Brad Delp, RIP

You may not like the band Boston; their first album is still all over AOR radio despite being over 30 years old and hearing anything that much can make one's ears weary. That first album is a pop-metal masterpiece that, to my ears, was as much responsible for all the hair-metal and melodic rock of the 80s as Led Zeppelin and glam rock. I never got into many of those bands from the 80s for exactly that reason: they were all trying to do something Boston already did perfectly.

The lead singer of Boston was a guy named Brad Delp, a man with one of the greatest voices you'll hear on pop/rock radio and a major part of Boston's sound. He died a while back (I would have posted this sooner but I wanted to post the Stew track in conjunction w/ his being featured on Jefito) and while that's too bad, at least we don't have to hear his voice go downhill.

Hollyann (4.73 M mp3) is from Third Stage, their 3rd album, which had the nerve to combine AOR with mature lyrics about becoming an adult. The high note he hits may have sustain that's assisted by some studio magic but it's still a note few men in pop music would dare to attempt.