When Tom Scholz was locked in his battle with Epic Records back
\nin the ’80s, he claimed he was being rushed into creating Boston
\nrecords by his former label, and he wasn’t about to put out
\nsomething substandard.<\/p>\n
Too bad he didn’t take such a stance with
\nDon’t Look Back<\/i>, the 1978 follow-up to Boston’s self-titled
\nmega-smash. The formula sounds old (after just two years between
\nalbums), the songwriting sounds forced, and the overall picture is
\nthat the success Boston had might have been a fluke.<\/p>\n
Have you ever wondered why “Feelin’ Satisfied” and “Don’t Look
\nBack” are the only songs you ever hear from this disc on the radio,
\nwhile almost all of
\nBoston<\/i> is played to death? Simple – these are the only two
\nsongs worth their mettle on
\nDon’t Look Back<\/i>. Even there, it sometimes feels like Scholz
\nand company are re-treading on sacred ground; “Feelin’ Satisfied”
\nsounds similar to “Rock & Roll Band” in more than one way.<\/p>\n
Yet there is something about these two songs that does make them
\nstand out – namely, they
\nare<\/i> well-written and suggested that Boston might have been
\non track to another smash album… that is, had they taken the time
\nto get it right. The rest of the disc runs from forgettable to crap
\nyou won’t be able to scrape off your shoes.<\/p>\n
C’mon, let’s be honest – had Scholz been given free rein to make
\nan album with no time restraints, would a song like “Party” ever
\nhave made it onto an album? Hell, no; he’d have been erasing over
\nthat like Nixon’s secret White House tapes. This is a half-baked
\nsong that has every indication it was a rush job.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, “It’s Easy” is a failed attempt to capture the Boston
\nmagic (hey, there’s a name for a new sports franchise… no, wait,
\nOrlando’s already using it), down to the intro piece “The Journey”.
\n(Hmm… anyone thinking sequel to “Foreplay” \/ “Long Time” from
\nBoston<\/i>?) “Used To Bad News” and “Don’t Be Afraid,” which
\nclose out the disc, are castaways that never develop into anything
\nspecial.<\/p>\n
There is one spectacular failure on
\nDon’t Look Back<\/i>, meaning Scholz was starting to experiment
\nwith the formula. And had he been given some more time, “A Man I’ll
\nNever Be” probably would have been a great track. As it sits here,
\nit doesn’t feel complete, but at least it shows that Scholz was
\nwilling to take chances with his music. So while I might not like
\nthis song, I’m willing to take my hat off to Scholz. (He would
\neventually get the power ballad right with “Amanda” from
\nThird Stage<\/i>.)<\/p>\n
The world would not hear from Boston again for almost a decade,
\nwhile Scholz kept honing his craft and fought to have the right to
\nrelease an album on a different record label – a fight he would
\nwin. And while people joke about the time it takes between Boston
\nalbums (and I count myself in this group),
\nDon’t Look Back<\/i> suggests there’s more than a little method
\nto Scholz’s madness. If this is what we get when he’s rushed, then
\ntake all the time you need, Tom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25830,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5689],"rating":[5619],"class_list":["post-37036","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-boston","rating-rating-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37036"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37036"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}