There are records I know well but for some reason forget all about. This is one of them, and it's not that I actually forgot about it, I just hadn't played it in a long time and didn't remember how good it sounded. And this pressing of Boston's debut release is without doubt the best sounding version you will ever hear, if you ever get lucky enough to hear it played back on a decent system. You may think you know these songs well, but until you've heard the treatment Mobile Fidelity gave it you really don't know anything. It sounds that good, and that's probably why it commands such a high price on the secondary market - as much as $1,400! But people pay it.
Released in 1996, this pressing garnered immediate praise in audiophile-land and is considered by many to be one of Mobile Fidelity's best releases. I have to agree, even though the songs on this recording have received so much radio airplay over the years you'd think everyone - audiophiles included - would be sick to death of them no matter how good they sounded on a new pressing 20 years after their initial release.
This is an Anadisq 200 recording. Anadisq 200 was a short-lived series of 200-gram vinyl records issued by Mobile Fidelity. I think the records in this series sound wonderful and warm, but the series did have its critics. Some people insist 200-gram vinyl is hard to work with, which they suggest is why pressing plants like RTI, who handle the majority of American high-end pressings, no longer presses 200-gram LP's. There have also been suggestions that the heavier vinyl absorbs stylus vibrations, but I don't know what effect it would have if it was true. All I know is this: I have several Anadisq 200 LP's - Muddy Waters' Folk Singer, Todd Rundgren's Something / Anything, John Hiatt's Bring The Family, among many others - and they all sound really good to my ears.
This one is exceptional, a real out-of-the-park home run on Mobile Fidelity's part. I remember when the record first came out, in September, 1976. I was 16 at the time and hanging out in Star Records, in Hamilton, Ontario. That was such a great record store, and I used to skip school on a regular basis to hang out there. Sometimes musicians would wander in, local punks like Mickey deSadist (Forgotten Rebels) or Frankie Venom (Teenage Head) or maybe Bob Bryden, a local poet/songwriter who fancied himself a kind of Roy Harper-Bob Dylan hybrid and flittered around on the outer fringes of Hamilton’s music scene. He still does, I’ve heard. One day The Ramones showed up for an autograph session, which was pretty cool. Star Records is loooong gone now and I do miss it.
But anyway … that's where I was the day this record was released. I was flipping through the bins in Star Records when the the guy behind the counter started to play this record. More Than A Feeling, with its 12-string acoustic guitar intro rising up out of nothing and then all that spit-shined production heaped on top, was coming out of the speakers and I remember a shiver literally zig-zagging down my spine. The music was so new and interesting, so unlike anything anyone else was doing. I remember going up to the counter and asking the pony-tailed guy standing behind it what the name of the band was.
“Boston,” he said, pointing to an album cover sitting on a stand that had NOW PLAYING scribbled across the front of it. “New band,” he said, without looking up from the comic book he was reading. “Just came out today.”
I looked at the sunburst guitar-flying saucer on the album’s cover, which I still think is a great cover even though Paula Scher, the artist who designed it, has always referred to it as a mediocre piece of work.
“Where are they from?” I asked.
Pony Tail shrugged, still not looking up. “Boston,” he said. “I mean, I guess.”
I bought a copy right then and there and couldn't wait to get home to play it. It was just so different from anything else. Nobody who wasn't alive then can understand what hearing something so completely unlike anything else feels like - the thrill of hearing and absorbing something so utterly new for the very first time. It's something that so seldom happens these days. Most new music being released now sounds like it was recorded on the same computer, but I can still summon up the wonderment I experienced when this record was first released.
Boston is basically Tom Scholz, who wrote the songs, played most of the instruments on all of them and co-roduced the LP. Scholz wrote and recorded demos in his basement with singer Brad Delp, which he sent out to record companies and in turn received a bunch of rejection letters. But then, in 1975, the demo reached CBS-owned Epic Records, who signed the band. Although Epic wanted the band to record in Los Angeles with their in-house record producer, Scholz insisted on recording the album in his basement studio and proceeded to do so while orchestrating an elaborate ruse that tricked the label into thinking the recording was being done in L.A.
In the end, the LP the band delivered was pretty much a clone of the demo tape. Although Scholz played most of the instruments on nearly all of the album's tracks, other musicians do appear. Drummer Jim Masdea, who worked with Scholz during the writing and demo-recording process, plays drums on just one song, Rock & Roll Band. Another drummer, Sib Hashian - who would become the band's official drummer - plays drums on all the other tracks, and guitarist Barry Goudreau and bassist Fran Sheehan, who joined the band after most of the tracks had been recorded, contributed overdubs to Foreplay / Long Time and appear on Let Me Take You Home Tonight, which closes out the album's second side and was recorded separately from the rest of the album.
