Boston  is the debut studio album by Boston-based American rock band Boston.  Produced by Tom Scholz and John Boylan, the album was released on August 25, 1976 in the United States by Epic Records.  The LP was first issued by Epic in August 1976 and sold mightily, breaking sales records and becoming one of the best-selling debut albums of all time.  Boston’s style was abducted by label executives and imitated by bands to create radio-friendly “corporate rock”, of which the band was also accused.  The album has been referred to as a landmark in 1970’s rock and has been included on many lists of essential albums.  The album has sold 17 million copies in the United States alone and 25 million worldwide.   (More from Wikipedia)

SMiLE was never completed by the Beach Boys.  Part of the reason might have been the limitations of recording studio technology in those days; Brian Wilson was already becoming reclusive, and a decade later, he might have been able to put the album together privately and then spring it on the world, fully born – the way that studio wizard Tom Scholz was able to do with the original Boston album in 1976.  Brian Wilson might have been over-reaching also, and there is little doubt that the pressure of the months of recording sessions contributed to the decades of drug addiction and mental illness that plagued Brian Wilson after the SMiLE recording sessions collapsed in early 1967. 

(June 2013/2)