Boston-Boston (1976)

1976 represents a before and after in popular music, basically because it is the year in which punk goes on stage, radically breaking with the excesses of progressive rock and derivatives, the great mastodons that were successful in previous years. In a few years, many of these bands like Yes, Genesis or Jethro Tull, had to adapt to the masses to maintain their relevance.

So Boston, the band led by engineer and prodigy Tom Scholz with the tremendous singer Brad Delp, could not have chosen a worse year to debut. However, this classic is still considered one of the great landmarks of classic rock throughout history.

And there is no greater milestone than the song that opens it: that "More than a Feeling", listened to satiety, with the best interpretation of the career of the ill-fated Delp and of which twenty-five years himself Kurt Cobain would lay hold on his "Smells Like Teen Spirit. " Mythical and omnipresent in any rock compilation worth its salt, it is the quintessential rock ballad of the seventies.Tom Scholz, often branded as an unbearable perfectionist, and who produced the album in addition to playing the guitar and keyboards (it was rumored that he had composed everything with a computer), he found a formula and used it perfectly: very melodic and attractive guitar solos, with an acoustic guitar giving the rhythm and sharp interventions of Delp. "Peace of Mind" is one of the themes that best represents that model, in addition to a great song.

But all the songs are incredible, without exception: "Foreplay / Long Time", with its almost eight minutes, is totally epic: the great introduction commanded by the organ and the bass, followed by the main theme, with its punctuations, its intermediates Acoustic and its powerful chorus. Shorter is "Rock & Roll Band", chronicle of the humble beginnings of the group and one of the best known cuts of the album.

"Smokin '" is an ode to marijuana: in fact, the duration of the theme (4 minutes and 20 seconds) is a reference to the subculture of cannabis use (I'm not going to tell the whole story). It is another strong point of the album, especially that instrumental part, with the overwhelming organ alone and that dynamic that makes the song so entertaining. The band never matched success with their subsequent works, (more than 17 million albums sold) and after a long time (Scholz took centuries to prepare new albums) and five albums in more than thirty years, are still active, although unfortunately Delp committed suicide in 2007.