Opus 80|A Musical Opus from the 1980s

The Originals

Another one of my favorite bands from those formative 1980′s, has to be the band Boston.  In doing a little research about the band, I was surprised to have a few myths dispelled.  For some reason, I was always under the impression that the band was always made up of a few rich kids, that were bored with life so they decided to start a band, and just turned out to be incredibly talented.  Well, it would appear that nothing could be further from the truth.  After years of record company rejection, Tom Scholz the found member through all the money he had left into a studio basement at home to record some real demo tracks.  If the demos weren’t picked up, he would have had to sell all the equipment to survive.  As it turned out, those demos were prompted the interest of  four different record labels, and the rest is rock and roll history.  The unique sound of Boston guitar licks was generally the result of Scholz’s wizardy in the recording studio.  Tom was one of the earliest electronic geeks, that happened to also be a very accomplished musician and song writer.  The songs “More Than A Feeling”, “Amanda”, “Don’t Look Back”, and “Hitch A Ride” are some of my favorite.  In reality though, I must admit to liking just about every track on the albums “Boston”,  “Don’t Look Back” and “Third Stage”.  “Walk On” was never really an album that I connected to.  I think what I really liked about Boston, was their sound.  It seemed such a big deal in the 80s for bands to find their unique sound, and Bostons guitar licks and chords stood out from a mile away.  You’d recognize a new Boston song, the second you heard it.  I think that’s the biggest difference between bands back then and today.  Few of the bands today seem to be really distinguishable from the rest of their peers.  Or, perhaps that’s just my age showing through.  Coming up with your own sound, or your own logos (free logo design) is important if you want to be remembered. On a final note, I had to say I was sadden to hear the the lead singer for Boston (Brad Delp) actually committed suicide back in 2007.  I suppose that you never realize what goes on in the mind of someone else, especially someone you don’t know personally.  But, you would think that an individual that had touched so many with such emotion filled songs and lyrics would be a happy person.  We all know what fame can do to a person, but by all accounts Brad didn’t seem to be someone that fell into that trap.  It’s too bad we’ll never get to see a Boston reunion tour with all the original members, although Tom Scholz do tour in 2008 with a reformed “Boston” band, and another one of my favorite 80s bands Styx.  But, that’s a story for another day.