Aerosmith

A fantastic '70s hard rock band (with emphasis on "'70s").
*special introductory paragraph!
*Aerosmith
*Get Your Wings
*Toys In The Attic
*Rocks
*Draw The Line
*Live! Bootleg
*Night In The Ruts
*Greatest Hits
*Rock In A Hard Place
*Classics Live
*Pandora's Box
*Done With Mirrors
*Permanent Vacation
*Classics Live! II
*Pump
*Get A Grip
*Nine Lives
*I Don't Want To Miss A Thing CD-single
*Chain Reaction
*A Little South Of Sanity
*Just Push Play
*Honkin' On Bobo
*Rockin' The Joint: Live At The Hard Rock Hotel Las Vegas
I know this may be difficult for you jaded youngsters to believe, but Aerosmith haven't always been one of the most repulsively banal pop ballad groups in existence. They used to be a loud, guitar-driven hard rock band - kinda like a cross between the Stones and Zeppelin, but distinctly American, somehow. Kinda funky, too. And I don't mean that in a 90's "smelly" way, although they have certainly been one of the smellier bands of our decade. They were never the most ambitious band, but, in their heyday, they spat up some of the catchiest grit rock stompers you'll ever condescend to lend an ear to. So give 'em a break. Like Black Sabbath, their first six albums were good - ALL of them. But then, due to drugs, egos, and whatnot, both of the guitarists quit, the singer replaced them, then the guitarists came back, eventually they all went through drug rehabilitation, and now they're little more than popular purveyors of puerile pubescent pablum. And they blow. Interested? Well, walk this way!!! Oh, the wacky woolly wit!


Aerosmith - Columbia 1973.
Rating = 8

Young long-haired potheads from Boston record album. Fantastic gritty street sound of filthy dirt-encrusted distorted guitars wins heart of Prindle. Side one - mean rocker "Make It," happy fuzz rocker "Somebody," classic anthem "Dream On" and blistering urban epic "One Way Street" - out-Stones Stones. Side two, though made up of songs in similar vein, including radio standard "Mama Kin" and great cover of old blues song "Walkin' The Dog" (which Stones had covered on their debut, as well), isn't quite as breathtaking. Fantastic guitar tones, though. Very tough, real, and alive - bad notes left in (listen to the solo in "Makin' It" for some truly AWFUL warped notes!). No rock stars. Yet. All in all, a very good debut, but it's hard to tell whether they are going to grow or stagnate. Curiously enough, they did both!

Reader Comments

lweitzel@concetric.net (Larry Weitzel)
You certanly don't have any taste in music. I agree with you on the part where you say the first four songs are good, but the rest are just as good if not better. Anything Aerosmith covers is better then the original.

wolf2@ix.netcom.com (Jeremy Bednarski)
What are you high? How can you say songs like "One Way Street" and "Movin' Out" are not breathtaking? These songs are just as good as anything else on the album. In fact, there isn't a song on this album that doesn't kick ass.

Godranek@aol.com
When I first heard this album, I didn't care too much for it. I guess I was expecting something lavishly produced and heavy. The sound was muddy, Steve Tyler's vocals weren't developed into that high pitched wail yet, and the songs were just straight ahead rock-n-roll; nothing heavy, nothing light. After about 10 more listens to the album it grew on me like a dang tumor. I guess it was the songwriting, and that muddy guitar sound does seem kind of heavy if your volume was at 10.

bevan@voicenet.com (Casey B.)
I pretty much agree with you for the most part Prindle. "Somebody" is breathtaking, especially the guitar solo, and "Dream On" obviously is great. I like most of the tracks and its a nice debut but Aerosmith eventually would kick more ass on their next few albums.

libbe@stones.com (Henrik)
In fact, I think the flip side of this LP is the better one, if you have to choose one. Write Me kicks ass, and Movin' Out is one of their most funky songs (at least that's what I think today). Their version of Walking the Dog is great - good groove. Side A isn't bad at all but I just had to comment your strange review.

ro-mic@online.no (Roar Michaelsen)
This is a real basic, Amerikan,hard rock, beggining of the seventies record. And i LOVE IT !!!!!! "make it " and "somebody" is kinda the same."Dream on" is a miracle ! "Moving out" "One way street" and "write me " ruuules ! The rest ?? Nothing cathy.

Awake600@aol.com
A very promising debut. Although their influences are worn on their sleeve here, the whole band eventually become more focused as players and songwriters. Priceless tracks from this album: "Dream On", "Movin' Out" and "Walkin The Dog". Nothing much else to get too excited about here, but not bad. 6

ian.moss@yale.edu
I'll agree with your 8. I've always felt that "Dream On" was somewhat overrated (on the Boston classic rock station's annual poll last year it was voted best rock song of all time, even over "Stairway to Heaven"), but the other songs are very consistent. "Walk the Dog" rules, and "Movin' Out" is catchy in a strange sort of way.

RichardMelchior@aol.com
A logical start - kinda reminds me of Grand Funk Railroad for some reason. Yes, it may just be basic rock 'n roll - but what GREAT basic rock 'n roll. What people have to realize is that American-style hard rock had not really developed as a sound in 1973 - it took bands like Aerosmith to create it.

Dan804935628@aol.com
Good debut,I think most of it kick's ass,especially MOVIN' OUT! M an,this a far cry from what they do a couple decades later!

ST0RMGodess@aol.com
I want to know whose lead vocals sing the song Dream On. I know Steven Tyler sings some of the chorus, but is the majority of the song sung by Joe Perry?

gray0187@tc.umn.edu (Jon)
Yeah, no kidding. I'm not much of an Aerosmith buff, but I knows what I likes, and those are tasty vocals on Dream On. Is it Tyler? Did he only turn into a hideous troll later on?

pedroandino@msn.com
HEY! AEROCATS! YA'LL LISTSEN UP!

1.MAKE IT: I HEARD THE MUSIC FOR WATCHING BEHIND THE MUSIC AND WANTED TO KNOW IF SOME OF THE BACKGROUND MUSIC WAS FROM THE AEROSMITH ALBUMS WHILE STEVEN AND THE GANG COMMENT ON THE DIALOUGE. THE RIFF BLOWS UP AND STEVEN SHOUTS GOOD EVENING PEOPLE WELCOME TO THE SHOW! 10/10

2.SOMEBODY: A ROCK SONG WITH JABS AND PUT DOWNS! I NEED A LADY NOT SOMEBODY SHADY STEVEN COPIES JOE PERRY'S PLAYING WHICH IS GOOD. 9/10

3.DREAM ON: THE SONG THAT STARTED IT ALL FOR THE BAND. DREAMY MELLOTRONS, STEVEN'S VOICE BEFORE HE DOES THE SHRIEK HE MADE FAMOUS FOR! YOU KNOW THAT HE WILL HAVE THE TRADEMARK SCREAM! IT WAS A POWER BALLAD BEFORE THE TERM WAS COINED. OF COURSE IT WAS A HIT IN DECEMBER 1973 IN BOSTON RADIO AND WAS NUMBER ONE! 10/10

4.ONE WAY STREET: NO BULLSHIT BLUES! YIPPEE! 7 DOGGONE MINUTES OF BLUES! GRAB A COOL ONE AND JAM! KICK THE NIGGERS UP THE ASS! I DIG JOE PERRY! BUT THE SECOND SOLO, MIND YOU WAS PLAYED BY NONE OTHER BY BRAD WITFORD! GRAB YER YANK SCORE A SKANK! KICK THE NIGGER UP HIS CRANK! BLUES BABE! 10/10

5.MAMA KIN: HEY! I REMEMBER AS A KID SEEING AN OLD EPISODE OF CHIP AND DALE AND DALE SAID WHEN HE TURNS UP THE RADIO HEY CHIP! WANNA DANCE! LOVE THIS TUNE! I'D SHAKE IN MY UNDERWEAR! YAHOO! NO WONDER AXL ROSE COVERED THE SONG BUT IT WAS NOT THE SAME! MY PENIS GROWS EVERY TIME I SEE LIV TYLER AND HER SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET SEXY LACY SILVER SHAPED PANTIES I WILL LICK HER! TASTE HER! MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM! 10/10

6.WRITE ME: BLUES JAM! THEY MADE THIS WHEN THEY WERE YOUNG! 8/10

7.MOVING OUT: HA HA HA HA HA! YEA! BLUES! WE GOTTA MOVE BEFORE THE JEFFERSONS TAKE US TO THE CLEANERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SHUT UP SHERMAN! ODD FUNKY GROOVE! 10/10

8.WALKING THE DOG: A BLUES COVER WITH FLUTE! NOT A JETHRO TULL SONG! THE COVER COOKS WITH A FUNK RIFF! 10/10

AFTER THIS IT WAS A NEW SOUND NO ONE HAS HEARD BUT WITH STARDOM CAME INSULTS AS THE ASSHOLES PEGGED THEM AS STONES COPYCATS! MAN FUCK YOU SOFT ROCK FAGGOT! ANYWAY I GIVE IT A 10!

gag05@bigpond.com.au
Wow these guys were actually good at the beginning of their career. Steve Tyler had a voice!!! Is it even him singing???? Who the fuck knows!!! Bring back the old Steve or whoever the fuck sang on their early records I say. Imagine later period Steve singing “Dream On” with his trademark…..voice *shudders uncomfortably*. Yea man this shit rocks the hell outta shit like “love in the elevator”, although not all is perfect with a few of the tracks (“Somebody” and “One Way Street”) being about as stimulating as your review of the album *falls asleep while glancing at your half assed attempt take on the album*. But I aint here to dis this shoddy review!!!! Your rite it’s got dirty guitars and songs about dirty sluts!!! Yet no rock stars only decent cuts. 8

tommy.jensen@usbe.umu.se
I've been listening to Aerosmith since their Permanent Vacation album, admittedly I was half a decade late...but, soon after buying this album I bought the whole back catalogue. And, yes they definitely rock. This first album, though, did not catch my attention, except Dream On and Movin' Out. I think this was because the whole music scene at the time was so clean (87, with the exception of Guns Appetite). To make a long story short(er), a little bit later it got its grip on me, and to all of you who rate Aerosmith-this-and-that must remember that in those days the conditions for making records for new bands was..ehum..to say the least, a bit different from today's home-studio-digitalized setting. Man, they recorded the album in two weeks, and probably spent half of the time on 'Dream on' (who remarkably stand out due to its clean production compared to the rest). Off course you cannot clean up everything in two weeks (false notes is however labelled as genially in jazz by the biggest-fattest-druknessed-dudes) You all seem to forget this fact! In total this album is one of the most promising debut albums of all times! I go for 9 out of ten.

Add your thoughts?

Get Your Wings - Columbia 1974.
Rating = 7

Good-bye, slum rock. Hello, evil! Look at that scary black album cover with those scowling young long-hairs all in black, with sharp fingernails and leather trousers - scary! The guitar tones are much more normal, too - still distorted, but not as filthy and raw.

And the songs? Well, aside from "Pandora's Box," by far the worst song they wrote before 1981, they're all either pretty good (the droney but dumb "Lord Of The Thighs," the catchy but forgettable "Woman Of The World," and the rockin' but ugly cover of "Train Kept A-Rollin'") or dropdownanddie fantazamanaz! "Seasons Of Wither" is prettier than a girl, "Too Bad" rocks like Nazareth, "Spaced" actually has a unique creative chord sequence, and the hit "Same Old Song And Dance" is my favorite Aerosmith song ever, edging out both "Somebody" from the debut and "Draw The Line" from their fifth album. It's just so very very very very catchy, and I have extremely fond memories of my days painting dorm rooms when the boys and I used to sing, "Get yourself a snozer, a sneezer, a snooze - or maybe just a Simba, whatever you choose!" I know it means nothing to you civilians, but to us - to us, it was a bond. You see, his name was Preston Snee - a great, great guy, but how can you not have a bit of fun with a moniker that unique? And we played classic rock all day, and played cards, and slept the hours away - all for $7.10 an hour. And every time Aerosmith's "Same Old Song And Dance" came on, well, mister, it was Snozer time!

Good memories, I be gots. Great times. Great people. I hope they're all doing well. Do you have any Aerosmith memories like I do? Share them. Cherish them. Remember, you can always make more money, but you can never make more memories.

Reader Comments

tk7688@ark.ship.edu (Tommy Koste)
Get Your Wings is the Aerosmith album I would consider "Mood Music." You see, here's the thing. You can't just sit down, kick back and listen to it like it were Yanni doing nursery rhymes. You have to feel yourself out through the music. It is one of my all time fav's, but I can't listen to it very often. To me, the album depicts the story of a manic depressive. The music starts off as strong, American rock and roll, drops deep into the abyss with "Spaced", and then up and down like smiles and frowns. I think parts of the album are downright spooky sometimes. Not for lyrical, but mostly for musical content. I feel that Aerosmith does more than just play their instruments on this album. They manipulate them to scream, whisper, and sigh through you. Many people don't like it because there doesn't seem to be the typical amount of tongue in cheek associations on this album. This isn't a "top down roadtrip to the shore in the summertime" type of album. Although I have been known to pull "Train..." out every so often to rock to. This album is more about being in solitude on those chilly, rainy fall evenings when you need to be happy but just can't. It mimics the feelings of a manic depressive. If you never been there, then I guess you couldn't possibly understand.

RRiene76@aol.com
I think ReviewerMan is wrong here. GYW is at least as good as the first LP. Simply, the songs, overall, are better, more memorable. BTW, "Train Kept-a Rollin'" is a great cover. I think.

LKIR1@student.monash.edu.au
How can you say "Lord of the Thighs" is dumb????????? It's easily one of the greatest Aerosmith songs ever, Dark and moody with a great Tyler vocal. This album is probably my favourite Aero album. You're spot on with the "Same Old" comments. One catchy cool tune.

megaman684@aol.com (Vincent Hedrick)
Thats total bullshit saying that their debut is better tham Get Your Wings. GYW is a hell of alot better than their debut. All the songs on the album kick ass.Well "Pandora's Box" is weaker than the rest of the songs on the album but overall GYW is better than their debut, I think.

bevan@voicenet.com (Casey B.)
This was the album where Aerosmith took off. Every song is decent from beginning to end...songs like "spaced" with its complex struture, the interesting drum pattern of "lord of the thighs" and the loud "train kept a rollin'" keep you tuned in. Good stuff...it gets a little weaker towards the end but it's a fine album.

cliffnorth@localaccess.com (TAD)
I'm also a big "Seasons of Wither" fan -- 4 a few seconds there, these guys coulda been a Dcent art-rock band ... & the only Dcent radio station in my hometown played "Dream On" in "Top 40" rotation in December 1973, about 2 or 3 yrs B4 the rest of the country seemed 2 catch on. SOMEbody knew what they were doing....

libbe@stones.com (Henrik)
I don't think "Pandora's Box" is that bad. It's rather a cool, more different tune among the seventies' songs by Aerosmith, and I think the whole album, all the way though, is great. It has a comfortable mood in some way. Train is a wonderful version, although I think it's slightly better live, like on Live! Bootleg.