Upon release, Boston broke sales records and became the best-selling debut LP in the US, winning an RIAA Century Award for that reason. As of this writing, Boston has sold something like 20 million copies. This really is a terrific record and deserves to be in every rock and roll record collection. It's …
There are records I know well but for some reason forget all about. This is one of them, and it's not that I actually forgot about it, I just hadn't played it in a long time and didn't remember how good it sounded. And this pressing of Boston's debut release is without doubt the best sounding version you will ever hear, if you ever get lucky enough to hear it played back on a decent system. You may think you know these songs well, but until you've heard the treatment Mobile Fidelity gave it you really don't know anything. It sounds that good, and that's probably why it commands such a high price on the secondary market - as much as $1,400! But people pay it.
Released in 1996, this pressing garnered immediate praise in audiophile-land and is considered by many to be one of Mobile Fidelity's best releases. I have to agree, even though the songs on this recording have received so much radio airplay over the years you'd think everyone - audiophiles included - would be sick to death of them no matter how good they sounded on a new pressing 20 years after their initial release.
This is an Anadisq 200 recording. Anadisq 200 was a short-lived series of 200-gram vinyl records issued by Mobile Fidelity. I think the records in this series sound wonderful and warm, but the series did have its critics. Some people insist 200-gram vinyl is hard to work with, which they suggest is why pressing plants like RTI, who handle the majority of American high-end pressings, no longer presses 200-gram LP's. There have also been suggestions that the heavier vinyl absorbs stylus vibrations, but I don't know what effect it would have if it was true. All I know is this: I have several Anadisq 200 LP's - Muddy Waters' Folk Singer, Todd Rundgren's Something / Anything, John Hiatt's Bring The Family, among many others - and they all sound really good to my ears.
This one is exceptional, a real out-of-the-park home run on Mobile Fidelity's part. I remember when the record first came out, in September, 1976. I was 16 at the time and hanging out in Star Records, in Hamilton, Ontario. That was such a great record store, and I used to skip school on a regular basis to hang out there. Sometimes musicians would wander in, local punks like Mickey deSadist (Forgotten Rebels) or Frankie Venom (Teenage Head) or maybe Bob Bryden, a local poet/songwriter who fancied himself a kind of Roy Harper-Bob Dylan hybrid and flittered around on the outer fringes of Hamilton’s music scene. He still does, I’ve heard. One day The Ramones showed up for an autograph session, which was pretty cool. Star Records is loooong gone now and I do miss it.
But anyway … that's where I was the day this record was released. I was flipping through the bins in Star Records when the the guy behind the counter started to play this record. More Than A Feeling, with its 12-string acoustic guitar intro rising up out of nothing and then all that spit-shined production heaped on top, was coming out of the speakers and I remember a shiver literally zig-zagging down my spine. The music was so new and interesting, so unlike anything anyone else was doing. I remember going up to the counter and asking the pony-tailed guy standing behind it what the name of the band was.
“Boston,” he said, pointing to an album cover sitting on a stand that had NOW PLAYING scribbled across the front of it. “New band,” he said, without looking up from the comic book he was reading. “Just came out today.”
I looked at the sunburst guitar-flying saucer on the album’s cover, which I still think is a great cover even though Paula Scher, the artist who designed it, has always referred to it as a mediocre piece of work.
“Where are they from?” I asked.
Pony Tail shrugged, still not looking up. “Boston,” he said. “I mean, I guess.”
I bought a copy right then and there and couldn't wait to get home to play it. It was just so different from anything else. Nobody who wasn't alive then can understand what hearing something so completely unlike anything else feels like - the thrill of hearing and absorbing something so utterly new for the very first time. It's something that so seldom happens these days. Most new music being released now sounds like it was recorded on the same computer, but I can still summon up the wonderment I experienced when this record was first released.
Boston is basically Tom Scholz, who wrote the songs, played most of the instruments on all of them and co-roduced the LP. Scholz wrote and recorded demos in his basement with singer Brad Delp, which he sent out to record companies and in turn received a bunch of rejection letters. But then, in 1975, the demo reached CBS-owned Epic Records, who signed the band. Although Epic wanted the band to record in Los Angeles with their in-house record producer, Scholz insisted on recording the album in his basement studio and proceeded to do so while orchestrating an elaborate ruse that tricked the label into thinking the recording was being done in L.A.
In the end, the LP the band delivered was pretty much a clone of the demo tape. Although Scholz played most of the instruments on nearly all of the album's tracks, other musicians do appear. Drummer Jim Masdea, who worked with Scholz during the writing and demo-recording process, plays drums on just one song, Rock & Roll Band. Another drummer, Sib Hashian - who would become the band's official drummer - plays drums on all the other tracks, and guitarist Barry Goudreau and bassist Fran Sheehan, who joined the band after most of the tracks had been recorded, contributed overdubs to Foreplay / Long Time and appear on Let Me Take You Home Tonight, which closes out the album's second side and was recorded separately from the rest of the album.
