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Boston V. Van Halen (the albums...the bands too if you like)


Entre_Perpetuo
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Which album is awesomer?  

33 members have voted

  1. 1. Which do you prefer?

    • Boston - Boston
      13
    • Van Halen - Van Halen
      20


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I just listened to both to be sure. both Classic records.

 

but still.....Boston. listening to em both i was surprised at how not even close this is.

 

Mick

It's so good there was no place for them to go. Every note is perfect.

 

I have a feeling with these two it really does make a difference if you heard them during the time they were released. How influential they were and are is just something that has happened over the years since. The Boston debut is perfectly crafted, like a gorgeous piece of artwork. The Van Halen debut is raw, basic rock and basically just Eddie with his backup band. Two different entities entirely. Two great albums, but I have to go with Boston on this one.

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^ That Buffett album is great!

 

I loved his early songwriting. After Last Mango in Paris or thereabouts, things went rather downhill. Or maybe it was just the beach bum persona that he took on...and all the Parrotheads.

 

Anyway, the early stuff...really fantastic. Son of a Son of a Sailor, A Pirate Looks at Forty, etc, etc...part of the soundtrack of my childhood.

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^ That Buffett album is great!

 

I loved his early songwriting. After Last Mango in Paris or thereabouts, things went rather downhill. Or maybe it was just the beach bum persona that he took on...and all the Parrotheads.

 

Anyway, the early stuff...really fantastic. Son of a Son of a Sailor, A Pirate Looks at Forty, etc, etc...part of the soundtrack of my childhood.

Some great tunes, for sure. :cheers:
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I'm not particularly fond of either band but I think Boston's debut was better. They're both decent hard rock albums and I really like some of the tracks in a guilty pleasure sort of way but never felt compelled to buy either one.

 

Van Halen was somewhat unique in their early days in that while they were actually very heavy for the time they somehow managed to get mainstream FM airplay and had fans amongst people who generally didn't liften to heavier music.

 

They got less heavy and more radio friendly with every release, to the point that today few think of VH as a metal band (more like a pop hard rock band along the lines of Bon Jovi and Def Leppard).

 

Of course both Bon Jovi and Def Leppard were also initially considered 'heavy metal' (very early Def Leppard could perhaps plausibly have been regarded as a sort of 'metal' but the application of that label to Bon Jovi never made sense to me).

 

Boston was never considered metal,even though objectively they had a harder rocking sound than many bands considered metal (such as White Snake and Bon Jovi etc), but along with bands like Journey, Kansas, and Foreignor they were rrgarded as radio friendly, commercial hard rock.

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I'm not particularly fond of either band but I think Boston's debut was better. They're both decent hard rock albums and I really like some of the tracks in a guilty pleasure sort of way but never felt compelled to buy either one.

 

Van Halen was somewhat unique in their early days in that while they were actually very heavy for the time they somehow managed to get mainstream FM airplay and had fans amongst people who generally didn't liften to heavier music.

 

They got less heavy and more radio friendly with every release, to the point that today few think of VH as a metal band (more like a pop hard rock band along the lines of Bon Jovi and Def Leppard).

 

Of course both Bon Jovi and Def Leppard were also initially considered 'heavy metal' (very early Def Leppard could perhaps plausibly have been regarded as a sort of 'metal' but the application of that label to Bon Jovi never made sense to me).

 

Boston was never considered metal,even though objectively they had a harder rocking sound than many bands considered metal (such as White Snake and Bon Jovi etc), but along with bands like Journey, Kansas, and Foreignor they were rrgarded as radio friendly, commercial hard rock.

 

Van halen got more radio friendly with every release? Have you listened to women and children first and fair warning? Nothing radio friendly about those albums. And even 1984.. Outside of jump and I'll wait, every other tune on the album rocks hard. Van Halen was a hard rock band. I've never heard anyone compare them to Bon Jovi.

Edited by Xanadoood
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Tough call for me. I didn't actually hear Halen's album in its entirety until many years after I had been absorbing the first two Boston records - mostly a result of older siblings' choices.

 

Both are solid pretty much from start to finish. I don't really know how to characterize my feelings about Boston's first record without sounding a bit cheezerino. It's a bit more fun, more colorful, a bit more impressive vocally. I think the guitar hooks and leads are more memorable - and I say this in full recognition and appreciation of Eddie's artistry and imagination - it could be that the Boston album over the years has just settled into my DNA more, because it is the more familiar album. I also greatly dig the bombast of the organ and the spacey effects of the guitar - it is a unique, meaty guitar texture. I don't know - it's hard to qualify. It's entirely an issue of my musical formation, I think.

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