Willie.Silcock@gte.net (Matt Silcock)
Man, "Seasons of Wither" is prettier than a girl. I bought this LP for 25 cents at the Flea Market in the city park of Tabor, Iowa when I was 14 years old, so it's hands down my sentimental favorite. "S.O.S. (Too Bad)" has some great hot-shit Steve Tyler lyrics like "muh nuh lady, hourglass body, makin' things glow in the night . . . well if she could she would and she would if she could anna nuh nuh nuh nuh make it tonight . . . cause I'm as bad . . . as all the other schoolboys . . . and I'm a RAT . . . and it's too bad, can't gimme none uh dat." Yeah, I dug this album, but I started to hide it from my parents after I realized that the "A" inside the hideous bat-wing (??) logo was drawn to look like a vagina (I can't believe no one's mentioned it yet!). I mean really, WHAT THE F*CK WAS UP WITH THAT BAT-WING LOGO???

Waterloo78@aol.com
In case anybody cares, the Breeders did a wacky sounding cover of Lord Of The Thighs and can be found on the b-side of Cannonball. Again, that's if anybody cares.

Awake600@aol.com
This one is my brother's favorite album of all time. I definitely wouldn't rank it anywhere near that high on my list but this is quite excellent! Pretty much all the songs are catchy and well-played, and "Seasons Of Wither", "Train Kept A Rollin", "Lord Of The Thighs" and "Same Old Song And Dance" are the absolute gems on here. I agree with you that "Pandora's Box" leaves much to be desired though, so I give it a 9.

ian.moss@yale.edu
This one's a little bit of a disappointment for me. Not very consistent at all--and certainly "Pandora's Box" is god-awful. My fave on here is the extremely high-energy "Train Kept A Rollin'," though I hate how they had to put that audience sample in the middle there to make it sound like it's live when it really isn't. Why do bands do that? Whatever.

RichardMelchior@aol.com
A very moody, at times almost depressed-sounding album. I was surprised to find out that Lord of the Thighs dated back to 1974. When I first heard it on Greatest Hits, I would have swore it was from the late-'70s, what with that pseudo-funky/disco thing going on. If Aerosmith were a normal band, this would be the type of album they would have produced at the depth of their drug abuse. But Aerosmith are no normal band.

Dan804935628@aol.com
In my opinion,this is the best 'Smith album ever,I agree with the first commentor when he said it was manic depressive,cuz it is! If your in the right mood ,this album will take you places. A 10!

SWlodarczyk@madison.com (Steve Wlodarczyk)
I bought this kick-ass album for $4 measly bucks in the Chicagoland area the very month it came out. ''Who are these guys?'' Shortly thereafter, when ''Dream On'' started flooding the airwaves, everybody knew. The cover of GYW screamed ''BAD!'' -- what with those cocky looks on the faces of these unknown Boston punks. And Steven Tyler, spreading his legs all over the cover with what appeared to be a half-roll of toilet paper tucked down his crotch. I got the disc home, cranked up ''Same Old Song'' and knew I'd struck somewhere just to the left of Acapulco gold. ''Spaced'' is epic and ''Lord of the Thighs'' rules. ''Train'' is a very capable cover, but the best song on this breakthrough album is ''Seasons of Wither.'' Tyler's vocal range on that song is just short of ''Dream On.'' Fuckin' brings goosebumps to this day. I agree with a previous reviewer. This album is best heard alone for the first couple of times, at least. It's guaranteed to curl your toes if you are partial to top-shelf rock 'n' roll. ... Fuck the French judge, this 1 gets a 10!
pedroandino@msn.com
HEY! AEROCATS! IT IS ME AGAIN!

1.SAME OLD SONG AND DANCE: JAZZ BEBOP ROCK! COCAINE MURDER! 10/10

2.LORD OF THE THIGHS: OOOOO FUNKY ROCK WITH A DISCO BASS! WELL WELL LORDY MY GOD WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE!!! HEH HEH! SWEET SEXY LIV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM COME ON!!!!!!!! HER BELLYBUTTON OH YEAH! LICK ME LICK ME KICK ME! TASTE ME! LICK ME! 10/10

3.SPACED: ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooeeah!

SPACE TUNE WITH ALL KINDS OF TIME CHANGES LIKE THE DU DU DU DU DU DU DU DU BOOM! OR THE DA DA DA DA CHICA CHICA EE CHICA CHICA EE WITH THE SYNTHS! 10/10

4.WOMAN OF THE WORLD: OOOOOOOOOOOOOO! CHYNA! YUM! SHE WAS SO NAKED! HER NIPPLE IS SHOWING! HAHHHHHHH YEAH BLASTING THE POWER JAMS WITH THIS BLUES JAM! 9/10

5.S.O.S TOO BAD: TOO BAD NIGGER! I HATE YOU WASTING MY TIME WITH YOUR GAY ASSED COCKSUCKING RAP ALBUMS! JA RULE IS A FAGGOT 9/10

6.TRAIN KEPT A ROLLING: BLUES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JOE PERRY KICKS ASS AS A PLAYER! SOME FAN SAID THAT JOE CAN KICK DEEP PURPLE ANYDAY! LIVE CONCERT SOUNDS! 10/10

7.SEASONS OF WITHER: AFTER THE SHOW SLOW DOWN TO A BALLAD BUT IT IS SO SWEET THAT WHEN I SAW IT ON BTM THE WIVES BITCH AND MOAN AND SPILLED MILK DROPPED! STUPID CUNT! ANYWAY I LOVE IT! 10/10

8.PANDORA'S BOX: SWWWWEEEEEEEET PANDORA!

ANYWAY NO COMMENTS ABOUT POOPING DON NOT LOSE MY APPITITE! GET YOUR WINGS 10/10

hughmcdonn@eircom.net (Malicious Matt)
The reviewer refers to a couple of songs as "dumb" and "ugly", like its a bad thing. This is rock n' roll baby! If you want smart n' pretty put an ad in the classifieds!

lazik@cox.net
Best Aerosmith album. Period. Shitty production, dirty mix, great grooves. I've played this to many a rock neophyte friend who either think Areosmith sucks or know nothing of the band pre-1987, besides the 2 hits from Toys. It never fails, they don't believe it's Aerosmith. "Seasons" is my all time favorite song by this band. I must have sung that one with 1/2 a dozen bands during my rock singing days. It was always a personal highlight on the set list. It's a shame they lost their funk when they sold their souls to the devil Desmond Child.

"Get yourself a snozer, a sneezer, a snooze - or maybe just a Simba, whatever you choose!" vs. "meet me on the other side". Ugh!

jenny.randy@sympatico.ca (Randy)
This was the first Aerosmith record I bought. I rode on a school bus that had an 8-track of "Toys in the Attic" - a good introduction, but GYW was their first album I really seemed to identify with. "Train Kept A Rollin" and "Same Old Song & Dance" are worth the price of admission alone.

tommy.jensen@usbe.umu.se
Get you wings is Aerosmith's at its finest hour. Tyler heavy involved in writing the songs - he is the key Aerosmith dude if you ask me, but off course the other four is badly needed. Although I hate to admit that Joe Perry is extremely important to me (or rather was); in my youth I was trying to learn how to play guitar and how many hours I spent listening to Aerosmith! (I spent as much time trying to copy Neil Young). 12/10 I rate this record, because the tunes just are amazing (except the last..Pandora). But dear Mark, it isn't that dark, c'mon! Your statement about this says more about you than about Aerosmith (nothing wrong with that except that we review the albums, right?). Anyway, this record would have been much greater if the sound had been a bit more 'alive'. I guess the transformation from 'hey guys, you got two weeks', to 'hey guys you are really great, lets spend the time you need' took away some of Aerosmith's live capabilities (I once owned a LP-bootleg from 1974, they were late to a gig in Boston and Tyler starts with apologizing for that, but boy, that live-show was - is in my memory - greeeeeaat. David Woodford were just amazing, just as Stooges saxophonist Steve Mackay were - they were not part of the music, but still the music could not be without them).

Add your thoughts?

* Toys In The Attic - Columbia 1975. *
Rating = 10

This is the ellpee that made 'em superstars. Why? Oh, like you don't know...."BIG TEN INCH RECORD," OF COURSE!!!!! WHAT HOUSEWIFE WASN'T SINGIN' IT??? WHAT NIGHT GUARD WASN'T HUMMIN' IT???? WHAT.....eh....

No, no. Let's forget about "Big Ten Inch Record" for a moment and return to the much duller reality that the funky metal classics "Walk This Way" and "Sweet Emotion" came to define mid-'70s FM rock and roll. Zeppelin was gettin' old, and this stuff shimmied like no man is roger miller - with hot groovin' bass lines, sticky licky dicky axe lines, and Mr. Cocky Steven Tyler spewing locker room innuendo all over the top. But don't take these guys for fools! Just one ear-grab of "No More No More" or "Adam's Apple" will clue you in to the fact that they understand the divine power of guitar interplay and riff repetition. I'm not being coy. AC/DC got it, and so did The Arrowsmiths, ma'am.

And the hits aren't the only ones that'll move ya! The title track is fast as hoo, "Uncle Salty" is as spooky and dark as "Spaced" from the last record, and that darned "No More No More" is so very pretty! But "Walk This Way" is the classic, mainly cuzza that groovin' bass line, if you axe me. It's a shame that today's generation of 15-year-olds will never understand why this album meant so much to my generation of 15-year-olds; these poor kids of today are being weened on crappy new Aerosmith, and have probably turned against rock and roll altogether. I know I would have. Bleah. "Janie's Got A Gun" alone would be enough to drive me to almost buy a Stone Temple Pilots record. Bleah again. Anyway, this is the Aerosmith classic. Fun hard rock. Buy it. There's tons of tasty freeze melodies, and Steven's voice sounds much better on here than on the last two, where he often sounded like he was about to hock a loogie all over your stereo needle.

Reader Comments

jnw@iglobal.net (Jim Hull)
Well...first of all, in 1975 there was not an American rock group with as many cool licks and as much attitude as Aerosmith. Every stoner I knew pledged allegiance to these guys, and for good reason...they blew your face off...Joe and Brad's riffs were tough and were right in your face...they really did remind me of a tougher, more metallic version of the Stones...lots of great stuff here..."Toys In The Attic" out punked a lot of punk, and the guitars just stuck their noses up and stuck it in your face... "Blood stains the ivories of my daddy's baby grand/ain't seen daylight since we started this band" - "No More No More" is one of my all time favorite Aerosmith numbers. And frankly, I feel Steven Tyler is one of the most underrated rock singers ever...on this album and Rocks, he is all over the place...screaming on key, and just doing some unique things that would almost become parody in the late 80's...great rhythm section...just a funky, butt-shakin' album...hell, buy two, and give one to your buddy who just bought Frogstomp...

sonart@cynergy.com.au (Joe)
Hey dude! You call yourself an Aerosmith fan huh. Anyone who has the audacity to bag these five dudes should have his balls placed in a jar and exhibited in a museum. How dare you put their music down, Aerosmith is Aerosmith. I would like to see you guitar in hand and come up with consistently strong songs for TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS. So take your anal attitude and tell someone who cares.

bevan@voicenet.com (Casey B.)
My 2nd favorite Aerosmith album and you can see why. My favorites include "Toys In The Attic", "Uncle Salty", "Adams Apple" and the two big hits. This album is the middle point between early 70's led zeppelin & rolling stones.....and late 70's arena rock such as Boston

ro-mic@online.no (Roar Michaelsen)
This is the first REAL aero-album. It's just good ! "Round and round " is a weird backward heavy thing. And "No more no more" is a littlebit too acoustic. "you see me crying " is one of the my favorite Aerosmith ballads. After youve' been diggin in i for a while, you realy get too love it. The first time you hear it, the "Honey what they done to youre head" part may seem a little ugly. It didn't take me long to love this album !!

Awake600@aol.com
My favorite album from the band so far, where everything seemed to totally click for em. "Walk This Way" and "Sweet Emotion" are definitely not the only tracks that score here... the whole damn thing rules. Well, except that boring as hell "Round And Round" ditty. "Uncle Salty", "No More No More", and "You See Me Crying" blew me away, and "Big Ten Inch Record" made me laugh my ass off. My brother (the "true" Aero fan) thinks this album is overrated and that it doesn't "flow" at all. Can't say I know what he's talking about. 9

ian.moss@yale.edu
I actually didn't like this one that much at first, but it grew on me a lot. "Sweet Emotion," "Walk This Way," and "No More No More" are all excellent--and "Big Ten Inch Record" is probably the best joke of a song I've ever heard. I don't like "You See Me Crying" at all though--for some reason I find it vaguely disturbing to listen to. Overall, not one of my all-time favorites, but certainly a quality album.

Glenn.Wiener@Entex.com
Whereas I would prefer to collect their compilations, this CD is undoubtedly their best recording of all original material. My Big Ten Inch Record is one groovy bouncy spunky little tune. What clever lyrics on this one as wellas Walk This Way and Sweet Emotion. No More No More is loaded with catchy hooks. There are a few weak songs on this disc as Aerosmith has never put out a perfect disc. However, the band was at their best for this one.

danzig9@hotmail.com (Daniel Lawrence)
I was lucky to have picked this record up cheap because it's pretty damn good. I've never had any real exposure to Aerosmith up to this record, except all the songs that you couldn't avoid hearing growing up from 94-98. I never cared for them, although they were kinda catchy. My lord did they sound a lot different back in the 70s, and in a good way. The guitar and bass lines are groovin and make me feel like an actual man as opposed to the sissy I am! I wouldn't say this is a 10 because it's really not my style. Who knows though, maybe it'll sink in more later. It gets an 8 from me and I'm sure if you like the whole style to begin with, this will be an easy ten for you.

foland_ratzl@hotmail.com (Roland Fratzl)
Pretty darn solid, if typical, 70's hard rock album. Raw and gritty, the way these farts should have stayed. Decent melodies, but it's not really spectacular either. It's just not all that interesting. Something about the style kinda bugs me. I guess it's the heavy blues presence, and I just hate it when blues influence is very noticeable in music...makes it feel kinda blue collarish and trashy to me. But I guess tons of people like that, so I hope you're happy. Still though, overall it's a good record, and one of the better ones this way overated band put out. In some ways Toys In The Attic sounds like a cross between Kiss and Ted Nugent with a dash of Alice Cooper for good measure. (3 bands which individually blow these guys away!)

fb900190@ntu.ac.uk
You really are a tit, aren't you. I agree that this album is amazing, but if I had never heard Pump, I would never have become hooked on Aerosmith.

cnc405@nortelnetworks.com (Charles Board)
A comment on Glenn.Weiner's comment:

This album is NOT "all original material". In fact, those clever lyrics Glenn likes on "Big Ten Inch Record" were at the top of the R&B; charts in the 1940's in their original version by Bull Moose Jackson & His Buffalo Bearcats. They made a lot more sense back then, too (since most records at the time *were* 10" 78 rpms instead of 12" lps). But lord Mr. Tyler does do 'em justice!

