One of my favorite music books of 2026 is Brendan Borrell’s “Power Soak: Invention, Obsession, and the Pursuit of the Perfect Sound.”
;)
It’s the story of Tom Scholz, the founder of the band Boston, and the legal shenanigans surrounding the band’s long-delayed third album. Scholz, ever the perfectionist, resisted intense record company pressure to release “Third Stage,” in order to capitalize on the mammoth sales of Boston’s first two albums.
As Borrell writes, “When Scholz refused to hand over his own record, ‘Third Stage,’ until it met his exacting standards, CBS Records chief Walter Yetnikoff declared war. Royalties were cut off. Lawsuits piled up. The band splintered. And Scholz sank further into isolation. Then two rival power brokers—Irving Azoff and David Geffen—entered the fray, racing to pry loose Boston’s long-awaited album, which would become one of the last blockbusters of the classic-rock era.
“ ‘Power Soak’ reveals the full inside story of this battle for the first time. Drawing on thousands of pages of court filings, internal CBS documents, and new interviews, journalist Brendan Borrell reveals how Scholz pushed back against the major-label power structure and helped arm artists with new tools in their struggle for creative control.”
The book is tidy at 115 pages, but is jammed with insights, including Scholz’s invention of the Power Soak, an effects box for electric guitarists.
In addition to being a great read, “Power Soak” is an example of creative self-publishing and transparent reporting and documentation.
I first learned of “Power Soak” from a rave review in Bob Leftzetz’s music-industry email newsletter. At that time, “Power Soak” was only available as a $1.99 e-book. However, as word of the book spread, Borrell quickly raised the e-book price to $3.99 and added a $9.99 print-on-demand paperback version via Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.
Borrell designed the beautiful and multifaceted cover himself, and by taking the self-publishing route, he’s maximizing his ROI. Based on the number of rave reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, he’s enjoying a decent revenue stream.
Borrell worked with a publisher on his first book, the acclaimed “The First Shots: The Epic Rivalries and Heroic Science Behind the Race to the Coronavirus Vaccine,” but opted to self-publish “Power Soak” because it was relatively short.
Borrell writes a related “Power Soak” Substack, where he shares “notes, updates and stories” related to the book. They include primary documents, video reporting, sidebar stories and “the best reference sources on the band … and what’s missing” that serve as a wonderful continuation of the Boston story.
“Power Soak” is proof that short, punchy histories can cast big shadows. Not every book needs to be an epic, regardless of what publishers might say. Readers are busy, so look at tight storytelling as an advantage, not a shortcoming.