in engineering and writing songs that he liked to hear in his basement when he wasn’t working. And as good as Scholz is, he needed a voice for his songs, and that voice came from Brad Delp.

Disco also ruled the airwaves when this album hit the record stores. Most labels passed on the band because they didn’t believe a guitar heavy rock record could even chart. But Scholz stumbled onto a sound that would be imitated by all bands since.

My favourite is “Peace Of Mind” purely for the guitar leads in the intro and the outro. On Spotify, its sitting at 117.8 million streams.

I then ignored the rest of the album for a long time, finding it generic. An Epic A&R rep even said to the band in one of the rejection letters that they have nothing new to offer and sounded generic, but then credited himself as discovering the band when they broke big.

Then in the 2000’s I revisited the album.

“Foreplay/Long Time” came into my life and I didn’t notice it before but it has a similar riff in it as “More Than A Feeling. On Spotify, its sitting at 74.4 million streams.

“Rock And Roll Band” and “Smokin” are your standard blues rock fares, with “Smokin” having a more ELP vibe in the middle section. It’s also sitting at 47.3 million streams on Spotify.

And the other tracks are “Hitch A Ride”, “Something About You” and “Let Me Take You Home Tonight” showcase a more of blues country rock feel, but compared to the massive first two songs, they are lost in the “deep album cut” landscape. And it’s those first two tracks which sold the album throughout the world.

17 million sales in the U.S alone. Not bad for an album recorded in a basement.

In 2013, Scholz filed a termination notice to claim back his copyrights to the debut album and “Dont Look Back” as per the clause in Copyright Law which allows him to do so after 35 years. And it ended up in the courts.

Who knows if he succeeded?