Losnewdeal@hotmail.com
This album is good but not ten stars you are way to generuos. THis album is when aerosmith stopped sounding so zepplin and started sounding more New York Dolls. Maybe 8 stars this album has a few good songs but none to orignal. First of steven tyler is the biggest David Johansen rip off in this album he sounds exactly like him and even dress like david still to this day they even ripped lyrics of. "Just give me a kiss" Aerosmith "Im looking for a Kiss" New York Dolls you grade way to easily also giving cky 8 records come on.

jb2533@hotmail.com
'cause I'm you're laaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADAAAAYYYY, and you are my ma-a-a-n.

I'm blown away.

Aerosmith. I have a hard time with these guys. Yeah, they kind of make me cring now........ like the Rolling Stones........ but they WERE once good. Great? I don't think so. The few highpoints on here could be put in the very lower echelons of the Stones' best........... so......... Toys In The Attic copes, it RARELY excels. I'd give it.......... a................ 7. Ok, fine, I'll go easy, an eight............ no, 7 1/2. I just can't write reviews. I basically can't read, AND I haven't listened to this album in like 4 months. I only listened to this thing like 2 times. Any qualifications I have are nonexistent. Still, it's pretty enjoyable. Big Ten Inch is a hoot (errrr.... I guess), yeah, is there a song called Uncle Salty? I think so, it's pretty entertaining. AND OF COURSE, Walk This Way and Sweet Emotion. Still, NONE of this stuff (except a good riff ever so often) ranks with Gimme Shelter, Sympathy For The Devil, Tumbling Dice, Street Fightin' Man, or Jumpin' Jack Flash. SO! If you like the genre that Aerosmith WERE in, then don't waste yout time and go for the Rolling Stones............... BUT, that is not something you should do. Aerosmith, especially on this album, will entertain the pants off of you. Even though I'm a stuck-up bastard who will never give this album a great review I still recommend it. I give it like a 7, but the recommendability of this album is like the on ther highest level it can be at. I'm tired. Ok, that 73 greatest album survey came out with crappy results....... even though i'm just way off, here are MY top 5 (I know, I know, whoopty crap, who cares). AND, I've ACTUALLY paid money to see Star Wars TWO TIMES, I mean, don't get me wrong, it was ok.......... but once is enough for like 5 years.

1.Pet Sounds - The Beach Boys - I'm a recent convert, it'll probably drop down the list a bit. It's always gonna be on my list somewhere, though. A fine, fine album. You can tell my mind just went blank, I have no snappy one-line thing to say about it........ I'll think of one later, though, and I'll forget it.

2.Born To Run - Bruce Springsteen - Jeez, just for liking this album I feel like I have to be a Bruce Springsteen apologist. Yeah, in '75, the critics were right. DON'T LISTEN TO WHAT THE AMATEUR REVIEWERS SAY!!!! I feel so much like Plato right now. I'm apologizing for Socrates.......... and what WAS his deal with small children?

3.Blonde On Blonde - Bob Dylan - YES!! DAMNIT THIS IS BOB'S BEST! Like the last two, when this came out it was kind of an unprecedented opus. A whirling dervish of hazy, sublime pop songs... with the occasional blues-rocker with ear-piercing, migrane-inducing harmonica.

4.Back To Mono - Phil Spector - This is the only compilation I think is fair to put on a list. Possibly the greatest producer ever has his career summed up in a neat little box set. HOW CUTE! I'm blushing, I'm cute. Yeah, I mean, you don't have to be really impressed, I got this bruise last night, yeah, I fell down, yeah, it hurt, but I think I'll be ok, yeah, I think we should go out sometime, maybe play some Tony Hawk.

5.Songs In The Key Of Life - Stevie Wonder - YES! An album where you WANT to find reasons to gush over. Stevie's optimism is infectious, like many deadly diseases. It may not be as focused as some albums, but I'm one of those guys who'll like say....... London Calling even though there's some crap on it. Even when you feel like commiting horrible acts of atrocity towards the millions of Jews in the world (can he say that?) this album will rip you, kicking, screaming, and begging, from your Hitlerisms.

ddickso2@uccs.edu
Hi, my name is David Dickson and I am a total douchebag. Please forgive any given driver in Colorado Springs if he shakes his fist at you, mistaking you in his rage and vengeance for a five-foot-nine young man, roughly 126 lbs., owner of a presently shoddity shitty brake system that forces him to drive at 30 miles per hour, and otherwise known on "tha street" as "Grandma." Yo.

Now for the oversold crap band. Okay, they're not THAT much of a crap band, but Def Leppard's better than them. Yeouch.

The point is, I like about two-thirds of this two-short black circle. Anti-highlights include the joke song whose only reason to exist is the line "Suck on my big ten-foot etc.", "No More No More," whose only reason to exist is the coolness outro, and "Round and Round," which has no reason to exist at all. Highlights include the three hits and the big ol' power ballad at the end, in which Steven Tyler somehow manages to improve the song by singing like Donald Duck. "Meh" tracks include the other two on the album. Hugo Chavez needs to lay off the crack.

browningub40@peoplepc.com
This is actually one of their only good albums in my opinion. Especially walk this way. Actually, it would be a good song if it actually made any kind of sense. This was back when the band was still good, I have no idea how they could have gotten so bad, but they sure did manage to.

tommy.jensen@usbe.umu.se
Toys in the Attic! What could I say, hm, it is a bit overrated. Still it is a damn good album. Once I rated it as Aerosmith's finest hour, but I changed my mind often since. The posted review to GYW above reveals that currently that record is prime high. Rocks has also been no. 1. But never ever has anything from Permanent Vacation and on-worth even entered the list. Although I realize that you who have discovered Pump, Get your grip or Just Push Play would counter me on this, and with all respect you should do this. You are part of another experience. Nothing wrong with that. But I wish you would 'peal off' the commercial - let's bring in some really strong folks on harmony and west coast music (Adult Oriented Listening) - Aerosmith and dig in to their seventies; when they actually was stating something (87' and onwards was really about having another commercial success, right?, not necessarily, I can pick up songs from each album after Permanent Vacation and say; this is Aerosmith I love it; especially Honkin for Hobo). By the way, what's wrong with 'Adam's Apple'. Its simply a great song. So bugger off. By the way, what is so good with 'Toys in the attic', 'Sweet Emotion' (the album version suck compared too 'live bootleg' version) and this remarkably thin (hey, lets remember, I am arguing from Aerosmith standards here) walk this way (It was much better with Run DMC.

Add your thoughts?

Rocks - Columbia 1976.
Rating = 9

Basically Toys In The Attic with cooler vocals. If you wanted to, in fact, you could correspond every one of these songs with a matching song from the last album ("Back In The Saddle" is "Sweet Emotion," "Rats In The Cellar" is "Toys In The Attic," "Sick As A Dog" is "No More No More," etc.). However, both fortunately and surprisingly, the songs aren't retreads; they're just more great melodies that happen to fit the moods presented on the last record. And that's okay. AC/DC did that for years, with dazzling results. Plus, as an added bonus, harmony vocals add a wonderful touch of class to "Sick As A Dog" and "Combination," and Steven's screaming reaches impressively painful-sounding levels in "Nobody's Fault" and "Back In The Saddle."

'Tis good, I inform ye. It might take you a little time to get used to the two mid-tempo sleaze funkers ("Last Child" and "Get The Lead Out"), but once you finally do, you'll realize that no other hard rock band can get your booty movin' like Aerosmith. Er....old Aerosmith. Some people (including legendary rock critic Robert Christgau) feel that this record is actually better than Toys In The Attic. Sometimes I do. It's darn good, regardless of its relative lack of radio classics. This isn't a very helpful review, is it? Okay, Aerosmith were a guitar-driven rock band; they weren't heavy like Black Sabbath or AC/DC, but they weren't light like The Rolling Stones, either. They were the middle point. Very exciting, energetic, and loud, with lots of fantastic two-guitar melodies played hard and sometimes funky. Are you familiar with the first Guns 'N' Roses album? The first six Aerosmith albums were supposed to be the blueprint, but, in my opinion, Axl and Co. didn't even come close to displaying the kind of unfaltering melodic sense that was second nature to this roving gang of thugs. Of course, now they both suck, so the question is moot.

Reader Comments

jnw@iglobal.net (Jim Hull)
Awesome album. Powerful and shit-kickin'...bloozy and all that crap. Listen to the faux symphony wind-up and Steven's off-mike scream between the drum beats at the end of "Rats"...busts my nut every time...

RONIN@BELLATLANTIC.NET (Dave Weigel)
Rocks is Aerosmith's best album. Now, give me a little credit, because I didn't come to this conclusion based on the opinions of critics, reviews, or the band themselves. Smatterafack, I didn't like Rocks the first time I heard it. Why? I don't know. I was stupid. But it grew on me, and now I see all sorts of genius shining from this baby. This album has more kickass two-guitar riffs, cool vocals, and attitude than I've ever thought possible. It "flows" better than Toys in the Attic, and doesn't have any filler like "Adam's Apple".

To start off, "Back in the Saddle" is one of the toughest Aerosmith songs ever. Mean lyrics, incredible riffs, and top-notch screaming ("Ridin' HIII-IIII-IIIGGGHHH!"). "Last Child" starts off weird, but then segues into the coolest guitar licks and lyrics since "Sweet Emotion" ("Down 'cross the bride to mah sweet Sassafrass-AY!"). "Rats in the Cellar" just rules, getting heavier and funkier until you can barely take it. "Combination" is a sleazy, autobiographical Joe Perry song. "Sick as a Dog" is one of those ballads that only Aerosmith can manage-beautiful and earsplintering at the same time. "Nobody's Fault" alternates between pummeling verses and a melodic chorus. (and what about about that decending end of the chorus? whoo!). "Get the Lead Out" twists around the repetive riff until you just give up and groove along. "Lick and a Promise" has the best "na-na-na" hook since "Hey Jude". And "Home Tonight" is a beautiful, droning ballad (if a bit less so than "You See Me Crying").

Okay, that was the most pretentious paragraph ever written outside of a Paris cafe. But gawdemmit, it's true. Rocks is one of the 10 best albums of the entire 70s. If this was the only album Steven-Tyler and co. ever made, they'd still be one of my favorite bands. BUY IT!

megaman684@aol.com (Vincent Hedrick)
This record is probably a tad better than Toys. Even though the record wasn't as sucessfull as Toys, Rocks is the better album. It should have been the other way around.

Rock should have sold 6 or 5 million ans Toys should have sold 3 million. Hell, this is probably their overall best record along with Toys.I also like how most of the songs on the album flow together like "Sick as a dog" and "Nobodys Fault". That kicks ass and so does the album.

bevan@voicenet.com (Casey B.)
The best Aerosmith album. Fastpaced, loud, clumsy, great tunes....go and buy it if you like hard rock. Go and do it

ro-mic@online.no (Roar Michaelsen)
This is probaly the best Aerosmith record. It's like.... It's like the record changes from each time you listen to it. Exsept for "lick and a promise". It's a big difference from this and the first album. The first album is good,but its bone dry. This is wet,raw,hot,cold .everything ! This brilliant peace of vinyl is never too be recreated.

Awake600@aol.com
There a lot of people who think this album is Aerosmith's finest hour. I happen to disagree with that view, as it seems to be a tad incoherent in places and not as forceful as the albums that came before it -- "Combination" and "Get The Lead Out" just don't do it for me in particular. Still, "Nobody's Fault" will probably always remain one of my favorite (if not my favorite) Aero cuts ever, and this album overall has a nice attitude which I love. 8

ClashWho@aol.com (Tim Eimiller)
Aerosmith was a heavier, harder-rocking version of the Rolling Stones, and Guns 'n' Roses were basically a heavier, harder-rocking version of Aerosmith. To me, Rocks is by far their best album and one of the greatest hard rock albums of all-time, right up there with AC/DC's Back In Black, Guns 'n' Roses' Appetite For Destruction and The Who's Live At Leeds.

"Back in the Saddle" not only has a great riff, but the guitar interplay is fantastic, the leads are imaginative and gloriously unhinged, Steven Tyler's vocals are pure rock 'n' roll the way it's supposed to be and the passion in the band's performance is positively palpable. Listening to this really brings home how awful they are now. Forget now! Listen to this and pretend it's 1976!

Nick.Walford@nettec.net
I just want to say that 'sweet emotion' and 'last child' are probably my two favourite aerosmith songs, ever since my first taste of the greatest hits compilation. nobody struts, swings and boogies like these guys, they're by far the funkiest hard rock band ever. they rule!!!

ian.moss@yale.edu (Ian Moss)
It's good. "Last Child" took a while to grow on me, but I love it now. Same with "Nobody's Fault." But boy, "Lick and a Promise" and "Home Tonight" are AWFUL!!! Especially "Home Tonight" with its honkey-tonk piano and Steven Tyler trying to sound like he can actually sing. Yeesh!

foland_ratzl@hotmail.com (Roland Fratzl)
Just what the rock doc ordered! Now this is more like it...I don't see how anyone can rate Toys In The Attic higher than Rocks. Sure, Toys had the big hits "Walk This Way" and "Sweet Emotion", two of their best songs, and while Rocks didn't yield any hits, it's a much better album. No filler this time around. It's a lot crazier and wilder! Seems like they were just so swamped in drugs and alcohol that they just completely let loose on this one! It rocks endlessly and it's much heavier than all the other albums...listen to "Nobody's Fault"; that song sounds evil! And Tyler screeches like he's possessed! And this was still before he started wanking the way he has on every album since the 80's! Mean, raw, and dirty...man, if only they could still make music like this nowadays. Forget it though; seems like they can't even write one song anymore without outside songwriting parasites.

Best Aero album!

katsman7@hotmail.com (Madd Hunter)
Rocks rocks!!

jenny.randy@sympatico.ca (Randy)
Wow. Simply one of the best hard rock albums of all time. This is the one Aerosmith album I keep going back to. Great licks and vocals - relentless. I saw these guys in Toronto that summer with Nugent, Nazareth, and...The Ramones. Somebody hit Joey in the head with an orange about 30 seconds into their set. Good times.

