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The Big Takeover > essays

Boston's "More Than a Feeling": It Ain't No Guilty Pleasure

by John Davidson
9 June 2006

Nearly thirty years ago, an album was released that probably changed my life as much as any other: BOSTON’s seminal debut, Boston. ‘Seminal’ isn’t a word tossed around much to describe bands like Boston; we typically save charges like that for acts that were on the cusp of public consciousness, but never charted beyond the underground cognoscenti. With the re-release/remastering of Boston this month, it’s time to examine the soft bigotry of low expectations in music, and how the conflict between critical mass and populist embrace has never been more pointless.

Boston is a great album, a classic rock masterpiece. Most of the songs are instantly catchy, the production is flawless, and the musicianship is virtuoso. The lyrics are fairly pedestrian, void of the angry energy that punk was unleashing onto the world at roughly the same time in history, but they are accessible and have obvious appeal. Disliking this album either when it was released or three decades later takes a lot of energy, and yet Boston doesn’t end up on too many “greatest album of all time” lists, if any at all. That doesn’t go far in explaining the 17 million copies that were sold.

Longtime Village Voice editor (and self-proclaimed “Dean of Rock Criticism”) ROBERT CHRISTGAU aptly summed up the critical response to this album:

When informed that someone has achieved an American synthesis of LED ZEPPELIN and YES, all I can do is hold my ears and say gosh…

He went further with Boston’s follow-up, Don’t Look Back, by saying,

Debut pomposities having been excised, a pure exploration of corporate rock remains. Pretty streamlined. Not only are the guitars perfectly received, but the lyrical clichés seem specially selected to make the band as credible in the arena as they are in the studio, and BRAD DELP’s tenor, too thin for nasty cock-rock distractions, leaves us free to contemplate unsullied form. The only thing that makes me wonder is that sometimes I catch myself enjoying it, which means some corruption is still at work here.

This daft, nauseating confession—enjoying something that perhaps you shouldn’t—has gone on to become the most dubious critical clichés ever. It’s easy to spot offensive racial bigotry or misogyny or other universal misgivings found in popular music, but modern rock criticism has conflated those tangibles with the intangibles that make up personal taste, resulting in a barrage of vacuous terms (“rockism,” “schlock,” “cheese,” “selling out,” “radio-friendly,” etc.) aimed at marginalizing commercially successful music.

Of course, championing lesser-known or previously ‘undiscovered’ acts serves critics and the underground well. The implication is that widespread success is an accomplishment that should be regarded with suspicion until validated critically, that those who enjoy albums like Boston are somehow ignorant to the evils of something called “pomposity” or “corporate rock.” More often than not, the underpinnings of this insular dogma recalls that lyric from SLOAN’s “Coax Me”:

It’s not the band I hate, it’s their fans

Whether as a result of the Jocks vs. Geeks wars from high school or simply of the hipster desire of being the first one on the block to discover the “Next Big Thing,” critical discussion is too often dispensed with a veiled disgust with consumers. Typically, mass appeal is pejoratively explained with phrases such as “lowest common denominator” or worse, resigned to “guilty pleasure” status. Why does snuggling up with the great unwashed on Top 40 music make the Dean of Rock Criticism feel corrupted? Am I that stupid or is he that bigoted?

Fortunately, the Internet age has continually whittled away at critical influence. Sure, there are still tastemakers amongst the websites and writers and aggregators, but more than ever, we have the ability to instantly (and anonymously) support the bands we like. We can form our own groups that don’t rely on formal external filters, and our taste is free to explore at will. There shouldn’t be guilt in the pleasure of music, and so while Boston has worn out its welcome over the years, it still sounds pretty good to me.

Filed under music criticism music industry

Comments

First of all, I love Boston’s first album too and feel no guilt about it whatsoever.

Two things though.

Boston isn’t described as “seminal” because it wasn’t the start of a movement (more like the culmination). My Oxford Dictionary’s fourth meaning: “providing the basis for future developments.” The first meaning, of course, is the adjectival form of “semen”; “seminal” as used to describe non-reproductive activities is thus an analogy. (Question for further consideration: would an influential all-female band have to be described as “ovarian”? [“Oval” wouldn’t really work.])

Also, I think you’re missing, or at least not crediting, Christgau’s sarcasm. Writing that he still enjoys some of the music, in the context he’s set up, means that it’s not entirely bland and corporatized; it’s “corrupted” by Scholz’s songwriting talent, and thus Christgau is writing ironically.

