Try to imagine this happening today: A band with no profile, no connections and virtually no fans gets signed to a major label. The first album consists of material the leader had been tinkering with in his basement for the past six years. It turns into the biggest-selling debut album of all time.
It happened 30 years ago, when Boston released its self-titled 1976 debut. The group hadn t even played live much before its release; and leader Tom Scholz recorded most of the music with singer Brad Delp at his home studio in Watertown. But the album came to define the sound of AOR radio, and its tracks are still getting played today.
That 17-million-selling album and its 7-million-selling follow-up in 1978, Don t Look Back, get reissued today in new versions remastered - painstakingly, of course - by Scholz.
The remasters sound like the original vinyl, as played through a better stereo system than you ever had before, said Scholz, who s enough of a perfectionist to spend years on a single track. I couldn t listen to the CDs that were out before. But this was a real interesting technical exercise, and fun because I had to use every bit of technical knowledge I ve gained over the years. We made the vocals fuller and louder, the power chords are mo bigger. We removed the screech factor from the lead guitars. We literally went through each song second by second.
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