Thinking Outside The Box

It is not very often that a band or an artist with class and real talent hit the nail right on the head with the debut album. A lot of times bands have an album or two the helps them on their way and creates the a feel and sound the band takes as their own. Not even some of my favorite bands have had a smash hit debut album. Def Leppard Had two albums to go through before Pyromania and Pantera released four albums before Cowboys From Hell and I don't really like any of the albums so a lot of times a band needs to find its way around a studio and so on before it really clicks. But in 1976 something special happened and that thing was Boston.

I am an 80's guy through and through. I have never had a thing for the 70's and especially not for the rock that started out in the late 60's but somethings in the 70's was truly awesome and important to both me and the entire world of music as we know it. The year 1976 did though give me something special and it came in the shape of Boston's self titled  debut album Boston. I still have troubles sometimes, wrapping my head around how great that album was and how good it sounds. The production value is insane and the songs are so classic they became instant Rock & Roll Hall of Fame songs.

First of there wouldn't have been a Boston if it wasn't for Tom Scholz. In my book he was and still is a genius.He started out as a mechanical engineer who worked at Polaroid but he had always had an interest in music and while he work at Polaroid he build his own studio in Boston, Massachusetts. He started writing some music and recorded it by himself. He showed up at Epic Records with his demo tape and was sure that it was good enough for an entire album but Epic told him that it needed a rerecording. Tom Scholz played both Guitar, Bass, Keyboards and some of the drums on all of the songs and Brad Delp sang the vocals. Some other musicians were featured on the album but non in such a degree that they were signed with Epic records as Boston. Only Scholz and Delp where signed to a record deal and even though Epic wanted the album to be recorded in a "real" studio almost the entire album ended up being recorded in Scholz's home. When it was released in August, 1976, it was a smash hit and turned out to be the single best selling debut album ever at the time. And no wonder because some of the songs on this album are indeed special. Even if you just judge the album on its cover it should be killer cause it looks so fucking cool.

The overall sound of the album is so sharp and there is a clear red threat all the way through and you can just hear that these songs come from the same band and the same mind. The songs are not very different but still that is not a problem because they kick ass. You get a fat wall of guitars mixed with Delp's awesome high pitched voice. The organs kick in from time to time and helps the album ooze classic rock. Scholz was such a perfectionist that the songs are mixed to perfection. Everything is weaved together with the soul purpose: to sound like it was an entire band that played. And it does. Though Scholz played everything it still has the flow and feel of a whole band. By recording everything at his own pace and by himself he didn't have to pay anybody and there for had all the rights to the songs to himself. and he earned a ton of money on the album, which by the way has gone 17 times platinum.

More Than a Feeling is known by every rock fan and a lot of non rock fans. And it is just a fantastic song. It fades in and gives me all I ever wanted and screaming Les Paul that builds up to an otherwise not to heavy song. The chorus is awesome with its great voicings and when Delp hits that high G your mind blows to pieces. Scholtz has a thing for using a mix of acoustic guitars and electric guitars that gives Boston something different. More Than a Feeling gets that feel as well because the buld up to the chorus is so soft and when the guitars really kick in you get blown away because of the thickness and power they bring. A great song.

Smokin' was in GTA San Andreas and is one of the greatest driving songs of all time. It is up tempo and has rocking vocals and killer organ parts. Yet still the guitar parts are so thick and wonderful it binds it all together. You feel like a bad ass when you put this song on and nod your head along with the beat. And I can't think of a song I would rather have a bar fight to.

Foreplay/Long Time is more odd. The intro is a long dive into what an organ can do and how bad ass it can be. Then you get that guitar driven theme that leads to the "real" song and it is yet again kind of soft and the chorus is only backed by an acoustic guitar untill the end and you once again get the magical voicings and the powerhouse of a guitar sound kicking in when it needs to. The lyrics are actually deep. They are about staying true to yourself and always keep dreaming.

Hitch a Ride is maybe the softest of all the songs but it still has the same elements as the others but the one I like the better is Peace of Mind. It has a great chorus and the way it starts out with the acoustic guitars leading into the guitar driven riff is awesome. the verses works so well together with the choruses but when everything dies down and you get back to the intro near the end everything is taken up a notch. This time the Lead guitar playes the chords with power and then the riff comes along played three whole times through the outro with an octave added every time the riff has been played through twice, meaning that a whole time is the riff played twice. The song then fades and you are left with your mouth open, wondering how that could sound so awesome.

