Friday, March 9, 2007

UFOLOGISTS EVERYWHERE ARE MOURNING: Quick, what rock band holds the record for biggest selling debut album? The Beatles? Pearl Jam? The Power Company? Wrong. Wrong. And Wrong.

That distinction still belongs to Boston, which sold over 17 million copies of its 1976 debut album. Boston lead singer Brad Delp, a name I am guessing is familiar to very few of you, was found dead today in his Atkinson, N.H., home at the age of 55.

As my pre-teen musical tastes were evolving from stuff my parents blasted into the back of the station wagon like Peter, Paul & Mary, Neil Diamond, and Barry Manilow to artists my friends' older brothers thought were cool like Rush, Springsteen, Kansas, and Seger, Boston was inescapable. By the time the band emerged from its bitter lawsuit with CBS records to release its third album in 1986, I had long since moved on the REM, U2, The Replacements, The Smiths, etc. And when the definitive history of 20th Century pop music is written, Boston may deserve little more than a blurb, it's possible the band may have had more of an influence than most give it credit for. (Judge for yourself.)

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