Crystal Green Ramblings
Oct. 18th, 2002 12:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miko2So I'm sitting at work listening to the oldies station, and the thought occurs to me: Just exactly what the heck IS "crystal blue persuasion" anyway? Is it inherently better than crystal lime green persuasion? Could Dubya use it to convince the world that he should be allowed to do whatever he feels like doing? Does it explain why North Korea can kidnap people and operate a nuclear program in violation of their agreements with the US, but we'd rather bomb Iraq and merely negotiate with North Korea?
Then again, this is a song from the same guys who sang "Crimson and Clover, Over and Over" and apparently thought they were saying something deep and meaningful. So maybe they were just spaced-out hippies who thought that colors were beautiful and should be included in song titles.
In any case, I don't think I'll attempt to channel Dave Berry tonight, if that's what I was doing yesterday. It sounds like a dangerous thing to do in any case. I guess I've just been listening to too much NPR at work.
But when I'm not listening to NPR, I'm listening to "Third Stage" by Boston. This is a great albumn! Funny that I only figured that out this week, but before picking it up for $2 at Half Price Books on Saturday, I'd never actually listened to this cd. And what's strange about that is that I've always liked Boston.
I remember when the first Boston albumn was popular, back in 76-77, when I was in junior high. I thought "More Than A Feeling" was the coolest song ever. Mind you, I also thought highly of the Bee Gees, KC and the Sunshine Band, the Captain and Tenielle, the Bay City Rollers, etc. I wasn't exactly a discerning musical listener.
And I remember when the second Boston albumn came out, two years later in 1978, how big a deal that was. I used to put on the headphones and listen to "Don't Look Back", and look at the cool picture of the guitar spaceship on the cover, and the more detailed drawings on the inside, and let my imagination grow. Boston was great music for headphone listening.
But I always felt that the second albumn fell short. The first song was fantastic, and a few other songs were okay, but it didn't seem like a solid effort all the way through. And as it turns out, the band's main songwriter/musician/sound engineer, Tom Scholz, thought the same thing. He and the band had been forced to release the albumn before they were really ready by pressure from their label, and he wasn't happy with the results. That's why, when he started working on the third albumn, it took six years to record.
So I made it all the way through high school, got my degree, spent two years in junior college, got an AA degree, then spent 2 years at SPU before "Third Stage" came out. I remember "Amanda" being a big hit, but it sounded like a pretty standard ballad to me, so I always had the impression that Boston had sold out and that their third albumn wasn't worth picking up because it was mostly ballad material with diluted guitars, or something. And several years later, when Keith finally picked it up and told me how much he liked it, I wasn't inspired to listen to it myself.
And I really don't know why, because while it does contain more ballad material than their first two cds, it still sounds exactly like Boston always did. Even better, it's good all the way through, much more consistent than Don't Look Back.
On the other hand, it's only 36 minutes long. That's really sad, that you can spend six years of your life to produce only 36 minutes of music.
Boston released a fourth cd in 1994, which was almost universally ignored. I still haven't heard it. By this point, even the lead singer Brad Depp had left (only Brad and Tom were left from the original band when Third Stage was released, but together they make up almost the entire Boston sound anyway). I guess that's what you get for taking 8 years to produce an albumn. Plus, Scholtz got sued by his label basically for wasting their time.
So maybe I need to pick it up and check it out. It probably still sounds like Boston -- Scholz typically does nearly all the instruments himself, and writes nearly all their songs.
And guess what? It's been eight years since 1994, hasn't it? I guess that means it's time for another Boston albumn -- and in fact, "Corporate America" by Boston is scheduled to be released on November 5th. Brad Delp is back on vocals, so it should sound like Boston again. But I wonder if anyone cares at this point? Have they reached the point of irrelevance? Are they at the point where they're relegated to the has-been casino tour circuit, or will they score another radio hit? Who knows?
It's pretty amazing that anyone can take 8 years at a time to produce an albumn, but consider the band My Bloody Valentine. They were a British band in the late 80's that built songs on crashing waves of guitar feedback and distortion, and they really sounded like nobody else that came before them (but many went on to imitate them). They released two cds and several eps, but their second cd took two years to record. Like Scholz, guitarist Kevin Shields was a perfectionist. Unlike Boston, My Bloody Valentine didn't sell well enough to make up for their excessive studio time, and the indie label that they were on nearly went broke because of this. But the band was in luck -- they signed with Island Records, a much bigger label. Shields built his own studio with the advance money, and the band began recording their next cd in 1992.
And... that's the last anyone ever heard of the band. Reportedly Shields had complete albumns recorded on two different occasions, but scrapped them both. It's been 10 years now, and everyone else has left the band... and still no new albumn has appeared.