JOHN.J.DOYLE@nuim.ie
Just magnificent really. Makes me wish I was a virgin again, then I could psyche myself up to lose it, (the "purity" stigma), after hearing this masterpiece every Saturday evening. If you ain't goin' dancin' and boggie woogie, then grab 10 bottles of Rolling Rock, some funky Morrocan cigarettes, a groovy Philly style steak pizza, and love this baby for every goddamn micro second of it's running time. 10/10.

rockylisa@yahoo.com
Had this on 8 track a long time ago. Everyone always wants to compare Rocks with Toys in the Attic. Ok, in my opinion, Rocks is a better record. Its more concise, yet lacks the two megahits, Walk this Way and Sweet Emotion...but I hear Back in the Saddle and Last Child as much on the radio. I agree with Mark about the lyrics being better or whatever. Steven Tyler is perfect throughout Rocks. I always dislike reading lyric sheets, and I was disappointed that the lyric on Combination says "I took a shot on the chin", I thought it always said "I took a shot from a gin". Like he(or Joe Perry, I guess) was drinking or something. I think gin sounds cooler. Kind of like my girlfriend who thought Neil Diamond's "Forever in Bluejeans" was "The Reverend Bluejeans". haha. Or Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" is really "Hold me closer, Tony Danza". Anyway, Rocks is great. I love the thumping rhythym on Lick and a Promise and the way the simplistic end of the song guitar solo is locked into the rhythym section. Sick as a Dog is the coolest song they ever did. On Rocks, Aerosmith was able to condense everything they were capable of and all about on one record. 10/10. Toys in the Attic gets 9.999/10.

sacicc@yahoo.com
If it were me, I'd have given this one a "10," too. Two reasons I prefer this one to "Toys in the Attic" are (a) the latter has suffered from too much airplay, leaving "Rocks" sounding fresher to my ear, and (b) I saw them on the "Rocks" tour. You just can't beat memories.

Add your thoughts?

Draw The Line - Columbia 1977.
Rating = 9

Excess starts to overcome them (as evidenced by the completely self-indulgent Live Bootleg album they released around this time), but boy what a fun record! I'd call this Aerosmith's Exile On Main Street (as blasphemous as that may sound) because it's clearly less an album of individual possible hits than a flowing groove mood record. It's a fuzzy, funky, hypnotic record that may seem boring and generic until you've let loose and allowed it to become a part of your central nervous system. But once it infects your bloodstream, it will never leave, and you'll be boogyin' til the break of time and the end of dawn - you'll just have to trust me on this. Aside from the bombastic fantastic "Dream On"-wannabe "Kings And Queens," these melodies are almost non-existent, but the groove, man, jeez! The funk! The rock! The slidin'! All guitars. All the time. Makes me dance around my apartment and look a fool.

I highly recommend, but you'll probably have to hear it several times before its qualities finally start to sink in. It ain't no hit factory, goldang.

Reader Comments

jnw@iglobal.net (Jim Hull)
"Draw The Line" is a great drugged-out, worn out rock song...they sound like a bunch of zombies from Day Of The Dead on this one...and it's cool, daddy-o...

KRNLfan@aol.com (Evan Peta)
DRAW THE LINE is AEROSMITH'S best album. It's the most groovinest thing they ever commited to record. I've been calling it their EXILE ON MAIN STREET for years, a real funky flowing piece of love. 1 of my all time faveorite tunes is "Sight for sore eyes", it pretty much has a life of its own, stompin down hard and tearin it up, this may be their funkiest song. I honestly can't believe how good this album is, it's in my all time top 10. It would be too much of a perfect world if they still sounded like this.

Glenn.Wiener@entex.com
Another badly overrated album. Side two alone nearly destroys the record with two ordinary and two wretched songs. "I Wanna Know Why", "Get It Up", and the title track make this record worthwhile if you can get it in the cheapie bins.

RONIN@BELLATLANTIC.NET (Dave Weigel)
This album drew the biggest line between quality and critical disrespect. In my opinion, Draw the Line is Aerosmith's second best album (tied with Toys in the Attic). In the opinions of critics, Draw the Line is one of Aerosmith's worst albums; worse than Done with Mirrors and Pump, even! Whose opinion is right? Mine, of course. Critics don't know shit. And for that matter, neither does anyone who disagrees with me. Funny how it works.

Like Mark (whom, I should point out, is the only critic in the world who knows what the fuck he's talking about), I agree that this is Aerosmith's "groove" album. The songs themselves are kinda weak, but the riffs, playing, and the GROOVES on this one are unlike any other 'Smith album. The first six tracks (which include such masterpieces as "Draw the Line", "I Wanna Know Why", "Get it Up", and "Kings and Queens") get your feet-a-dancin and your head-a-bangin like few albums since Funhouse. "The Hand that Feeds" kinda spoils the party, but then "Sight for Sore Eyes" and "Milk Cow Blues" bring back that groove and work it double-time. Oh, please Mrs. Henry is this a kickbutt lp. It's probably my most listened-to Aerosmith CD. I just never tire of the riffs. Don't make this your first Aerosmith album, but do give it a try.

megaman684@aol.com (Vincent Hedrick)
I thought this was a pretty good record. It may not be as good as rocks or toys but its better than their debut. The only reason the album went platinum faster than any other aerosmith album is because everybody thought it was going to be another rocks or toys. It should have done better commercially though.

ro-mic@online.no (Roar Michaelsen)
"draw the line","i wanna know why",sight for sore eyes",and "milk cow blues are realy great songs. The other ones are a littlebit under. Face it Joe Perry "bright light fright" sucks ! No ofence. It's the last album in Aerosmith's prime period. I would't call it closing up with style.

EWellmama@aol.com
Sorry that I must be the one to set most of you straight. Draw the Line is the most bad ass (drug) album of all time. "Critical Mass," "Bright Light Fright," and "The Hand that Feeds," swell with paranoia and tension. The lyrics, "Do anything to open your knees....." just about say it all.

Add your thoughts?

Live! Bootleg - Columbia 1978.
Rating = 9

Awesome live album capturing the band at the top of its game form with great sound of guitars in each speaker and Steven Tyler only occasionally creating horrendous noises with his throat ("Mother Popcorn" sure has its ugly moments, for example!). Classic after classic after classic with no break to remove liquid from your being. So cool. The perfect time for a live album. Totally drugged up, but not too drugged up to rock! At double-album length, if you've never heard their old stuff, this would be a godlike way to catch up. And it even has a cover of "I Ain't Got You," a high-speed runthrough of "Train Kept A-Rollin'" (without the herky-jerky first half from the original) and an uncredited secret service agent version of "Draw The Line" -- just when you need it the most!!! (after the wankfest "Mother Popcorn"). I give it a nine and would like to politely ask Steven Tyler and Joe Perry to refrain from shitting up the TV airwaves with any more of those hideous Gap commercials.

Reader Comments

jmrwl13@yahoo.com (James Rowlee)
I was an early aerosmith fan with dream on walk this way and rocks but in my mind they commited sacrilege with this awfully recorded live album. I haven't listened to it since it came out and I probably won't. my rating is like 4 out of 10

unborn_umbrella_birds@yahoo.com (Jason Hernandez)
I love this. It's the only Aerosmith album I really listen to.

You can't trust the vast majority of these big label live albums. Most of them have been cleaned-up with all kinds of production seasoning and overdubs. But this album clearly has not been. It's way too raw and sloppy. And that, for me, is a good thing. The band sounds good this way, the songs sound good this way.

There's a great 70s summertime atmosphere here.

Add your thoughts?

Night In The Ruts - Columbia 1979.
Rating = 8

I originally gave this album a 7 and I've never really understood why. Yes, the mix is tinny and the songs seem a little messy and underdeveloped in places, but it has some KILLER songs on it and really only two pieces of shit ("Remember" and "Reefer Head Woman"). I've always really liked it. So why a 7? Difficult to say. Maybe inflation was bad that week. Don't ask me to up the grade of Get Your Wings though. I've never loved that one!

Back to hitmaking. Or at least failing at hitmaking. This 'un starts off incredibly powerful with the mesmerizing rockathons "No Surprize" and "Chiquita," but kinda falls apart after that. "Mia" is a very pretty dark ballad, and "Cheesecake" makes you sing along like a rock and roller, but the bluesy "Whiskey Head Woman" is godawful, and the rest of the rockers just aren't very secure. A little iffy. A tad uneven. Not nearly as bad as everyone in the world always has to claim it is, though. I just don't understand why they picked "Remember (Walking In The Sand)" as the single. ? Oh yeah, and the album title is a clever play on words. See if you can't figure it out.

Reader Comments

jnw@iglobal.net (Jim Hull)
I always thought this was a pretty good album. "No Surprize" is great. "Cheesecake" is pretty good, and honestly, I kind of liked "Remember"...it was a tough-sounding, adventurous thing for them to do in 79...(I thought) with all the plinky-plinky, high-speed New Wave that was completely covering radio in 79...

dave@mgagray.com (David Aurand)
"Remember".......isn't that bad.........

sonart@cynergy.com.au (Joe)
That's "Reefer Headed Woman," not "Whiskey Head Woman." Man, if you're going to review a record get the name of the song right.

RONIN@BELLATLANTIC.NET (Dave Weigel)
After a string of 5 godlike albums, Night in the Ruts definitely seems weak. The band was hooked on smack, Joe Perry was out the door, and a breakup was imminent. Still, the songwriting (the 7 original songs, that is) is topnotch, and the album isn't anywhere near as bad critics claim. Ah, fuck the critics! They're always wrong! Buncha long-haired, prententious, middle-aged, Patti Smith-lovin, trend-hopping, electronica-worshiping cocksmokers! They can all suck a corn cob out of my asshole!

Anyway...well, "Cheesecake" is the best song on here. Huggamahbuggamah, that's a great song. The riff is slow and bloozy with Joe alternating between three guitars (cut live, may I add). The lyrics are some of the best non-sequitors about ever thunk. Cool song, homeboy. "Bone to Bone", "Think About it" ( a cover of the classic Yardbirds tune, but not as cool as "Train Kept a Rollin"), "Three Mile Smile" and "Chiquita" (in decending order) are kickass rockers of the first order. "No Surprize" is a fine song that suffers for the absence of Joe Perry. And no matter what anyone says, I like the cover of "Remember". The other two songs pretty much blow. "Mia" is a boring ballad about Steven Tyler's other daughter (who pretty much looks like a chubby Liv Tyler. I saw her and thought Liv had let herself go. Not that that would be a bad thing. In fact, I have a problem with the pressure society puts on women to all look like Kate Moss. In my opinion...um, never mind. I think I was talking about Aerosmith) "Reefer Head Woman"? Fuck you, generic blues! Defiler of women and kidnapper of children! I spit on you!

A wrap-up: one great song, six good songs, two pieces of crap. Being that two of the good songs are covers, it's pretty obvious that Aerosmith were slipping.

LionClaw17@aol.com
RIGHT IN THE NUTS!

megaman684@aol.com (Vincent Hedrick)
I thought this was a great album. The asshole critics don't know what the hell their talking albout saying this is one of their worst albums. This may not be their best album but its certainly better than their debut. If they weren't so fucked up on drugs at the time the album could have done better commercially and at least go platinum. I agree that "Remember(Walking in the sand)" wasn't the wiset for a single. It should have been" No Surprise" or "Three Mile smile". But I think if you listen to it a few times youll find that the record isn't as bad as all the critics said it was.

ro-mic@online.no (Roar Michaelsen)
This album is realy bad. It just kills me like a thousand knives too hear this from my beloved band. You can hear the drugs pouring out of the speakers. I can't realy say i think any of the song are good at all. I dont realy think "Remember" was a good move. It's just soo sad ! It's just soo buttuggly sad.

ml91@webtv.net
This is a much better album than many critics say that it is. If you are a real metalhead, this will be one of your favorite Aerosmith albums. However, if you favor the "Love in an Elevator" type of songs that Aerosmith have recorded more recently, then Ruts probably isn't for you.

Slash2343@aol.com
Remember is a great song. I think that it is one of the best covers they done during the seventies. It is definately better than the original by Shangri las.

pedroandino@msn.com
when you are a junkie and you want delicious cocaine you neeed that tasty cocaine! they tasted cocaine better than superman's kryptonite! i saw a part of the movie goodfellas! when henry hill gets into 1980! cocaine is in his brain! when mr.de niro came and asked him for some guns! he said STOP WITH THE FUCKING DRUGS THEY TURN YUOR MIND INTO MUSH! THEN HE ALMOST GOT HIT BY A CAR!!!!!!!! THEN HE CAME AT NIGHT AT THE WHOREHOUSE! SNORT THAT WHITE POWDER AND BOOM YOU ARE LODED!! THEN HE SEXES UP KAREN THE SEXY JEW WIFE! THEN THE COPS COME AND HENRY DASHED AWAY THEN GOT JAILED KAREN STUFFS HER GUN INTO HER SWEET SEXY PANTIES!!!!!! SO DELICOIUS I WANNA FUCK HER ! LICK HER BELLY!! THE REASON WHY COCAINE GOT THAT DEADLY SO THAT IT CAN KILL YOU!

browningub40@peoplepc.com
I'd give this one probably a weak 4 out of 5.
For some reason people usually dislike this one more than most of their output. I see no reason to, I also think that with the exceptionof draw the line this is easily their best. I mean , unlike pretty much everything they've done before this, it doesnt have any songs that are ruined by fm radio exposure. Which is a plus believe me. Same thing goes for riahp.I think this one and maybe the one that came after it are the last truly great albums made by this band. Which isn't really that great to begin with.

tomplotkin@sbcglobal.net
it's a title pun and after thirty years of gazing at the album jacket, i finally get it -

tight in nhe ruts!

That is so gosh-darn clever. This album is their Goat's Head Soup, with all the good and bad that connotes. Their live show is still a thing of beauty, even if their collective age is 750 and drummer Joey Kramer keeps having truly cretinous life-threatening accidents (head catches fire when lighting cigar while on cell phone -- jumping sparks, apparently) (fractures skull hitting head getting into a car...)

Add your thoughts?

Greatest Hits - Columbia 1980.
Rating = 8

Just fantastic, except they edited all the songs to fit 'em on the album. That really irks me in a major manner. They took the entire 'cocaine' verse out of "Same Old Song And Dance," and just lopped off the intros to "Sweet Emotion" and "Kings And Queens," destroying any sense of logical progression in the process. At least they put on the cover of The Beatles's "Come Together," which is wonderfully faithful (except for the obnoxious vocals). If you're cheap, buy this album. If you're a real man, buy one of the others.

Reader Comments

sp001f@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Sunit Parekh)
The intro to "Sweet Emotion" is one of the best intros to any rock song ever. It's a perfect funky prelude to the awesome overpowering guitar riffs that dominate the song.

