Remembering Sib Hashian, born on this day in 1949. —Ed.
The finest band to ever escape Planet Earth on a mammoth guitar-shaped spaceship topped with a snow globe of the Boston skyline, Boston took the solar system by storm with their eponymous 1976 debut, which boasted more hits than Joe DiMaggio. With songwriter, guitarist and MIT-trained musical inventor Tom Scholz at the helm, Boston was the epitome of corporate rock—buffed to a fine sheen, overblown, but catchy as a Red Sox center fielder.
Two long years passed before Boston released Don’t Look Back, amidst legal squabbles with Epic Records and Scholz’s legendary perfectionism. One gets the sense that, had he had his way, Don’t Look Back wouldn’t have seen the light of day until 2078. Anything less than one hundred years, in Tom’s view, and you were listening to a demo. As it was, the follow-up to Don’t Look Back, Third Stage, wouldn’t see the light of day until 1986, and something tells me the LP had to be pried from his fingers as he screamed, “There’s a note on track three I’ve been working on for two years and still can’t get right!”
But Scholz’s perfectionism cost the band plenty. Two years were a long time in an era that saw the advent of punk, and by 1978 many of the band’s fans had moved on to newer, edgier sounds. I loved Boston, but come Don’t Look Back I’d forgotten all about them. They may as well have been a fossil in a natural history museum.
And it’s not as if Scholz’s fussiness paid off in a masterpiece. Sure, the title track is as good, or better, than just about every song on Boston, but it failed to distract listeners from the fact that the songs on Don’t Look Back simply aren’t as good as the ones on the band’s debut. But lately I’ve been wondering—is Don’t Look Back as great a disappointment as I’ve always thought? Or rather a top of the line slab of vinyl with zero chance of surpassing the band’s unsurpassable debut?
Well, it is indeed a disappointing follow-up to Boston. And not because the songs aren’t top notch. It’s because they sound like slightly inferior clones of the songs on Boston. It’s as if you’re listening to the songs on Boston, but something’s off. They lack that anthemic quality, they’re just a tad less catchy, and their subject matter feels shopworn. “Party” is no “Smokin’, and embarrassing instrumental “The Journey” (the LP’s only real loser) sucks in comparison to “Foreplay.” With the exception of the title track, you’ll search Don’t Look Back in vain for timeless radio staples like “Peace of Mind” and “Long Time,” to say nothing of “More Than a Feeling.”
Boston’s sound was always clean and buffed to a fine sheen—in comparison to Boston, Steely Dan were a grunge band. There’s also an unlived quality to their music; listening to “Party” on Don’t Look Back or Boston’s “Smokin’” you get the feeling Boston never crashed a real down and dirty rock party in their lives.
But that’s beside the point. The point is that most of the songs on Don’t Let Back make full use of Boston’s strengths—Scholz’s guitar is surgically clean, and he plays a wicked solo. He also makes economical but effective use of the organ (see “Used to Bad News”). Vocalist Brad Delp sings lead and backs himself on harmony vocals, and the results are streamlined and lush. And the rhythm section kicks throughout the LP, reminding us that no matter how emotionally distanced these songs are, they’re still hard rock, as songs like “Don’t Be Afraid” prove.
The band that comes most to mind when I listen to Boston are The Raspberries, whose “Go All the Way”and “I Wanna Be with You” are, like “More Than a Feeling,” slick, polished and boast unforgettable melodies. It’s impossible to hear a song like “It’s Easy” from Don’t Look Back without hearing an echo of Eric Carmen and Company. But it was Boston who lived out the dream Carmen laid out in “Overnight Sensation (Hit Record).” But to cite yet another Raspberries’ song, Boston’s Don’t Look Back doesn’t go all the way.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
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