In other news, I've been watching a lot of Cowboy Bebop this week. I'm not sure how that's relevant to anything else going on in the world, but I just thought I'd toss it out. I've written a little on "Magical Girls In Oz", but accomplished very little else this week. ^_^
Then again, this is a song from the same guys who sang "Crimson and Clover, Over and Over" and apparently thought they were saying something deep and meaningful. So maybe they were just spaced-out hippies who thought that colors were beautiful and should be included in song titles.
In any case, I don't think I'll attempt to channel Dave Berry tonight, if that's what I was doing yesterday. It sounds like a dangerous thing to do in any case. I guess I've just been listening to too much NPR at work.
But when I'm not listening to NPR, I'm listening to "Third Stage" by Boston. This is a great albumn! Funny that I only figured that out this week, but before picking it up for $2 at Half Price Books on Saturday, I'd never actually listened to this cd. And what's strange about that is that I've always liked Boston.
I remember when the first Boston albumn was popular, back in 76-77, when I was in junior high. I thought "More Than A Feeling" was the coolest song ever. Mind you, I also thought highly of the Bee Gees, KC and the Sunshine Band, the Captain and Tenielle, the Bay City Rollers, etc. I wasn't exactly a discerning musical listener.
And I remember when the second Boston albumn came out, two years later in 1978, how big a deal that was. I used to put on the headphones and listen to "Don't Look Back", and look at the cool picture of the guitar spaceship on the cover, and the more detailed drawings on the inside, and let my imagination grow. Boston was great music for headphone listening.
But I always felt that the second albumn fell short. The first song was fantastic, and a few other songs were okay, but it didn't seem like a solid effort all the way through. And as it turns out, the band's main songwriter/musician/sound engineer, Tom Scholz, thought the same thing. He and the band had been forced to release the albumn before they were really ready by pressure from their label, and he wasn't happy with the results. That's why, when he started working on the third albumn, it took six years to record.
So I made it all the way through high school, got my degree, spent two years in junior college, got an AA degree, then spent 2 years at SPU before "Third Stage" came out. I remember "Amanda" being a big hit, but it sounded like a pretty standard ballad to me, so I always had the impression that Boston had sold out and that their third albumn wasn't worth picking up because it was mostly ballad material with diluted guitars, or something. And several years later, when Keith finally picked it up and told me how much he liked it, I wasn't inspired to listen to it myself.
And I really don't know why, because while it does contain more ballad material than their first two cds, it still sounds exactly like Boston always did. Even better, it's good all the way through, much more consistent than Don't Look Back.
On the other hand, it's only 36 minutes long. That's really sad, that you can spend six years of your life to produce only 36 minutes of music.
Boston released a fourth cd in 1994, which was almost universally ignored. I still haven't heard it. By this point, even the lead singer Brad Depp had left (only Brad and Tom were left from the original band when Third Stage was released, but together they make up almost the entire Boston sound anyway). I guess that's what you get for taking 8 years to produce an albumn. Plus, Scholtz got sued by his label basically for wasting their time.
So maybe I need to pick it up and check it out. It probably still sounds like Boston -- Scholz typically does nearly all the instruments himself, and writes nearly all their songs.
And guess what? It's been eight years since 1994, hasn't it? I guess that means it's time for another Boston albumn -- and in fact, "Corporate America" by Boston is scheduled to be released on November 5th. Brad Delp is back on vocals, so it should sound like Boston again. But I wonder if anyone cares at this point? Have they reached the point of irrelevance? Are they at the point where they're relegated to the has-been casino tour circuit, or will they score another radio hit? Who knows?
It's pretty amazing that anyone can take 8 years at a time to produce an albumn, but consider the band My Bloody Valentine. They were a British band in the late 80's that built songs on crashing waves of guitar feedback and distortion, and they really sounded like nobody else that came before them (but many went on to imitate them). They released two cds and several eps, but their second cd took two years to record. Like Scholz, guitarist Kevin Shields was a perfectionist. Unlike Boston, My Bloody Valentine didn't sell well enough to make up for their excessive studio time, and the indie label that they were on nearly went broke because of this. But the band was in luck -- they signed with Island Records, a much bigger label. Shields built his own studio with the advance money, and the band began recording their next cd in 1992.
And... that's the last anyone ever heard of the band. Reportedly Shields had complete albumns recorded on two different occasions, but scrapped them both. It's been 10 years now, and everyone else has left the band... and still no new albumn has appeared.
In other news, I've been watching a lot of Cowboy Bebop this week. I'm not sure how that's relevant to anything else going on in the world, but I just thought I'd toss it out. I've written a little on "Magical Girls In Oz", but accomplished very little else this week. ^_^