MSROELOFS@prodigy.net (Mike in Hawaii)
Definately buy the others. There is no excuse for edited versions of these songs. Not that this is a bad album, it just becomes a redundant album very quickly.

megaman684@aol.com (Vincent Hedrick)
I always wondered why they chopped up "Sweet Emotion" ans "Same Old Song and Dance". I mean their is plenty of room on the album. Their should have been more songs on this record like "Mama Kin", "Lord of the theighs", "Train Kept a Rollin", "Toys in the attic" and many others. I also think that "No Surprise" should have been in the place of "Remember(Walikng in the Sand)". On this album they should of just put all their greatest hit from 73-79, not just taking 1 or 2 songs from each album. Im just saying that their should have been like 7 or 8 more songs on this album. I mean it wouldn't of hurt them to make this one a double album.

Awake600@aol.com
Not a bad hit collection, but could have been a little better. There's no reason to cut some of these songs short, and the later numbers are a bit too weak to be featured in the company of "Same Old Song And Dance", "Dream On" and "Walk This Way". I hate "Remember (Walking In The Sand)" in particular. It's acceptable to convert new fans, but they should start with Toys In The Attic, Get Your Wings or maybe even Pump first. 8

ian.moss@yale.edu
This was my introduction to '70s Aerosmith, and it got me to buy some of the older albums. Hearing the edited versions of the songs (especially "Sweet Emotion") is absolutely painful once you've heard the complete editions--so I don't listen to this one much anymore. At the time, though, it was one of my favorite albums, so if you're looking for a quick overview of the pre-1980 Aerosmith catalog, this'll do you right.

ratboymike@hotmail.com (Michael H)
THE REASON WHY THEY ARE "EDITED" IS BECAUSE THIS IS A "GREATEST HITS" COMP, NOT AN "ALBUM CUT" VERSION. SOME OF THE SONGS-AT THE TIME-WERE EDITED FOR COMMERCIAL RADIO AIRPLAY. Check out the 45 rpm version of DOORS "LIGHT MY FIRE" Or the 45 of IRON BUTTERFLY "IN-A-GADDA-DI-VIDA", NOTICED THEY ARE EDITED!!!

Add your thoughts?

Rock In A Hard Place - Columbia 1982.
Rating = 7

With not one, not three, but BOTH guitarists having quit the band between the last album and this one (Joe actually quit before Night in the Ruts was completed!), this album should have been a disaster made of shit. However, it somehow kicks all sorts of holy ass! Well, some of it does anyway. Jimmy Crespo's guitars sound as rude, raw, blistery and full of dirt as those of Night In The Ruts, and the first few tracks just tear your ASS apart! The high-speed guitar/voice "Black Dog"-style singalong "Jailbait," the brooding angry groover "Bitches Brew" or "Lightning Strikes" or whichever, the (whatever the next one's like) of (whatever the next one is), and sure there are some disappointing Aero-by-numbers tracks on side B (a generic funko, for example -- a ripoff of somebody else's song, for another example), but this is real Aerosmith rock and roll -- and not to be written off so lightly as I once did so myself! Stephen sounds high on life, the guitars are as loud and blastable as those of any Aerosmith record, and slightly more than half of the riffs deserve a place in any hard rocker's collection. Nobody less, more or equal to Mr. Joe Perry once expressed dismay that he hadn't been able to play on the great song "Jailbait." I think he hated the rest of the album, but fuck that guy. Have you heard his shitty solo albums? Here's my impression of them: "Doodly doodly I'm the worst singer Joe could have possibly picked! Doodly doodly. Joe's voice sounds cool, but he decided to let me sing and I suck! Doodly doodly!" And that goes for all THREE of them! And they all have DIFFERENT singers!!! And all three singers SUCK!!!

As for Cock In A Car Chase, I may not know the names of many of the songs or how they go, but when they're playing, my fist is pummelling you!

Reader Comments

jim.morrison@montego.com (Michael Rohm)
Probably THE most maligned in all of Aerosmith's catalogue. Why? Well, this is NOT Aerosmith at their pinnacle, but I personally like the first three songs and the title track. They're no Get Your Wings-era tunes, but they're better than, say, 95% of Get A Grip (what an appropriate title!).

Willie.Silcock@gte.net (Matt Silcock)
I once heard the song "Joanie's Butterfly" while standing on the floor of the Omaha Civic Auditorium after B.T.O.'s opening set and Van Halen's headlining set (5150 tour, unfortunately). A cool-lookin' hessian next to me said "kick ass, 'Joanie's Butterfly'!" when it came on and I had no idea what he was talkin' about. My friend informed me that it was an Aerosmith song, and I immediately balked because I thought I was an expert! So I bought the LP used for about 3 dollars and liked it a lot, especially the weird acoustic intro to "Joanie's Butterfly" and the part in the same song when he says "She was a kick-ass rockin' horse!" And "Jailbait" is a pretty frantic rocker, too, but I'll admit, when I got this LP out recently after having not listened to it for about 8 years (literally), I could barely make it through the whole thing.

ro-mic@online.no (Roar Michaelsen)
Despite the departure of Brad and Joe, Aerosmith still managed too do some great songs. Like "Jailbait", a realy great cover of Julie Londons "Cry me a river" and the brilliant "Joanis butterfly". But other than that. Nothing else stands out.

EWellmama@aol.com
Basically you need to look at the as Steven tyler's solo record. the "scabs' do a good job & the album is a scorcher even with the lame "Cry Me a River" cover. Check out the Phrasing on "Bolivian Ragamuffin." Note: Look for a great bootleg called Pure Gold with outakes from this & "Night"

ml91@webtv.net
As with Night in the Ruts, this is not nearly as bad as some critics suggest. Some people seem more concerned with the fact that Joe Perry and Brad Whitford do not play on the album then with the music itself. Not a great album, but there are a few great songs, especially "Lightning Strikes". I think that any fan of the older Aerosmith stuff will enjoy Rock in a Hard Place.

tim@pond69.freeserve.co.uk (Tim Stevens)
Hell, I love this album! So many 'fans' have dismissed this album as 'the one Joe Perry didn't play on'. In my opinion this is one of the greatest ever Aerosmith albums. Sure, no Joe Perry, but in Jimmy Crespo they found a more than adequate replacement. His song writing and guitar playing are superb throughout. 'Jailbait' kicks off proceedings, a great rocker with some typical Tyler 'close to the bone' lyrics. 'Lightning Strikes' follows and is another great rocker, written by Richie Supa of 'Chip away the Stone' fame. 'Bitches Brew' is next up with Tyler spitting out a venomous vocal in a track with a great Stones-esque groove. One of the great paradoxes about this album is the physical state Tyler was in at the time (see the 'Walk this Way' autobiography). So out of it on heroin that they literally had to carry him to the studio and 'hope something would happen', for my money his vocals on this album are some of his best ever.

Next up is one of the highlights of the album and one of my all-time favourite Aerosmith songs, the awesome 'Bolivian Ragamuffin'. Kicking in firing on twelve cylinders, it temporarily slows to another classic groove and a wonderful laid back rhythm from Crespo, Kramer and Hamilton before once again igniting the superchargers. The lyrics to the song have been a constant source of debate amongst fans. I've never seen a version that I think is entirely accurate, and some are nowhere near, even the lyrics on the official site are obviously wrong for some reason. Nevertheless, this song absolutely swings. Awesome stuff. 'Cry me a River' completes side one. Put on at the end of the recording sessions because Tyler 'ran out of lyrics', some fans love it, others loathe it. I think it's one of the weaker moments on the record, but the Crespo solo ( a first take incidentally) is fabulous.

Side two starts with 'Prelude to Joanie'. An interesting idea, it leads into the brilliant 'Joanie's Butterfly', an acoustic/electric tune with a pronounced Zeppelin-style feel that ranks for me as another all-time Aerosmith great. The lyrics apparently came to Tyler in a dream and certainly have a strange mystical quality. The title track 'Rock in a hard Place (Cheshire Cat)' follows and is another great moment. Another powerhouse rocker with some great jazzy chords in the chorus, it demonstrates some of Tyler's early blues/jazz i nfluences. 'Jig is Up' is next, a great song with a superb funky guitar riff from Crespo. 'Push Comes to Shove' finishes the album and is, for me, the weakest song here. Still, that is small complaint really. Tyler still rates this as one of the best Aerosmith albums ever and I would definitely agree. Get past the fact that it's not the original line-up because Rock in a Hard Place contains some of Aerosmith's finest ever moments.

pedroandino@msn.com
I REMEMBER A EPISODE ON BTM AND THEY SAY THAT ROCK IS THE WORST ALBUM YET! BUT HEY FUCK YOU! ANYWAY LITENING STRIKES RULES! AND THE VIDEO SUCKS! JAILBAIT! OOOOOH! SWEET SEXY JAILBAIT! U TURN ME ON! HER BELLYBUTTON! LICK ME! JONI AND CHACHI'S BUTTERFLY ROCKS! HA CHACHI IS HE CUTE! ANYWAY STEVE GOT TOO HEAVY INTO DRUGS AND HE WAS HAVING SO MUCH TROUBLE WRITING LYRICS. GUITAR PLAYERS RICK DUFAY AND JIMMY CRESPO WERE THE LEAST KNOWN GUITAR GUYS BECAUSE IT IS NOT JOE PERRY! THE RECORD BOMBED! THEY WERE OUT OF TOUCH BY THE NEW WAVE ASS HOLES! NEW WAVE IS SO FUCKING GAY! ALL HEAR IS A DINKY DOINKY SYNTH A DRUM MACHINE AND A SHORT HAIRED DORK! I LIKED THIS AND I DUB THEE POWER MAGNUM! not get yer wings but hey not my fault!

Eric D.
Legend has it, if you listen closely to Steven on "Cry Me a River" you can hear the cocaine whizzing past his teeth.

hammykatt2000@yahoo.com
I grew up in Boston and was approx 13 when this album came out and it absolutely shattered my skull!!! I was unaware at the time that it wasnt Joe Perry, because I wasnt that into the makeup of bands at 13 years old. When I got older and learned that he wasnt on the album it struck my interest, especially as a young guitar player that was opening up for bands like Suicidal Tendancies and Extreme amongst others. I was like who is this guy playing guitar on this album, he is so much more chromatic, dark and heavy than prior Aerosmith albums. I read up on Jimmy Crespo and have been a huge fan ever since. That album is absolutely amazing. I know everyone is saying only the first few songs are any good, but just the complexity of this album alone is bizarre. From a 1950s female actress/crooner song to a very Middle Eastern sounding chronicle, to a heavy metal commercial piece in "When the Lightning Strikes" to the incredibly spicey and jazzy Jailbait, bitchs brew and Jig is up. This is the best Aerosmith album ever done In My Opiniion. I wore out the album and the 8 track in the early 80s, and will proably destryoy my mp3 player playing it now that I have found it again. What an incredible album and I wish Jimmy Crespo got more credit, and the respect he deserves for his work on this piece!!! Rock on Jimmy, you may not have the big lips or the sexy hips, but you sir are a rock star!!!

Add your thoughts?

Classics Live - Columbia 1984.
Rating = 8

A pointless but perfectly enjoyable live album. Has "Major Barbara" on it, if you've never heard that one. Also a nice speedy version of "Train Kept A-Rollin'." Some of the vocal harmonies are atrocious, though. "Sweet Emotion," for example, sounds like a bunch of cats with their tails stuck up my ass.
Reader Comments

Eric D.
Because I'm totally gay and know what year anything was released until Pump, but Classics Live was released in 1986, and really sucks. Fact: I just sold my vinyl copy to someone in Isreal for $15. Amazing.

Add your thoughts?

Pandora's Box - Columbia 1991.
Rating = 8

A very worthwhile 3-CD box set! It features 53 songs, half of which are alternate versions, remixes, solo tracks, live stuff and outtakes. The other half covers the band's finest hits and album tracks (though, of course, lots of killer tunes are missing, including "Spaced," "Sick As A Dog," "Chiquita" and "Uncle Salty"). A great buy for both casual fans and bigtime Aeroheads. Would get a nine, but some of the outtakes totally suck ass! (which I suppose explains their previous status as "outtakes") The set also comes with a lovely book wherein the boys in the band talk about the origins of the tunes, the incredible amount of hard drugs they used in the 70s, and all the extra fucking they could have done had they not been so stoned all the time.
Reader Comments

mikaal1@bigpond.com (Michael Mouse)
Can thoroughly recommend this one, though I did rent it and then burnt a great 77 minute single cd.

Add your thoughts?

Done With Mirrors - Geffen 1985.
Rating = 6

Poor Jimmy Crespo was fired and back comed the old guitar boys for a reunion. A sort of overloud, bland reunion. The first song, a re-recording of Joe Perry's solo track "Let The Music Do The Talking," is fast, volumous and full of rocking mumunia, but after that the album slowly unravels into simplistic chord sequences and three-note hooks played over and over and over and over and over again as big huge inseperable blocks of sound. The guitars sound like walls, not like the electrical currents and loose wires of classic Aerosmith. Granted, they sound a heck of a lot better than they soon would (the guitars on Pump, for example, sound like some guy playing a Casio keyboard with his dick), but the songs are as underwritten as a song can be. You hear a killer opening riff -- "Ah man, this song's gonna tear!" Then five minutes later, you've heard the same riff 400 more times, along with a slightly less interesting chorus. Problem? They were still on drugs! Stephen Tyler sounds pretty shitty too. Kinda out of place, lacking confidence in the material, veins full of the good stuff..... Definitely not an album to actively HATE -- more of one to sit, stare at and wonder, "How did so many good riffs go so terribly wrong?"
Reader Comments

jnw@iglobal.net (Jim Hull)
This album WAS done with mirrors...and what a STUPID cover!!! Pissed me off! But I did like "Let The Music..." - inferior version than on Joe's solo album, though...

ae%rtp#@mema.geis.com (Allan Evans)
I agree that this album is pretty weak but it has a great opening one-two punch of "Let The Music Do The Talking" and "My Fist Your Face." The latter song has one of the best song titles ever and makes you long for the days when they actually wrote their own songs (instead of using hacks like Desmond Child).

stevenw@execpc.com (Steve Wahlin/Tammy Riste)
I hope David Geffen rots in hell for unleashing these bastards on us again.

plato@cajun.net
Done with mirrors is one of Aerosmith's top 3 albums. The music is hard driving and the lyrics are raw and sound like their right off the top of Steven Tyler's head. Every song kicks ass. "My fist your face, that's for sure" that's an ass kickin' song. "Joe Perry ouh Mr. Style, some kinda Killer bee, buzz awhile." Every time I play that album for someone that has never heard it, and doesn't know Aerosmith that well I can tell they're blown away.