Tom Scholtz is a genius and he really created something special back in the day. Boston couldn't capture that same vibe truly again but I am so happy that they did. It is a masterclass on how to think outside of the box and do stuff your way and be true to it. 

Get a life and start listening to better music! 

  

Bring back the balls of Eurovision!

One of my favorite moments every year is when Eurovision comes around. Every spring it is time to once again listen to some of the worst and most generic music of all time and thank god it's annual. You get to see third world countries show of exactly why they are underdeveloped and see some reasonable singers and the like, perform at a level so low it should be illegal, but in 2006 something strange happened. Some heavy metal band named Lordi, all dressed up in monster style costumes, won the contest with a song named Hard Rock Hallelujah and I couldn't believe my own eyes. This post is about what happened that night and the entire problem with eurovision.

First off I voted for Lordi myself and then went on to do something els that night in may and turned back on to the Eurovision later that night and saw Lordi in front with 100 points. WTF. Lordi, off course from Finland, reminded me of Gwar an american metal band that have insane costumes on when they play. They honestly looked like crab but at least it was something els. I remember they had a number one hit in Denmark when they launched their music video and everything was crazy. I felt like it all got out of hand at the end but it was funny as hell to see them win the Eurovision Song Contest. The song is nothing out of the ordinary. It is a simple construction with a female voice in the choir to brake out of the shell and a whole bunch of organ that lays the foundation. The organ gives it a church/apocalyptic feeling but other then that it's not a special metal song. But at the time I was 13 years old and all in on metal so I thought it was kick-ass and got on board. But how the hell was this eve possible? I don't think that many men or metal fans even watch the Eurovision. so how could they have voted on Lordi. Eurovision is always watched by the same people every year here in Denmark and none of them would ever vote for Lordi, so how could this be?

I'm gonna call this how I see it. The Eurovision Song Contest is one big shenanigans. Every winner since the turn of the century has been pre-ordered or in another way been fixed to win. Lordi then seemed to be something new. A winner that wasn't a pop song you got tired of after 16 minutes. They didn't sing of love and all that normal shit, They screamed "Hard Rock Hallelujah" right in your face. But that's the thing, if they were so different then how could they ever win? Two years before Ukraine won with some of the worst shit I have ever seen. The word soon spread about how the former Eastblock countries were voting on each other and had agreed on Ukraine as their favorite. The song was terrible and I feel like Eurovision had to do something about it. The year after, they led Greece win with a gorgeous female singer Elena Paparizou and then gave a European country their first ever victory off the contest, Finland. And the song just happened to be by the band Lordi. You see some of the same tendencies every year. Azerbaijan won with another shitty song in 2011 and was again close to winning in 2013 with a song that was even worse and in 2007 Serbia won with a terrible piece of music that made every living being with a working brain throw up instantly. Conchita Wurst won this year in a contest that seemed so rigged it wasn't even funny to watch. Everybody went nuts about the bearded lady and all, and that is why she won. The song was pure crab but she/he/it won because of the publicity involved. The dutch song was the best song by far but you could see it coming from a mile away. One year Belarus came in second with a song that sounded like it was recorded in a barn with livestock in it. And this is why it's fun to watch. It's rigged as fuck and therefor funny that normal people eat it all up in good faith.

That brings me on to the next point. The main problem with the Eurovision is the songs and artists involved. Everything sounds the same and nothing is special. I think of all the songs that have entered the contests through the years there are 3 songs I like two of them are Danish and one is Swedish. God I love Carola and her song Fångad Av En Stormvind out of 1991 and the Danish song from that year Lige Der Hvor Hjertet Slår by Anders Frandsen is so soft and pure it almost gives me a hard on. Two of my favorite songs ended up winning the contest but the main point is that it's all crap from start to finish almost every year. Songs in bad English about love and a broken heart is heard over and over. Only countries from Balkan seem to think out of the box, with insane rap shows and guitar shredders blazing on stage but they always sing in a different language then English and therefor I feel like they shouldn't deserve a vote because I can't understand a word of what they're saying. I vote for them anyway to Created some havoc but who cares. Everything sounds exactly like the song before and when ever there is something special like Moldova's song from 2010 that created Epic Sax Guy it didn't even reach the finals. If everything is rigged anyway then why not make the best song win every time instead of this shit? Any way it's sad more then anything cause I think there is some real talent to find along with some good songs, but everything is chocked in the talk of equality and having a united Europe. Please bring back the balls of Eurovision or at least some decent talent from time to time!



Get a life and start listening to better music!