BOSTON: LIFE, LOVE & HOPE (2013)
1) Heaven On Earth; 2) Didn't
Mean To Fall In Love; 3) Last Day Of School; 4) Sail Away; 5) Life, Love &
Hope; 6) If You Were In Love; 7) Someday; 8) Love Got Away; 9) Someone; 10) You
Gave Up On Love; 11) The Way You Look Tonight.
I suppose that the main, if not only, purpose
of this album is to serve as a respectful memento
mori for Brad Delp, who committed suicide on March 9, 2007, apparently in a
serious state of mental depression — certainly not something you'd associate with
the guy's vivaciousness on Boston's classic records, but certainly not the
first time, either, when the old «beneath this mask I am wearing a frown» quotation
hits home way too hard.
Although, as usual, Scholz took quite a bit of
time getting there, so that the tribute came six years after his companion's
demise, there is a lot of Brad Delp on this record — three out of ten tracks
feature him singing, although all of them are re-recordings or re-masters of
songs from Corporate America. But
before we go shooting off our mouths about what sort of idiot would want to
hear musical dreck like ʽDidn't Mean To Fall In Loveʼ all over again, let us simply
remember that these songs are here again for a special commemorative purpose.
(And even if they are not, we will
all play gallant, right, and still assume that they are, okay?).
That said, it is kinda useless to pretend that,
as a whole, this album does not suck. With the last vestiges of songwriting
instinct having slipped away from Scholz on Corporate America, there was hardly any hope of the good fairy
revisiting him for the next installment in the Boston saga, and Life, Love & Hope does not
disappoint: it sounds exactly like Corporate
America, only worse. This time, the man has not even bothered to hire a
real drummer — apparently, all the beats have been programmed to sound like
«real drums», but «real» they ain't, much like everything else about this
extremely stiff, plastic, unengaging record.
If you want a very quick, but efficient checkup
on what Tom Scholz's musical qualification looks like these days, the
two-minute instrumental ʽLast Day Of Schoolʼ will probably do the job — there
you have the programmed drums, and the traditional Brian May-like «orchestral
guitars», and the familiar «ka-boom!» guitar thunderbolts sewing the verse/refrain
parts together, and the entire «been there, done that» feeling, as the song's
formally anthemic sound is so familiar, yet so predictably uninteresting. And
this is arguably the best track on the entire album — everything else will be
drowned in inadequate levels of pomp and sentimentality, one big bad ballad after
another until you are totally ready
to «give up on love» and go for good old BDSM instead.
The amazing thing is that there are something
like eight different lead vocalists
employed by Scholz throughout — and yet I cannot tell one from the other, with
the obvious exception of Kimberley Dahme on ʽIf You Were In Loveʼ. And the
atmosphere of all the songs is so similar and monotonous that... well, I never
thought I'd be able to wish for another nasty rant against «corporate America»
on Scholz's part, but a couple of these would at least battle for my attention
for a few minutes. As it is, the album is so smooth, it will probably slither
through your bowels and come out whole without you even noticing. And who needs
great guitar riffs anyway, when all that really
matters is being able to state «all you need is love» in a dozen near-identical
ways?
Actually, the really amazing thing is that this sorry carcass of an album still
managed to rise to No. 37 on the US charts, which is even a little higher than Corporate America — given that the
album came out six years after Brad Delp's death, we probably could not ascribe
this to the sensation factor, but rather to the fact that as long as «the army
of classic rock fans» still exists, any single record issued under the name of
«Boston» will always have a chance of selling. Who's got the nerve to pull
ʽMore Than A Feelingʼ off the airwaves, anyway? So my thumbs down will not make too
much of a difference. But still, there you go — you wanted to make sure that
Tom Scholz's music still sucks in the 2010s? Check. It still sucks. With luck,
it'll still suck in the 2020s. There's really nothing like good old stability
and tenacity when it comes to Art.
Regarding the chart success my statless theory is that the latest records by older artists rise higher to the charts than they did 10, 20 years ago is mostly through overall declining records sales in the market. Take for instance Tom Waits: "Bad As Me" was his first Billboard Top 10 record. I really doubt that he suddenly became hip among the youngsters, but his older fans certainly did buy the record (just as they bought his previous albums). And that happens with most rock veterans - their last few albums have been big chart successes, but do they actually sell better?
ReplyDelete>for instance Tom Waits: "Bad As Me" was his first Billboard Top 10 record. I really doubt that he suddenly became hip among the youngsters
DeleteIt's funny; he actually did. Not that he was any Taylor Swift or Kanye West, but that album got a lot of buzz, and kids - if not the-youth-at-large, then at least those who wanted to be cool - took notice. And took notice more than the grown-ups, since they were finding out about the guy for the first time. Same thing happened - albeit far more deliberately youth-targeted and on a much wider scale - with David Bowie's The Next Day. (And it's not just a matter of relative chart positions; both of these albums far exceeded their predecessors' absolute sales volumes.)
On the other hand, what you said absolutely applies to this piece of crap.
DeleteThis theory holds water, but Tom Waits had an excellent album, and Bowie is maybe tired, nevertheless still OK.
DeleteBut the stench of this dump is unprecedented among classic rockers. Members of Styx and REO Speedwagon are ashamed and still scratching their heads how did Scholz do it.
Even on this steaming pile of fresh horseshit, there are tantalizing little micro-moments of beauty and grandeur. None last more than a second, possibly two and then it is gone. A bit of overlaid guitar, a stray harmony, a sound effect, a new lick Tom picked up somewhere, some recontextualized old licks. Just little moments where you think, "hey this sounds good" and then it is gone, replaced with something really cheesy and claptrappy. I guess it is the pathetic remnants of the mind of a guy who had a vision of a sound that fit 1976 perfectly and then dissolved. But as one-dimensional as that sound was, it really was Boston's and nobody else's. But steaming horseshit with rainbow sprinkles in it is still steaming horseshit, and looking for substance or thematic coherence in a Boston album is on a fool's errand.
ReplyDelete