Upon release, Boston broke sales records and became the best-selling debut LP in the US, winning an RIAA Century Award for that reason. As of this writing, Boston has sold something like 20 million copies. This really is a terrific record and deserves to be in every rock and roll record collection. It's …
Released in 1996, this pressing garnered immediate praise in audiophile-land and is considered by many to be one of Mobile Fidelity's best releases. I have to agree, even though the songs on this recording have received so much radio airplay over the years you'd think everyone - audiophiles included - would be sick to death of them no matter how good they sounded on a new pressing 20 years after their initial release.
This is an Anadisq 200 recording. Anadisq 200 was a short-lived series of 200-gram vinyl records issued by Mobile Fidelity. I think the records in this series sound wonderful and warm, but the series did have its critics. Some people insist 200-gram vinyl is hard to work with, which they suggest is why pressing plants like RTI, who handle the majority of American high-end pressings, no longer presses 200-gram LP's. There have also been suggestions that the heavier vinyl absorbs stylus vibrations, but I don't know what effect it would have if it was true. All I know is this: I have several Anadisq 200 LP's - Muddy Waters' Folk Singer, Todd Rundgren's Something / Anything, John Hiatt's Bring The Family, among many others - and they all sound really good to my ears.
This one is exceptional, a real out-of-the-park home run on Mobile Fidelity's part. I remember when the record first came out, in September, 1976. I was 16 at the time and hanging out in Star Records, in Hamilton, Ontario. That was such a great record store, and I used to skip school on a regular basis to hang out there. Sometimes musicians would wander in, local punks like Mickey deSadist (Forgotten Rebels) or Frankie Venom (Teenage Head) or maybe Bob Bryden, a local poet/songwriter who fancied himself a kind of Roy Harper-Bob Dylan hybrid and flittered around on the outer fringes of Hamilton’s music scene. He still does, I’ve heard. One day The Ramones showed up for an autograph session, which was pretty cool. Star Records is loooong gone now and I do miss it.
But anyway … that's where I was the day this record was released. I was flipping through the bins in Star Records when the the guy behind the counter started to play this record. More Than A Feeling, with its 12-string acoustic guitar intro rising up out of nothing and then all that spit-shined production heaped on top, was coming out of the speakers and I remember a shiver literally zig-zagging down my spine. The music was so new and interesting, so unlike anything anyone else was doing. I remember going up to the counter and asking the pony-tailed guy standing behind it what the name of the band was.
“Boston,” he said, pointing to an album cover sitting on a stand that had NOW PLAYING scribbled across the front of it. “New band,” he said, without looking up from the comic book he was reading. “Just came out today.”
I looked at the sunburst guitar-flying saucer on the album’s cover, which I still think is a great cover even though Paula Scher, the artist who designed it, has always referred to it as a mediocre piece of work.
“Where are they from?” I asked.
Pony Tail shrugged, still not looking up. “Boston,” he said. “I mean, I guess.”
I bought a copy right then and there and couldn't wait to get home to play it. It was just so different from anything else. Nobody who wasn't alive then can understand what hearing something so completely unlike anything else feels like - the thrill of hearing and absorbing something so utterly new for the very first time. It's something that so seldom happens these days. Most new music being released now sounds like it was recorded on the same computer, but I can still summon up the wonderment I experienced when this record was first released.
Boston is basically Tom Scholz, who wrote the songs, played most of the instruments on all of them and co-roduced the LP. Scholz wrote and recorded demos in his basement with singer Brad Delp, which he sent out to record companies and in turn received a bunch of rejection letters. But then, in 1975, the demo reached CBS-owned Epic Records, who signed the band. Although Epic wanted the band to record in Los Angeles with their in-house record producer, Scholz insisted on recording the album in his basement studio and proceeded to do so while orchestrating an elaborate ruse that tricked the label into thinking the recording was being done in L.A.
In the end, the LP the band delivered was pretty much a clone of the demo tape. Although Scholz played most of the instruments on nearly all of the album's tracks, other musicians do appear. Drummer Jim Masdea, who worked with Scholz during the writing and demo-recording process, plays drums on just one song, Rock & Roll Band. Another drummer, Sib Hashian - who would become the band's official drummer - plays drums on all the other tracks, and guitarist Barry Goudreau and bassist Fran Sheehan, who joined the band after most of the tracks had been recorded, contributed overdubs to Foreplay / Long Time and appear on Let Me Take You Home Tonight, which closes out the album's second side and was recorded separately from the rest of the album.
