Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Boston
Label: Epic Records
Release: 1978
Running time: 32:52
Rating: 4.5/5
After their self-titled debut dropped in 1976, Boston rode giant waves of commercial success. The album went down in the US as the best-selling debut in rock history, shifting over 17 million copies.
“Don’t Look Back”, its follow-up that came out two years later, keeps all the trademarks of the debut’s revolutionary sound. Back then, Boston were a real band-aid for the fading popularity of prog rock and for the general decline of the once-consistent, polished songwriting of rock acts, which the mold of the emerging punk scene had started to eat away at. Since the debut had made Epic a huge pile of cash, the label leaned hard on the band to get a new album out as fast as possible, one that would keep those millions trickling into their bank accounts.
The cover art was inspired by some computer game, while the massive crystal pillars, especially on the back cover, look a lot like the home of our old buddy Clark Kent whenever he transforms into “Superman”. The band originally planned to call the album “Arrival”, but then found out that an album with that title already existed, by Fleetwood Mac. “Don’t Look Back” was even the first album to get a “stamped” test run, in a very small batch, on the compact disc (CD) format back in 1983, but because of disagreements between Epic and Scholz the release didn’t happen right away, only a few years later. “Don’t Look Back” came out again in 2006 in remastered form, with Tom Scholz personally handling the new sound treatment.
Boston’s second album carries on the debut’s tradition, and the title track “Don’t Look Back” (a Billboard Top 10 hit, peaking at number 4) is exactly what you expect and want to hear on a Boston album after getting to know More Than A Feeling from the debut. The epic bombast of those soaring, hook-laden melodies, the fullness of the sound, the constant tight interplay between Delp’s vivid, clear, commanding melodic vocals and the guitar harmonies, brilliantly layered into the chorus with dramatic vocals, all of it is irresistibly deadly and instantly infectious, like love at first sight for anyone chasing perfection in a flawless melody and production. When you look back at the album’s biggest moments, you don’t have to dig very deep. Let’s just stick to the hits. A Man I’ll Never Be (a Billboard top 40 hit) is an epic power ballad, adorned with a masterful combination of a subtle verse that flips into the bombast of an arena-sized, punchy chorus where the sound of the guitar harmonies grows in every dimension. With them, Boston once again dose their sound with an intense dramatic touch and a witty yet coherent, contrasting pulse of dynamic waves running through the melodic colors of the song’s motifs. In Boston’s case, this is their “Bohemian Rhapsody”, prepared and served, of course, according to the Boston recipe. The fact that these guys grew up on rock n’ roll is hammered home by the switch to Feelin’ Satisfied (a top 50 hit on the Billboard chart), which again conjures up the uniqueness of all the band’s trademarks. The pre-chorus is given over to a typical rock n’ roll shake-up that, bizarrely put, sounds like Grand Funk Railroad swapped their pitchforks and farmers’ aprons for an evening “smoking” tux. In the chorus, Boston again use a riff that leans heavily on the seductiveness of More Than A Feeling and, on top of the obligatory magic between Delp’s vocals and the vocal harmonies, add the signature arena “clapping beat” charm of More Than A Feeling. The album keeps up its intense gallop with the rowdy Party, followed by the dreamy Used To Bad News, which, with its touches of organ embellishment underpinned by acoustic guitar and a bluesy touch from Brad Delp, can’t help but fleetingly recall what Uriah Heep were doing at the time with John Lawton on vocals. The album closes with the otherwise compact and typically Boston pompy, mid-tempo rock n’ roll stomper with infectious vocals, Don’t Be Afraid, and right at that point it points out its one and only flaw. The album is simply noticeably too short.
Around this time Scholz came under heavy crossfire because Epic was pushing the band to get a new album out as soon as possible. For a perfectionist of Scholz’s caliber that was absolutely unacceptable, and the rest of us fans of this kind of music were definitely shortchanged by at least one song, if not more. Scholz himself confirmed it when he once said the album doesn’t meet the band’s required quality standards because it was made in a rush, and he expressed personal disappointment especially with the quality of the album’s second half.
Regardless of everything that went on behind the scenes, both sides can be happy. The label sold more than 7 million copies of the album in total, and the band, despite Scholz’s (justified) misgivings, pulled off yet another classic and an outstanding musical document, which, with its priceless, one-of-a-kind charisma, kept pulling back the curtains on new horizons for the popularization of AOR music. Listening to “Don’t Look Back” remains, even in the new millennium, a one-of-a-kind, hugely appealing and above all magnificent rock n’ roll adventure.
Lineup
Brad Delp – vocals, guitar
Barry Goudreau – guitar
Tom Scholz – guitar, keyboards, bass guitar
Fran Sheehan – bass guitar
Sib Hashian – drums, percussion
Production
Tom Scholz
Tracklist
1. Don’t Look Back
2. The Journey
3. It’s Easy
4. A Man I’ll Never Be
5. Feelin’ Satisfied
6. Party
7. Used to Bad News
8. Don’t Be Afraid