Your overall point is still valid, though.


— Steve Holtje    2006-06-09 04:01    #

I’d say that the band is arguably seminal; along with bands like Styx and Journey, Boston led the growth of arena rock and were key in ushering in the melding of pop to hard rock.

I agree that Xgau is using sarcasm but his overall tone is scornful of the genre (“corporate rock”) without reason. We don’t know why he thinks it’s bland, other than it is “corporate.” I find this aesthetic (corporate = bland, especially when described as causal) to be totally unconvincing.


— john Davidson    2006-06-09 10:44    #

I like this piece—there’s no doubt that my own and many of my friend’s teeth were cut on more subversive fare, but it is refreshing these days to dispense with the formerly obligatory prefacing (‘Gag if you must, but I really like…’ et al), of what one loves (and naturally then the accompanying fabricated, hipster placating excuse, ‘Well, I used to date this girl and she had really bad taste, and SHE really liked it.’) when sharing in certain circles. The death of the hipster! May it rest in disgrace, and let’s all read your piece and laugh at ourselves.


— Jamie    2006-06-11 22:03    #

Personally, I believe that people like what they like, and shouldn’t let anyone dictate what you like. Also, reading what critics like and don’t like and having emotion about it is just kind of silly since, really, what does it matter if one that writes in a magazine or paper thinks that Boston’s debut is a great album or not. If you like something, then you like it. Also, in public consumption, you are actually with the mass music buying public since their debut album has sold such an astonishing amount of records. One thing that people forget is that most of the American population hasn’t read what Robert Christgau has written, or even cares. Most people don’t actually take music that seriously, which I don’t understand, but it’s true. And not taking it seriously is just as valid as someone taking it seriously. As for Boston, I do enjoy some of their tunes, but in my opinion, most of their songs sound too similar to consider them a truly important band. And I don’t mean that to be mean, it’s just what I feel. Also, considering that Queen was before Boston and worked roughly in the same genre, I can’t really say that Boston was seminal. Also, considering Queen had alot more variety and humour, I can see valid reasons for not considering Boston seminal, even though some of their songs are well written and their production, due to Mr. Tom Scholtz, was breathtaking. But see, to me, that’s the problem. When you do the same thing for every song, then I can’t really say that your seminal or groudbreaking, because I get the impression that’s all Boston could do. On a completely different note, though, I do like Sloan, and that lyric sums up alot for me. I use it when I defend me liking the Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, or Air Supply. Anyhoo, you shouldn’t feel guilty for liking Boston, but don’t get upset when others don’t. Maybe they have valid points in not liking them.


— Laton Powers    2006-06-12 17:05    #

Funny, it seems like the current discourse is saying “Not only isn’t there any such thing as a guilty pleasure, but if you don’t like Justin Timberlake, there’s something wrong with you, maybe even something morally wrong.” The only question remains as to who is the one consigning guilt and of what charges.


— ari abramowitz    2006-06-12 18:49    #

I don’t see anything wrong with the term “seminal” as it’s applied to Boston:

seminal -> semen -> cock -> cock rock

I kind of agree with Powers that Scholz tends to repeat himself. I personally just can’t dig on those albums. However, as a singles band, Boston utterly rule.


— Adam Symons    2006-06-13 05:33    #

One of the things that makes Boston hard to love is that many of us grew up hearing their singles day in and day out for about 20 years; even today, as classic rock radio has implemented more stuff from the 80s and 90s, you will likely hear Boston. Familiarity breeds contempt sometimes.


— john Davidson    2006-06-13 11:07    #

The guilty pleasure, at least from the hipster angle, is simply associated with liking something that you believe is less nuanced, less complex, less cool. It’s not that it’s a strike against you to like Boston or Styx or Keane or Coldplay or Dave Matthews, it’s just that liking them can be confused with a lack of context on one’s part; no Animal Collective fan wants to be lumped in with the masses by accident. Is the average Dave Matthews fan a Nick Drake fan? A Stooges fan? A Joe Pernice fan? Probably not, so when a writer here says it’s okay to like Boston they’re saying they like Boston despite having an extremely broad context and definition of music, while the average fan has a much reduced field of reference. The bottom line is that for a typical Keane fan Keane are simply a pleasure, without a shred of guilt. One could propose that they don’t know better, which leads to the usual tirades about how music is distributed/marketed/consumed. Discuss. ;-)


— Evan Rentschler    2006-06-14 13:02    #