[On August 25th, 1976, the rock band Boston released their self-titled debut album. It would go on to become one of the best-selling albums of all time, so for its 50th anniversary this week I wanted to pay rocking tribute by AmericanStudying what a handful of iconic 70s bands can tell us about the nation. Leading up to a crowd-sourced weekend post through which I hope we can keep on rockin’ in the free(ish) world!]
Two surprising but telling influences on the decade’s biggest-selling rock album, and a familiar aftermath.
- MIT Music: In yesterday’s post, I argued that the first track and single from the Eagles’ debut album reflected a change in the rock and roll and broader American landscapes from the 1960s into the early 1970s. I don’t think the story of the founder and chief songwriter of Boston, Tom Scholz, is quite as emblematic of that new moment, but it’s still another example of such shifts away from the revolutionary counter-culture of the prior decade: Scholz began writing music while an undergraduate at MIT, joined a fraternity band named Freehold that featured two other future Boston bandmates (Barry Goudreau and Jim Masdea), and completed his Master’s in mechanical engineering before fully pursuing a career in rock. As I’ll discuss with Steely Dan later in the week as well, there was a distinctly scientific turn in a good bit of 70s rock, an effort to figure out what made rock music work and create it in the laboratories of songwriting and producing, and I think it’s quite telling that the decade’s biggest single rock album got its start at the nation’s most prestigious scientific university.
- Polaroid Production: As you might expect from someone with a Master’s in mechanical engineering from MIT, Scholz didn’t immediately give up his scientific and professional aspirations for the tantalizing but statistically unlikely chance at rock stardom. He went to work for Polaroid as a product design engineer, and used the money he made there to greatly enhance his and his evolving band’s production capabilities: building a recording studio in his basement as well as paying for professional studio space in which to record demos. Perhaps the most consistent framing for 70s rock has been that it became much more “corporate”; I don’t want to overstate the applicability of that concept here, as of course Scholz and his bandmates had already been making music before his time at Polaroid and his source of income didn’t necessarily influence the music they wrote, recorded, and produced. But on the other hand, I don’t know that their successful demo, which got the attention of up-and-coming producer Paul Ahern and led directly to their deal with Epic Records and their mega-hit debut album, happens without this corporate connection, and that’s part of the story in any case.
- A Rock Roller-Coaster: Telling as they are in broad terms, there’s still something quite unique about a rock band originating at MIT and Polaroid, and I have to believe those singular influences on Scholz’s songwriting in particular played a part in a debut album that remains to this day singularly successful. Unfortunately, the story of the years which immediately followed that 1976 smash is far more familiar, especially to anyone who ever watched VH1’s Behind the Music series—infighting between bandmates over the group’s direction, conflicts with the controlling producer and co-manager, a tortured second album (1978’s Don’t Look Back)that takes years to make and doesn’t (and couldn’t possibly) live up to the debut, and an eventual breakup as individuals pursue solo careers. But as is often the case in the long lives and careers of musicians (as any artists), that’s not the whole story: Scholz has reformed the band at a number of moments since 1980, and the band has released albums in 1986, 1994, 2002 (that one is called Corporate America, perhaps to drive home or perhaps to challenge my second point), and 2013. They’re still technically active to this day, a reminder that 70s rock remains very much with us in the 2020s.
Next iconic and telling rock band tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you think? Thoughts on this band or other iconic ones (from the 70s or not) you’d add into the conversation?
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