MSROELOFS@prodigy.net (Mike in Hawaii)
Mark, I think you're a tad tough on this one. Yes, it is not classic Aerosmith. but it seems that the band's heart was in it and that comes shining through in a couple of spots ("My Fist Your Face", "Let the Music Do The Talkin'"). Additionally, in my opinion this represents Aerosmith's last stand as a real rock band; that in itself merits another "record" in the rating.

WyldLash@aol.com (John)
Back in the eighties, my friends and I would go on occasional road trips to see old, washed-up acts like the 'smiths here. We called it "The Seventies Metal Band Retirement Fund Tour."

You see, we were amusing.

Anyway, we saw Aerosmith (with Nugent opening for them) in East Troy, Wisconsin, a town that wishes one day to be the activity hub that the middle of nowhere is. And it was on this tour. And if it's possible to projectile suck, they did.

Steve called us "Cruh-AAAAYYYYY-Zee motherfuckers" about a gajiliion times, and promised to play "all night!" Then someone shot a bottle rocket at him (not cool kids, but permitted if the singer praises you for being a Cruh-AAAAYYYYY-Zee motherfucker more than twice) and he read us the rules of proper conduct at a concert and threatened to call the cops. What a rock & roll rebel!

They must not have been in rehab yet -- or maybe the methadone wasn't active -- 'cause thay stumbled around, played the hits (which drew cheers), played crap from this album (which drew boos and bottle rockets), and basically looked like they were on their last legs. If they had been, we all would have been spared "Dude Looks Like A Lady."

The night sucked but I'm glad I was there for two reasons: 1). I figure my 25 bucks helped get them off coke and 2). At one point I got to see these two leather babes totally make out on the lawn.

Hot dog!

ro-mic@online.no (Roar Michaelsen)
This album is sooo boring !! It's like they ran out of everything that goes under the genre material. Let's take the good stuff first "let the music do the talking" "The hop" and "Darkness". But everything else is just songs based out on riffs. It seems like they didn't finish it all. "The reason a dog" for instance. I think when you make a record you gotta do it for real. You cant just spit on some vinyl and the expect that it's gonna be a hit record.
Add your thoughts?

Permanent Vacation - Geffen 1987.
Rating = 8

After Done With Mirrors dug its way straight into the cheapy bins, Run-DMC revived the career of these "Toxic Twins" by doing a cover of "Walk This Way" with special guest appearances by Steve and Joe. Then the whole band went through drug rehab, got clean, and went back into the studio to prove themselves worthy. And did they? Hah?

Strangely, yes!!! Permanent Vacation was not a return to the gritty street rock of old, but an extremely marketable embracing of late-eighties bombastic poptones. And it's a beautiful record!!! Every song is completely predictable in every way imaginable, yet more fun than a wooden nickle almost. Steven does a fantastic job coming up with interesting vocal melodies ("Magic Touch" and "Hangman Jury" come to mind as two songs that would be generic as all hey if not for the note-happy vox of master Tylanski), and the guitar-happy (polished but LOUD!!!) combo seems to be having a great time running through track after song after ditty of pukingly perfect pop poop. There are a million good reasons to hate this record, but I've chosen (finally) to listen to my heart and recognize it for the true pop and roll masterpiece that it is. Like The Monkees, but volumey! Tons of personality on the record, too. Sounds like a combo on top of their game - not one whose last three albums sold like twelve copies combined. Good work, Aerosmiths! "Dude Looks Like A Lady?" You BET he does!!!!

Reader Comments

dave@mgagray.com (David Aurand)
Permanent Vacation, I thought, was a great album/disc. Some of the stuff was a little annoying (ie. "Angel," "I'm Down"), but otherwise very good. I have a recorded interview with the band and apparently the guitar in the song "Permanent Vacation" was originally patterned after AC/DC's "Highway To Hell", but Steven listened to it, added some bongos and squawking birds, and penned the words in that fashion. Not exactly what was originally intended, but.....you know Tyler........nonetheless....it is great. Oh yeah, I really love "Hangman Jury", "Rag Doll"...and the one with the whales......"Hearts Done Time"........

ro-mic@online.no (Roar Michaelsen)
The first sober album !!! But most of this sucks. Angel,Dude and,rag doll, are the only songs that stands out. But you get pretty darn bored of them after a while. "im down" was not very necesary. This is not that good¨.

Awake600@aol.com
This isn't the big successful comeback record everyone makes it out to be. There's way too much generic 80s hard rock filler here for it to be successful, and as a result most of the tracks don't do too much for me. And if I hear "Rag Doll" or "Dude (Looks Like A Lady)" on the radio again I'm liable to break something. But man, is that ditty "The Movie" an interesting little piece, and "Angel" might be the best ballad they've done. 6

ian.moss@yale.edu (Ian Moss)
Wow, it's really good! Prindle and I seem to disagree about new Aerosmith quite a bit, but I can't argue with what he says here. My faves are "Magic Touch," "St. John," "Rag Doll" and "The Movie," but they're all very nice, actually. Well, except for "Angel" which is just a bit too bombastic for my tastes (imagine that!)--plus the lyrics are pretty stupid: "I'm in tears/And the crying that I do is for you"? Since when does one "do" crying? Anyway..."I'm Down" was a bad song even when the Beatles did it (a rare occurrence indeed), but at least the Aeros don't make it any worse, unlike their unfortunate experiment with "Come Together." But those are the only blemishes on an otherwise very solid album. I bestow a 9 upon 't.

Nick.Walford@nettec.net
I can't believe how many people think this record sucks - you are ALL so WRONG! this is a great record, really and truly, it is. the only tracks which aren't GREAT (heart's done time, magic touch, I'm down) are still cooler than most other bands can hope to be ever. and 'the movie'? where the fuck did that come from? don't get me wrong, it's a great track, but who else would have had the balls to put an instrumental weirditty like that out at the arse-end of the 80's?

and another thing - where do all these assholes get off saying shit about tunes just cause they've heard them on the radio so much? is it aerosmith's fault that they write great tunes? (well, it is, but you know what I mean.) and if you don't like it, HEY - TURN OFF THE FUCKIN RADIO AND PLAY A FUCKIN RECORD!! assholes.

that's all for now. stay tuned.

sasa.podunavec@yahoo.com
Buy it for "Dude Looks Like A Lady". It's worth it.

Add your thoughts?

Classics Live! II - 1987 Sony.
Rating = 9

Great songs = great band = great performance = great album! Back in the Attic! Walk This Out! Movin' Way! Draw The Child! Same Old Song And Talkin'! Last Dance! Let The Music Do The Line! Toys In The Saddle!!!!!

Add your thoughts?

Pump - Geffen 1989.
Rating = 4

Okay, never mind. A few years after Perm Vac, Aerosmith put out this sleazy girly pop album that pissed me off so much, it drove me away from the band for a good several years. In recent years, good decent folk kept telling me, "Oh, you GOTTA give Pump a chance! It's really good!" So finally I broke down and picked up the CD for four dollars, and discovered that I can no longer trust good decent folk because these songs are lame. They aren't bombastic rock and roll like on that Perm album. They're just bland generic sissy crap - not even catchy!!! Remember the hits? "Love In An Elevator," "What It Takes," "Janie's Got A Gun," and "The Other Side"? Well, I hope you liked 'em, because there's nothing else on here that even comes close. Most of the songs, in fact, don't have a discernible riff at all, but just a watered-down slicked-up version of the directionless guitar chooglin' that made Draw The Line such a treat. It doesn't work here, though. Not at all. These songs are just boring. What a letdown after Permanent Vacation! Oh well. At least it has "Love In An Elevator." As much as I hate to admit it, I've grown to really love that song over the last few months. It's those "Whoa!"s and "Whoa Yeah!"s in the verse. They drive me wild! Too bad that they're the most inspired bit of music on the record. The album doesn't SUCK, you understand; it's just a really boring take on teenage music, kinda like Done With Mirrors, but more obviously aimed towards high school girls (with cheesy horns and stuff). Beats me why everybody likes it so much. Any ideas?
Reader Comments

jtklosek@athena.mit.edu (Justin T. Klosek)
I think you should take out Pump and play it again, and listen to some of the guitar work. The sounds, admittedly, aren't as cool as on Toys In The Attic or Rocks, but the playing is still terrific and the riffs are there. Sometimes they are a little buried ("F.I.N.E.", off the top of my head, has some neat Joe Perry stuff under the vocals), but they are there. "Love in an Elevator" is a neat mix of pop (with the layered vocals, singalong "whoa-yeah"'s) and guitar riffing which has been amazingly absent from mainstream radio since the mid-'80s. Anyone can plug in their Les Paul, turn their Marshalls way up and play distorted open-A, open-G, open-D stuff, but not everyone can groove them like Aerosmith. "The Other Side" grew on me with the horns (especially the cool bari sax thing over the verse) and the main riff, while simple, is still pretty fun to air-guitar along with. You didn't like "What It Takes", but Steven Tyler's sense of rhythm in the song is worth a comment, especially his rapid-fire delivery "tell me you ain't lyin' when you're dyin' for me", etc., near the end of the song. It is reminiscent of "You See Me Crying", from Toys or "Home Tonight" from Rocks, a basic, piano-driven ballad laden with electric guitars so heavy, so....nasty....that you can't take your ears off it. There are also neat sounds all over the record in the little interludes, and throughout the songs (the synth horns on "Elevator", the accordion and Leslie-speakered guitar on "What it Takes", the neat percussion effects on "Voodoo Medicine Man", etc.) So you might want to listen to it again instead of just dismissing it as "crappy 80's Aerosmith" or whatever you called it on the site. There's a lot there--just because it was a hit album doesn't make it unfashionable to listen to.

There's a lot of good guitar work on Permanent Vacation, but the songwriting isn't nearly as tight or as focused.

James@jpb-s.demon.co.uk
I must disagree about Pump. Despite the childish "bad boys" attitude, there is some extraordinarily sophisticated music. I like Permanent Vacation's bluesy sound, but Pump is just so full of invention, it hardly seems a hard rock album. But as you point out it is all totally subjective and down to one's tastes.

patterson@tatrc.org
PUMP is a great - not spectacular - album. Listen to the greasy guitar riffs and to Steven Tyler scream about sex, sex, and sex, and you will understand what made A-smith great in the '70s and why Aerosmith is a genuinely American hard rock band. This album (re)captured the filth and sleaze that was A-smith's trademark in the '70s, while managing sounding modern. What sets this disc apart is that it is not a collection of ready- ready, teen- friendly pop tunes not unlike Perm Vac, Get a Grip, and (to a lesser degree) Nine Lives. Hey, Aerosmith was never the darling of the critics. But PUMP, like their best work from two decades ago, captures the raunch-and-roll that most of blue-blooded Americans like to crank out on a Friday night after a long week of work (really, who kicks a weekend party off by blasting Hootie?).

Trashsurfr@aol.com
You hit the nail on the head in the second to last sentance of your review. Areosmith has turned into an MTV fashion whore chick band. How many real rock fans have you met that give a damn about music videos?

ro-mic@online.no (Roar Michaelsen)
You rewierer guy ! Youre too hard on the album. "Young lust" and "F.I.N.E" are both realy good. And then "Elevator" is so energic and wonderful. The rest is good, but it's just too much pop in it. Like:The other side, my girl,and What it takes. But it's a good album !

Awake600@aol.com
It's a good thing everyone has different opinions, because I disagree totally with this one. Call me crazy, but I think Pump is right on par with Toys In The Attic and Get Your Wings. Almost every song is memorable in one way or another -- "F.I.N.E.", "Don't Get Mad Get Even" and "Monkey On My Back" have that nice trashy attitude, "Janie's Got A Gun" boasts an unsettling edge, "Voodoo Medicine Man" is haunting with nice musicianship, "Young Lust" is fast-paced and exciting, and "The Other Side", "Love In An Elevator" and "What It Takes" are pretty darn good singles. 9

ian.moss@yale.edu
Hmm, I seem to fall somewhere in the middle here. "Love in an Elevator" is clearly the best song on here, with great riffs and verses and an AWESOME bridge section/guitar solo in the middle. There's a lot of pretty decent stuff along with it, inlcuding the hits (though I don't much care for "Janie's Got a Gun"), "Monkey On My Back" and "Voodoo Medicine Man," but you're absolutely right in that there's a ton of bland crap too. "My Girl" in particular has got to be one of the worst songs they've written since their comeback. Also, the idea of using instrumental interludes/introductions to the songs is interesting and creative, but most of the intros themselves don't add anything to the songs they're attached to (again, with the exception of "Love in an Elevator"--"Oh, hello, Mr. Tyler. Going---down?" heheheh.).

jason_a@earthlink.net (Jason Adams)
I haven't heard the whole album in a decade, so this doesn't, like, have a point. But "What It Takes" is certainly better than your average hair metal ballad, and "Janie's Got A Gun" is downright good. They used to play it at the skating rink.

Nick.Walford@nettec.net
well now. not such a balls-out rock n roller as previous albums but fuck it, when you're nearing 50 and you're still recovering from taking enough drugs in the 70's to kill several herds of wild horses, I guess you don't feel quite so balls-out. somebody already said it, but this is a much more sophisticated album than the others. it's got great tunes, it's musically maturer (is that a word?), and, well, it's just cool. not amazing, but cool. I'll go for a 7.

funnily enough, I had the pleasure of seeing the mighty 'Smith on their first tour in the UK for 11 years promoting Pump. I was blown away, seriously, blown away, the most fucking awesome, amazing, loud, wild, gritty, funky, sleazy, slinky fucking show I've ever been to, bar none. they rocked like teenagers, which is pretty impressive for 40 year olds. tyler screamed his lungs out, and turned backflips all over the stage, it was incredible!

aerosmith rule.

fuckingme@aeromail.zzn.com
hey

pump is the aerosmith album who i have heard so far who sux the most. it aint very bad, but it cude be soo fuckin better. it cude be at least 13 songs on it. and evry1 shude be as good as janies got a gun, love in an elevator and what it fuckin takes. thats my oppinion, and it cude be more fuckin songs on evry motherfuckin aerosmith album. i have heard some shit about that they have over 450 songs. they can probely add some of the unrealesed on the albums.

grant@grantedmonds.com (Grant Edmonds)
I am writing this Aerosmith review before any other because if nothing else, I would like everyone to know, first and foremost, that this is NOT, I repeat NOT, the first Aerosmith album you should buy! And if possible, don't waste money on it at all.