Upon release, Boston broke sales records and became the best-selling debut LP in the US, winning an RIAA Century Award for that reason. As of this writing, Boston has sold something like 20 million copies. This really is a terrific record and deserves to be in every rock and roll record collection. It's …
BONUS TRACK
The cover of Boston's first album was designed by Paula Scher and illustrated by Roger Huyssen for Epic Records. Scher, who once designed covers and worked as an art director for major artists such as The Rolling Stones and Maynard Ferguson, admits she's mystified by the continued interest in this particular album cover. “The Boston cover was designed in 1976 and is now 39 years old,” she said, in a recent interview. “It was, and still is, in my opinion, a mediocre piece of work.”
Despite this, the guitar-ship cover has now risen to iconic status, as easily recognizable as the Velvet Underground's yellow banana and The Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers' zipper. It has withstood the hard test of time, which is interesting seeing as it didn't turn out exactly as planned. Tom Scholz, Boston's guitarist and songwriter, did want a guitar on the cover. But Scher thought that was too cliché, so she and Epic Records product manager, Jim Charney, compromised with a guitar-shaped space ship. “The first space ship cover idea we showed Scholz had a Boston invasion of the planet," she said. "But Scholz said that space ships should be saving the planet, not attacking. So we came up with the Earth-blowing-up idea,“ she said.
I'm not sure that's an "Earth saving" image, but the intermingled orange-blue-yellow colours also come into play and lend the cover a science fiction-like feel which fit in with the "better music through science" message the label used to promote the record, very much to Scholz's annoyance.
Scholz was a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and was still employed as a product design engineer for Polaroid when Boston's first album was released. He had created the album in a basement studio, employing recording technology he himself had invented. He worked mostly alone on the album, obsessing over every detail for more than five years.
And while the slogan may have fit, Scholz hated it. “I thought it was a terrible reflection on the album,” he told Classic Rock. “I can’t argue that I put my technical background to work when I was trying to make the record. But the music itself had nothing to do with science. Music was my escape from that world.” He wanted the ads pulled but the label refused to budge, which marked the beginning of a war between Scholz and Walter Yetnikoff, President of Epic-CBS Records, that would eventually lead to a courtroom confrontation.
"The mad scientist in the basement,” School said. “That was something Epic really cultivated in the early days.” Then again, “I’m not even sure I don’t like it, to tell you the truth,” he's also said.
He did work in a basement, after all. And he does have a couple of degrees. Does that make him a mad scientist? Does Dr. Frankenstein and lightning bolts shooting out of electric guitars come to mind? Or was Scholz simply a musical genius who was a little ahead of his time? Is that how genius always works? I know which one I would choose.
The cover of Boston's first album was designed by Paula Scher and illustrated by Roger Huyssen for Epic Records. Scher, who once designed covers and worked as an art director for major artists such as The Rolling Stones and Maynard Ferguson, admits she's mystified by the continued interest in this particular album cover. “The Boston cover was designed in 1976 and is now 39 years old,” she said, in a recent interview. “It was, and still is, in my opinion, a mediocre piece of work.”
Despite this, the guitar-ship cover has now risen to iconic status, as easily recognizable as the Velvet Underground's yellow banana and The Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers' zipper. It has withstood the hard test of time, which is interesting seeing as it didn't turn out exactly as planned. Tom Scholz, Boston's guitarist and songwriter, did want a guitar on the cover. But Scher thought that was too cliché, so she and Epic Records product manager, Jim Charney, compromised with a guitar-shaped space ship. “The first space ship cover idea we showed Scholz had a Boston invasion of the planet," she said. "But Scholz said that space ships should be saving the planet, not attacking. So we came up with the Earth-blowing-up idea,“ she said.
I'm not sure that's an "Earth saving" image, but the intermingled orange-blue-yellow colours also come into play and lend the cover a science fiction-like feel which fit in with the "better music through science" message the label used to promote the record, very much to Scholz's annoyance.
Scholz was a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and was still employed as a product design engineer for Polaroid when Boston's first album was released. He had created the album in a basement studio, employing recording technology he himself had invented. He worked mostly alone on the album, obsessing over every detail for more than five years.
And while the slogan may have fit, Scholz hated it. “I thought it was a terrible reflection on the album,” he told Classic Rock. “I can’t argue that I put my technical background to work when I was trying to make the record. But the music itself had nothing to do with science. Music was my escape from that world.” He wanted the ads pulled but the label refused to budge, which marked the beginning of a war between Scholz and Walter Yetnikoff, President of Epic-CBS Records, that would eventually lead to a courtroom confrontation.
"The mad scientist in the basement,” School said. “That was something Epic really cultivated in the early days.” Then again, “I’m not even sure I don’t like it, to tell you the truth,” he's also said.
He did work in a basement, after all. And he does have a couple of degrees. Does that make him a mad scientist? Does Dr. Frankenstein and lightning bolts shooting out of electric guitars come to mind? Or was Scholz simply a musical genius who was a little ahead of his time? Is that how genius always works? I know which one I would choose.
