Has it really been 30 years?!

It's been ages since I last broke open Boston's first two albums, but I read that head honcho Tom Scholz had recently gone back to the studio to remaster those albums. I got them a couple of weeks ago, and I must say that these CDs are worth a good listen even if you've already played them to death and then some.

The remasters reveal a lot of details that I never noticed before. The layering between the different instruments is noticeably more distinct, while the bass guitar in particular now really stands out much clearer than I remember. The center image also seems to be more pronounced than I remember, and the overall sound in general is cleaner than the previous CD version I've heard. I'll now need to dig up my old vinyl copy when I visit my parents next week so I can do a comparison.

Both albums come with brand new liner notes that tell you exactly who played what on every song. One thing that immediately jumps out is that Boston was not really a band, so much as Tom Scholz's one-man studio project. Apparently, the rest of the band was more of a front since Scholz correctly guessed that the record companies would have no interest in signing a one-man band. Even after Epic signed Boston, the band as a unit was nothing more than a sham. While the other band members got shuttled off to an L.A. studio with one of Epic's producers, Tom Scholz stayed behind and did most of the actual recording in his basement studio. The other band members were just doing jam sessions in that L.A. studio to fool the record company execs! Only one song actually got recorded by the full band.

I must say though that Scholz was ahead of his time, for better or worse. He built a lot of the guitar effects and processing equipment himself, and would later start up his own company marketing effect units for musicians. The liner notes even point out that Kurt Cobain lifted the riff for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from "More Than A Feeling"!