Aerosmith has never made a bad album, but this is definitely their worst, and it's not just because of the songs. The way the songs are arranged and recorded are even bigger problems. It's flat, pop-oriented rock. It's decent flat, poppy-rock, but it's not what Aerosmith used to be, that's for sure. This album marked a turning point. Get A Grip is almost as pointless, with three "What It Takes" clones on that album. Aerosmith used to write AWESOME ballads: "Home Tonight", "Seasons Of Wither", "Mia", etc. They were all unique and ballsy, despite the slower tempos. "What It Takes" set an unfortunate pattern of cheesy, radio-friendly ballads to follow. I hate all of that crap! As far as the good songs, There are three: "Love In An Elevator" (could have been better and shorter though), "Janie's Got A Gun," and my favorite, "Monkey On My Back." At least the band isn't that stupid not to play "Monkey" live (well... they might not anymore). Everything else is not original...with the possible exception of "Voodoo Medicine Man", but it wears upon repeated listens...and NOTHING BESIDES "MONKEY" REMINDS ONE OF THEIR AMAZING 70'S STUFF!!! Bottom line: Avoid this! Buy their first four albums first. If you like those (which you damn well better!) then buy Draw The Line and Night In The Ruts, and THEN Nine Lives. Anything else, buy at your own risk. (I do like Permanent Vacation, but it's not for everyone)

fb900190@ntu.ac.uk
You really are a tit, aren't you? You're a sad excuse for a human being. Go away and leave me alone.

JohnnyMotel@aol.com
Dude, you are so right about that album, it's unreal. Too many people have defended that polished turd for so long and say the same things your "decent people" told you to do; "dude, give it a chance." I gave it a chance and it gave me a stomach ache. Aerosmith fans could be on par to be as pathetic as KISS fans for standing by and feeding their crap machine. At least Steven Tyler admits they were better on drugs. Pump is weak. If you want Aerosmith, go listen to Rocks and shoot up some good Mexican skag.

YoungBonaparte@aol.com
"The Other Side" is a rip-off of "Standing in the Shadows of Love" by The Four Tops.

JOHN.J.DOYLE@nuim.ie
Shame about the polished EAU SEAU 1980s stereotypical production, because the bottom line is, this is a damn good album. 9/10.

prince55chu@hotmail.com
God, Mr. Prondle! You like Love In An Elevator?! I thought you were the bad-ass mofo in the rock critic suckass world, but YOU LIKE LOVE IN AN ELEVATOR?!?!?!

Add your thoughts?

Get A Grip - Geffen 1993.
Rating = 6

I kinda like this one now! Really heavy guitars, some catchy stupid tunes. Even the ballads aren't that bad -- though the lyrics to "Livin' On The Edge" are pretty dumb. Original grade: 3 - Here's my bitter old review.

Okay, here's the situation. My parents left town on a week's vacation and they left the keys to the brand new Porsche. Would they mind? Ummm, well, of course not! I'll just take it for a little spin, and maybe show it off to a couple of friends! Yeah, I'll just cruise around the neighborhood. Maybe I shouldn't.... Yeah, of course I should! Pay attention, here's the thick of the plot. I pulled up to the corner at the end of my block, and I saw this beautiful girly-girl walkin'! I picked up my car phone and perpetrate like I was talkin'. You should have seen this girl's bodily dimensions! I honked on the horn just to get her attention. She said, "Was that for me?" I said, "Yeah!" She said, "Why?" I said, "Come on and take a ride with a hell of a guy!" She said, "How do I know you're not sick?" You could be some deranged lunatic!" I said, "Come on, toots! My name is The Prince!! Besides, would a lunatic have a Porsche like this?"

She agreed and we were on our way. She was looking mighty fine. So was I, I must say. Word. We at McDonald's. Pull into the drive, ordered two Big Macs and two large fries. On a related note, my friendly neighbors Lee and Rhonda had a copy of Get A Grip that they let me borrow, so I could save a little cash and still be able to tell you and once and for all that this record is a nearly worthless piece of shit. Rockers and ballads - all dull and annoying, and hardly ever catchy. Real disheartening. "Eat The Rich" has a cool lead line, but it's a ripoff of "Walk This Way," and the whole idea of a band as wealthy as Aerosmith claiming to be anything other than "The Rich" is quite offensive indeed. The title track is a darn fine attempt to recreate the groove mood of Draw The Line, but it sounds so much like "Sight For Sore Eyes" that it might as well not even exist. Then there's "Fever," which actually rocks!!!! Best song on the album, unless you count the sleek instrumental at the end. The rest of the songs are pretty awful. Of the four interchangeable ballad hits ("Livin' On The Edge," "Cryin'," "Crazy," and "Amazing"), not a single one has anything new to say, either musically or lyrically. Sit through the videos for Alicia Silverstone or that dumbass "cyber-premature ejaculation" scene if you want, but I'll be at work, thanks, doing my part to make America a better place with well-orchestrated interactive entertainment work efforts. You?

Reader Comments

jtklosek@athena.mit.edu (Justin T. Klosek)
I actually could not sit through Get A Grip. The songs did not have nearly as much melody as Pump, and the famous Aerosmith riffs and guitar work under the vocals wasn't there. It seems to be a lot of held power chords and dumb lyrics. THREE ballads? C'mon. "Amazing" is by far the best of the three because it again is reminiscent of older Aerosmith ("You See Me Crying") with the big rocking ending. "Cryin'" was interesting because of the horns and would have been acceptable with some decent guitar lines, I think, but "Crazy" was useless fluff, almost as if they wanted to write a hit.

The title cut, off the top of my head, was decent, but the overall sound of the album is overblown, to me, and it tries to be "hard-edged" without any hard-edged guitar work. I guess you could write an equation:

Get A Grip = Pump - good guitars + too many vocals - good writing

And why are there synthesizers all over an Aerosmith record? (the end of "Amazing"; "Livin' on the Edge"; "Intro") - and the "Walk This Way" sample at the beginning was a Cheap Trick device (check out "Writing on the Wall" from Dream Police and the At Budokan bits), as if the band is saying, "hey, we're Aerosmith, we did 'Walk This Way,' so we're cool despite the fact that this record is kind of flat."

I was very disappointed by Get A Grip. While Pump stayed in my CD player for months after it came out (and still gets played, often), Get A Grip got two spins and was pulled in favor of some Rolling Stones. My one hope for Aerosmith is Big Ones and "Walk on the Water", which has that rough Aerosmith guitar work and some melody, which are trademarks of their best work.

My two cents....

borg@win.bright.net (The Borg)
I think that they had some kickin stuff back in the drug days, but you still have to give credit to the first two tapes that I ever bought in my music loving life, Pump and Permanent Vacation. They are still my two favorites for Aerosmith. My favorite old CD is Toys, and I enjoyed Get A Grip, save for the three latest ballads to come from it. It took my a while to actually listen to "Cryin'", and after a while I got to like "Amazing". But I never liked "Crazy", and Steve was crazy to sing it. And I'm not gay, but I hate that ditzy blonde on the three videos. She can just blow me. I'd probably like her better if she did, though.

HDVW143@aol.com
How can you give get a grip such a bad rating? it has a bunch of good tunes like "Line Up", "Living On The Edge", and "Eat The Rich"! "Eat the Rich" definitely kicks ass; what do you think?

iceman@sugar-river.net (Nathan Brewer)
Aerosmith is actually from a town that's like 10 minutes from me, Sunapee, NH. They have a huge cottage on the lake there. Unfortunately, they suck now. The old stuff was great though.

hshanks@eden.rutgers.edu
Hey!! Get A grip did NOT SUCK!!! I love "Fever"!!! And H-E-L-L-O...how come "Cryin"'s in almost every concert?? Can't suck..how can you call yourself an Aerosmith fan??

Borg, if she can suck your dick, then you can suck my left tit. You know shit!

thutley@e-z.net (Thomas Hutley)
Shut up about the wonderful world of Aerosmith already! These guys don't deserve my toe jam in a jar, much less any credit for music genious. Geez, a doped-up druggie writes a little ditty called "Dream On" and everyone thinks he's created the greatest American band in the world! (That's a joke, son. Figured I'd point that out since you're an Aerosmith fan and probably missed it) I tell ya', the things people come up with in their heads. Their early sound is not nearly as inovative as everyone claims it to be. Foreigner, Bad Company and BTO were doing the same worthless dookie as they were, and the chicks dug them too! Well, maybe not BTO so much, but a guy can dream can't he? These bands were all cut from the same moldy loaf of bread. The only reason Aerosmith made it back to their previous "success" is because in '85 everybody and their brother was trying to get down with the new rap scene developing from the 'hood or the ghetto or wherehaveyou, and Run-DMC thought "Walk This Way" had a good beat. Then they put out half of a descent tune on Vacation and their publicist rode the fact that they were all re-habbed addicts like it was Trigger. So why, I ask thee? Why? Why do people love them so? And why does Tonto always go to town when he KNOWS he's going to get beat up again? And what does all this have to do with the making of good, interesting music? Aerosmith is the same butt-rocker band they were when they began. Personally, I weened myself off of that crap after Loverboy lost their popularity. And if you think Steven Tyler STILL has sex appeal in his 50's when he's STILL singing 'bout your daughter or your little sister or yourself perhaps, then you're probably the same people who somehow find wonderful and exciting musical sensibilities in the newest Rolling Stones offering so laddi-Freakin'-da. Some connoisseur of rock music you are! As I said before, Aerosmith aren't worth the piddle in my pot. And you can stick THAT in your pipe and smoke it, my friend! I'd rather be Working for the Weekend than Livin' on the Edge anyday...

patterson@tatrc.org (Jan M. Patterson)
What about Nine Lives? Sure, Get A Grip was a disappointment relative to Pump, but I felt that Nine Lives partially made up for the obvious decline in quality. While Nine Lives didn't restore the sleazy, bad-ass swagger projected throughout most of Pump (the swagger that earned the Steven and Co. the moniker the "Bad Boys from Boston on their older albums), it did replace the ear-candy ballads on ...Grip with some solid, straight-ahead rockers reminiscent of the Aerosmith of old.

almalien@hotmail.com (Vick)
Hey guy, have you listened to "Eat the Rich"???? That's absolutely fantastic. One of the greatest songs from the nineties i have ever heard. And what can I say about "Livin'..." and "Amazing", they're just incredible. The coolest album from Aerosmith since seventies. But the ballads and some boring rocks are really disgusting. Anyway, better than Pump and Done With Mirrors.

jim.morrison@montego.com (Michael Rohm)
What I truly cannot understand - and this goes for AC/DC, as well - is why they're almost 50 years old and STILL writing songs about sex! "Flesh"? "I'd rather be ODin' on the crack of her ass"?? C'mon! Steve, Joe, Tom.. you're not fooling anyone into believing that you're still 22 year olds. Although some may not like Metallica new stuff too much, at least they're moving on musically and not STILL releasing stuff that someone their age would NOT write about. Can you imagine a 30-ish (or older?) Hetfield still writing screamers like "WHIPLASH!" like he did almost 20 years ago? Not a chance.

patterson@tatrc.org (Jan Michael Patterson)
Get A Grip was a huge disappointment to most hardcore Aerosmith fans. Were Pump saw the band reassume their moniker the "Bad Boys from Boston," Get A Grip saw them merely pretend to be such! (In actuality, they morphed into the "Popsters from Boston!") What happened to the greasy guitar riffs, sleazy lyrics and vocal tricks that characterized Pump and much of the material from the '70s??? What happened to the raw power and bad-ass swagger that the band had once possessed and seemed to recover???

Nine Lives was a partial recognition and remedy of/for the crass commercialism of Get A Grip, although not enough. The songs were, in general, rocked harder, but on the whole still exhibited more polish and radio-concious flavor than the raw power, sleaze, and funk that Aerosmith built it's reputation on. Hopefully, in the next trip to the studio the Boys will do what they (still) can do best - record full-on, cock sure rockers that we all will want to reach for after work on a Friday night!!!

terry@launchnet.com (Terry Haggin)
Come on... These guys suck. From beginning to end. I listened to Toys in the Attic over and over because my friends played it over and over and then had to endure Rocks but they were all idiots. Brain dead, -shroom fried morons. I wonder if they are all dead by now. Oh well, no great loss no matter what happened.

Tyler wouldn't know a good lyric if it walked down the center aisle wearing a yellow suit with a red hat. And who ever said rock and roll was for the stupid must have been thinking about these haggard old cretins and their drooling legions of lobotomized lackeys. Oh my brain hurts just wasting my time in slamming these New York losers.

Anyway, the best thing to happen to these ugly rubber lipped drug saturated IQ limited dropouts was that dream boat Alicia Silverstone. Alicia and the MTV lemmings who lick their hairy, toe-fungused Ben Gayed feet.

Why not review Genesis? These guys aren't worth the bandwith and the web space. Do a review on Selling England By the Pound or The Lamb, those are rael cerebral gems.

vadim@apollo.lv
NOW Aerosmith FUCKING POP band!!!!

ro-mic@online.no (Roar Michaelsen)
This album is almost perfect ! It's got it all. Good rock,power ballads,funky grooves and a stupid instrumental called "Boogie man". "Flesh","Gotta love it" and "Boogie man" sucks. Just dont play it all the time or you,ll wear it out, and then youre realy gonna hate it.

Awake600@aol.com
A very disappointing album with ridiculous amounts of filler that just doesn't go anywhere ("Fever", "Gotta Love It", "Walk On Down", "Flesh") and "Eat The Rich" would have to be one of the most inane and pointless songs I've heard. "Crazy" and "Cryin'" are the same damn interchangable ballad, and they were both massive hits! Arrrgggghh. However, all is not lost. They manage to come up with a few songs worth saving here -- "Amazing" is another one of their most breathtaking ballads (love that ending) and "Shut Up And Dance" and "Line Up" are also great, but those songs are the only moments worth saving. 5

ian.moss@yale.edu
Wow, I've never seen such vitriol directed against a perfectly legitimate album for no other reason than that it's popular! Granted, I'm a little bit biased on this one, as Get A Grip was the first album (by any band) that I ever owned, but I've kept listening to it through the years and it wears very well. In fact, shockingly enough, I would give this one the 10--and I DO know most of the '70s stuff (and no, I've never seen the videos either). Anyway, what's wrong with a big, full, layered sound and quality production? All of you people seem to be longing after that "bare-bones" feel of the first couple of albums--whatever. "Eat the Rich," "Get a Grip," "Gotta Love It", "Line Up" and "Boogie Man" are particularly fabulous, and excuse me--"Livin' on the Edge" is NOT a ballad by any means! As for the actual ballads, I liked them at first but now I have to agree that they get tiresome after a while. The only suckfests are "Fever" and "Walk on Down," and even they aren't unbearable. Lighten up, guys, just because they gained a new generation of fans doesn't automatically mean that the music sucks.

No1Yanks23@aol.com
Call me stupid, but I love this album. Probably because I grew up worshipping this album. But I think "Amazing" is one of the best ballads they ever did. I also like "Angel" so maybe I am an 80's soft rock freak? But "Cryin" and "Crazy" are good too. And "Eat the Rich" too. Hey most of these songs are good! "Livin' on the Edge" was another hit, I don't think it was a ballad, too upbeat to be a ballad to me. Oh, and "Shut up and Dance" became a hit after they played it in the Waynes World II movie, I like it too. Probably an 8.

