Boston’s Expanded Reissue of Debut LP To Include ‘Lost Demos’

Boston has announced that they will release a 50th anniversary edition of their iconic debut album in 2027 featuring "lost demos" recorded during the sessions for the original LP.

The band revealed the news via social media on the 50th anniversary of the release date for the Boston album, which originally arrived Aug. 25, 1976. The new expansion is being "released in close collaboration with Tom Scholz," by Impex Records and is currently scheduled to come out in the second quarter of next year.

What Fans Can Expect on the Expanded 'Boston' Reissue

Recognizing that the album has been reissued a number of times over the years, Scholz personally supervised the production of the upcoming expansion, with a goal of delivering "the most authentic version of this oft-reissued classic," the group detailed in a press release.

"Wishing to offer something truly unique to the millions of Boston fans who’ve supported the band through the years, Tom has—for the very first time—dug deep into his massive archive of recordings to find the long-lost, previously-unreleased demos he famously shopped to the labels before being signed by Epic Records," they shared. "He painstakingly restored and remastered these elusive treasures with the help of producer, digital expert and Boston guitarist Gary Pihl, exclusively for this 50th anniversary release."

The specific demos that are being released have not been unveiled yet, but the press release says it will give music historians and fans a chance to "peek inside Tom's basement studio -- and the ability to trace how the creative process progressed as Scholz, vocalist Brad Delp and the other musicians were working on the Boston album. Additional details on the preorder page for the upgraded album note that Scholz and Pihl "restored" the demos, but they were "left in their original sonic state."

The upcoming reissue will also feature a new and exclusive interview with Scholz and promises also, a selection of "carefully curated photography, some seen in print for the very first time."

Watch Boston's 'More Than a Feeling' Video

Tom Scholz Had a Long Road to Success With 'Boston'

The struggles that the guitarist, songwriter and inventor had working for years before fans ever had the opportunity to hear his songs on the first Boston LP are legendary. Still, as he told this writer in 2014, it turns out that he was on the right path early on.

"The first piece of music that I ever wrote in my life was in 1969 on a Wurlitzer electric piano. Everyone in the world has heard it -- because it was later titled ‘Foreplay’ and used as an intro for ‘Long Time,'" he said then. "So that was the first piece of music I ever wrote. Pretty much the next several years of music that I wrote was absolute crap. "I think that ‘Foreplay’ was just dumb luck, but luckily I started stumbling onto some good ideas in the early ‘70s."

Those good ideas eventually led to the Boston LP that the world heard at long last in 1976. It became one of the best-selling debut albums in history and to date, has sold more than 20 million copies. In the digital age, the songs from Boston have been streamed over two billion times.

The Boston album features legendary fan favorites like "More Than a Feeling," "Rock & Roll Band," "Smokin'," and "Hitch a Ride." Scholz went on to release five additional albums under the Boston name. Life, Love & Hope, the most recent one, arrived in 2013.

Will Boston Ever Tour Again?

Though vocalist Brad Delp died in 2007, Scholz eventually moved forward with Boston, both in the studio and with a series of concert tours. Initially, both Michael Sweet and singer Tommy DeCarlo shared the vocal duties. After Sweet left in 2011 to focus fully on his work with Stryper, DeCarlo continued to tour with Boston.

It's been close to a decade since the band mounted its most recent tour, 2017's Hyper Space outing. That same year, Scholz revealed he'd begun working on material for a planned seventh Boston album. Although updates have been infrequent since then, a common thread in the word that filters out always suggests that he remains dedicated to his chosen cause.

"Tom Scholz's always working on songs," Pihl shared in a 2025 interview. "Just as in the past, he'll call me in or one of the other guys to play their parts. Then he'll go back into the studio and fix things, change things around."

"I'm hoping there will be another album and tour. Of course, next year will be the 50th anniversary of the first album, so I'm hoping that there will be a tour for that. But we'll just have to wait and see."

Unfortunately, any further live activity will be with a revised lineup, following DeCarlo's death in March 2026 after a battle with brain cancer.

READ MORE: Remembering Boston's Tommy DeCarlo