Add your thoughts?

Nine Lives - Columbia 1997.
Rating = 6

Holy Poledo! This isn't bad at all!!! Not at all!!! Now now, it's still not classic Aerosmith, but it actually sounds like they're trying to write memorable riffs again, rather than relying on mindless grooves and cheesy ballads (though there are a few of those here, of course, which is why it only gets a 6). The album as a whole doesn't have a uniform "sound," which probably has something to do with the fact that they worked with about a hundred million different songwriters. Instead, it shoots back and forth between really creative and catchy heavy rockers, well-written, pretty ballads, shitty slow songs aimed towards 15-year-olds and even a little ill-advised experimentation (including an astonishingly vapid Alanis Morrisette soundalike co-written by none other than Mr. Glen Ballard!!!). More than anything else though, it sounds like the true follow-up to Permanent Vacation - the same overproduced, perfect guitar rock/pop feel but with, unfortunately, a few too many Get A Grip-esque stinkers to make me want to listen to it everyday. But hoo, that title track?? Hoo!!! And "Crash"??? That's good stuff!!! Even "Hole In My Soul" is a decent ballad, and it's just a generic ballad ballad! Ballad? Green berets!!!
Reader Comments

Awake600@aol.com
A nice rebound from the very mediocre Get A Grip album with some very impressive tunes -- "Fallen Angels" might be the most beautiful and meaningful song they've done, the title song just rocks, "Hole In My Soul" soars, "Fallin In Love (Is Hard On The Knees)" sounded empty at first but eventually grew on me, and "Full Circle" is another highlight. But alas, not enough highlights to make it a return to greatness. And that "Pink" song... umm.... 7

ian.moss@yale.edu
This is a very good album--not quite as consistent as I'd like it to be, but it definitely has a whole bunch of winners on it, including (but not limited to) "The Farm", "Taste of India", "Kiss Your Past Goodbye", "Pink", and "Attitude Adjustment." I think it's interesting, though, that the songs you mention as highlights are the exact songs that I like the least--"Nine Lives" and "Crash"--and yet we have the same opinion about the album. Something for everyone, I guess.

By the way, why the hell did they release "Falling In Love (Is Hard on the Knees)" as the first single? That song's about as uncatchy a ditty as they ever wrote. (Was that last sentence grammatically correct? Sure didn't seem like it...)

foland_ratzl@hotmail.com (Roland Fratzl)
Seems like we're all in agreement over this one. Damn, they were so close!!! This album had oodles of potential! The hard rocking songs are all great, sounding almost as dirty, mean, and raw as they 70's peak! Lots of awesome riffs here! But they just had to make use of CD format and put 13 tracks on this one, clocking in at an overlong 62 minutes, dragging its rating down to a low 7...Had they simply left off the filler such as "Falling In Love Is Hard On The Knees", "Full Circle", "Ain't That A Bitch", "Fallen Angels" and one of the remaining ballads of your choice, this would have been a 9! Well, I guess you can always still program tracks 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, and 12 and pretend that it's a 9!

GJW0721@aol.com (Glenn Wiener)
Well Rolland I must disagree. The ones you dislike are my prime timers. Falling In Love is catchy as all heck and Aint Love A Bitch gives a hint of jazz and then rocks along quite nicely. Full Circle features a nice use of the dulcimer and some of the best harmonies that came out of this Bean Town Band. Most of the other tunes are solid too. An eight to my ears.

monkeysalivator@yahoo.com (Cory Watkins)
You sir, are a moron. Nine Lives was the hardest album Aerosmith has ever made, you fucking retard. Mtv whores? Oh yeah, I saw "Somethings Gotta Give" and "Crash" all over Mtv, you fucking dipshit. I agree, Jaded and Pink and all the whatnot that Mtv does play is weak ass Aerosmith. But look at thier track record since Done With Mirrors. It goes good album-safe album. Permanat Vacation, then Pump. Get a Grip, and then Nine Lives. Just Push Play, and next, Hokin' at Bobo. You don't know shit about Aerosmith. They were better in the 70's, but they're still the best rock and roll band you can find to this day. As far as being a mix of LZ and the stones, you don't know shit. They sound nothing like Led Zeppelin, and how can you line Joe Perry up to Keith Richards? Keith Richards is a fucking schmuck. And so are. Bend over, twist around, and start screwing yourself buddy.

jed@dickson171.fsnet.co.uk (Brian Dickson)
These days the very name Aerosmith seems to get the average rock fan groaning. The general concensus amongst the few who will go further than saying "Aerosmith suck" is that Aerosmith was a good 70s rock band who made a couple of good albums, then got addled on drugs, and then made no worthwhile material at all after that. And that they went from playing hard rock to doing nothing but sappy ballads and wimpy pop!

Firstly I will be the first to say that Aerosmith are NOT the greatest band in rock history, and I own almost all their albums.. I would climb to the top of a tall building with a loudspeaker and shout it out if you want me to. What they are to me is however is often a good hard rock & roll band, Usually. I agree that after Rocks, their output was uneven in quality. But the idea that it's all rubbish after 1976 is laughably misguided. For me every Aerosmith album has some great songs on it. And it's also false to think that they've gone completely mainstream and churn out nothing but "glossy pop". Nine Lives is definitely mellower than previous albums, but that's no bad thing IMO. After playing pummeling rockers for 27 years what's wrong with diversifying a bit? Nine Lives actually remains my favourite Aerosmith album. I even played it to my cynical brother and he seeemd to like it. (And that ladies and gentlemen is the highest praise possible.) But even so it's very much the old dynamic Aerosmith of old between the softer tracks. But Aerosmith ahve always done ballads (Dream On, one of their biggest songs is a ballad!) and on songs like Uncle salty, Sweet Emotion, last Child and Combination you can hear Beatle-esque harmonies. Or putting it another way Aerosmith have since Toys In The Attic a "poppy" side.

If there's one thing I've leared about pop music though it's that people like black and white definitions. I suppose it's easier to say something is either great or crap. Saying anything in between those extremes requires you to explain why! So maybe lots of people like to simply say Aerosmith sucks. And it's more fun to slam something than to praise it. Human nature. For many now they're more whipping boys than band.

But I'm not part of a rock obssessed circle of friends anymore now so peer pressure doesn't mean anything to me. I don't need to bash any band. And is Aerosmith bashing mainly an Amercian phenomenon? Speaking as someone who lives in Scotland, doesn't watch MTV and isn't up to date on the curent music scene I don't really understand all the Aerosmith bashing. ( Americans seem to go wild for British Invasion! ) So I'm really judging Aerosmith on the music alone. .I read on the internet people talking about Aerosmith as if they were something HORRIBLE. What's the big deal? They're a rock band that have gone *somewhat* more mainstream and have released too many sappy ballads, all the while having ballads and pop as part of their original sound. Is that worth flying into a rage about? I don't get it.

Add your thoughts?

I Don't Want To Miss A Thing CD-single - Sony 1998
Rating = 2

"I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" is a hit single by American rock band Aerosmith. It was taken from the Armageddon soundtrack and debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the first and only song by a rock band to debut at #1 [1]. The song stayed at number one for four weeks from September 5 to September 26, 1998. It also introduced Aerosmith to a whole new generation of fans. The song rose steadily up the charts in the UK, peaking at number four in November 1998.

That's just Wikipedia's opinion though. In my opinion, this Diane Warren-penned monstrosity belongs in the urine with the poop. Happy New Year everyone! It's 12:24 AM on the first morning of 2007 when I pen these jealous words. This CD-single features "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing," which is a terrible ballad, followed by the 'Rock Mix' of "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing," which has guitars instead of violins, then a 'Rock Mix' of "Taste Of India" which was already a rock song (from Nine Lives) so I'm not sure what that's all about, then it closes up the shop with "Animal Crackers," which is a bit of dialogue from the godfuckingassawful motion picture Armageddon recited in terrible Southern accents by bad actors over Aerosmith's "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing." Sometimes in life a CD-single will surprise you with its quality.

Armageddon is an example of a movie that is a piece of shit on the shoe of American life. This is because it's a big stupid action movie that you go to because you like being an idiot, and then right at the end they make Bruce Willis die for no godfuckingdamnedass reason at all. Just to be "tragic" like Titanic. But the movie is DUMB AS STUPID COTTON CANDY FEEL-GOOD URINE SAMPLE, so the contrived 'tragic' ending just makes you want to strangle the screenwriter, whoever the D.B. is (and I don't mean "data base").

Aerosmith are the biggest sell-outs in rock and roll history. All we can do is accept this, decide whether or not to buy their rotten new albums in dollar bins, and move on. It's very sad because they seriously had like 8 really good albums in a row before agreeing to do whatever their record company told them to do (i.e. use outside writers, gear their material toward morons, suck a lot of dick), but when the stakes are down and the money's low, all five of them were willing to say, "Hay, you know what? Let's just record a bunch of generic ballads so I can pay rent for the next 500 years."

Why did they record this song? Did somebody approach them and say, "Hey dude, we want you to do a song on the soundtrack of our crapass new piece of dung movie, but not one you shitheads wrote. Do a song by some girl."? Is that why they recorded the worst song ever recorded? It's a Celine Dion song, not an Aerosmith song. Happy near yew! Harpy new year! I'm so drunk, this song STILL sucks big fat fuckin' ass hair!

Reader Comments

jjeffers6@houston.rr.com
In the early twenty-first century classic film Be Cool, Steven Tyler brilliantly plays a washed up rock star recruited by the John Travolta and Uma Thurman characters to participate in a hysterical recording scheme I cannot recount because I haven’t seen the entire movie. I suppose I shouldn’t label a film as “classic” when I haven’t viewed it in its entirety; however, any movie scheduled forty times a week on Showtime must be great. Based on that standard, I will have to drastically revise my opinion of the entire Christopher Lambert catalog.

Back to Be Cool. In a pivotal scene, Travolta argues Tyler wrote “Sweet Emotion” to express his love and awe at the birth of his two daughters. Steven appears skeptical at first but eventually agrees. I realize Tyler knew of the existence of Mia – hence the title of perhaps Aerosmith’s fourth best ballad of the 70’s (fifth if you consider “Dream On” a ballad) – however, was he aware he had begat Liv? At that time wasn’t he penetrating any lubricated core his speedball shrunken member maintained interest in? If Mr. Prindle or perhaps one of his legion of researchers could look into that for me, I would appreciate it. The answer doesn’t seem to be found at allmusic.

yoda87960@comcast.net
In response to the person asking about Steven Tyler and his daughter, I would lean towards no. On page 400 of Please Kill Me, Bebe Buell says "I just pretended that Todd Rundgren was Liv's dad, for years."

Considering Liv herself didn't find out until she was nine (according to wikipedia), I can't imagine Steven Tyler would be hip to it as well.

Then again, Buell says in the next paragraph, "I wanted to marry him, you know?" So basically, I've solved nothing, but to add to this really, really pointless mystery.

Add your thoughts?

Chain Reaction - Tendolar 1996.
Rating = 6

Decent bootleg featuring four aborted tracks from the infamous (?) 1987 Rick Rubin sessions, some b-sides, alternate mixes, outtakes, soundtrack cuts, John Schneider farting into the mic and the band's ill-fated 1990 appearance on Saturday Night Live (the very same episode that featured Phil Hartman's wife shooting and murdering him). A few of the rarities are gone (particularly "Head First"), but the still-on-drugs Rick Rubin sessions are a nightmare (imagine Done With Mirrors with no choruses at all) and most of the B-sides suck the cancerous lesions out of Gilda Radner's decaying corpse. Also, quite frankly, the "1991 remake" of "Sweet Emotion" sounds suspiciously like the original version with a slight bit of knob turning, probably just from the shaking caused by the slapping together of Chris Farley's and John Belushi's fat bloated dead piles of flesh. And that picture of Steven Tyler sticking his tongue out makes it look like he's about to give a rim job to Terry Sweeney's crusty dead poophole.

Did any of the others die yet? Joe Piscopo?

Reader Comments

richbunnell@home.com
Danitra Vance and Michael O'Donoghue are also dead, though they're a little bit more obscure. I doubt that Joe Piscopo will be dying anytime soon; he's in pretty good shape and his triceps could probably block bullets.

foland_ratzl@hotmail.com (Roland Fratzl)
Whaddaya mean that shrunken-cagged roidbag is in good shape?? You could probably take a pin and pop those silicone muscles like balloons!

Add your thoughts?

A Little South Of Sanity - Geffen 1998.
Rating = 7

I'm not really "Mr. Live Album Johnson," but I decided to pick up this new double live CD because I saw a promo copy of it for 5 bucks and thought, "That's in my price range!" And I'm glad I DID pick it up, because it's pretty darn enjoyable. Granted, with the plethora of post-drug teen ballads on here, it might be more appropriately entitled A Little South Of Sanitized (Ha!!! Haaa!!! I made that up!!!!! Ha!!!!), but at least they bothered to pick the most popular tunes off of the newer records, so it's kinda like a modern greatest hits in that regard. Which is to say... if you don't wanna blow a wad of cash on the last three albums, you're better off with this one. Not only does it present modern-day Aeroshit in an edited, positive light but it also includes enough classic tracks like "Mama Kin," "Last Child" and "Same Old Song And Dance" to remind you what you saw in this band in the first place. It's not the greatest thing you'll ever hear (the flaccid rendition of "Back In The Saddle" is disappointing, and there's certainly no reason for worthless throwaways like "Eat The Rich" and "Monkey On My Back" to have made the cut), but once you get past the annoying synth horns, there's a lot of nice melodies to enjoy. Good sound too.

Perhaps the most telling moment on the double-disc set is right at the start of "Back In The Saddle," when Mister Steven Tyler sums up Aerosmith's selling out in a very honest and succinct manner -- "So you like the old stuff?" he asks somebody in the crowd. "Where the hell were you in '79, huh?" See, there's the deal right there. Aerosmith were a PHENOMENAL band in the '70s but after a while, their gritty style of street rock went out of favor, along with their bank accounts. They went broke. In fact, if what I've read is correct (and let me know if it isn't), the chief reason for their comeback was because Geffen forced them to start collaborating with cheeseball songwriters around the time of Permanent Vacation, and especially during Pump and the two albums since. Even Joe Perry has been quoted pretty much admitting that the new stuff is specifically designed for radio success. They no longer record songs that move them spiritually. They record songs that they hope will appeal to teenage girls. That's how they make their living now. And more power to them, I suppose.... Judging from Done With Mirrors, they're probably not capable of making a wholly satisfying rock record anymore anyway.

Reader Comments

j_smith@hotmail.com (Joe)
"and let me know if it isn't," it isn't prindle. First off, so you know, i pretty much think new music SUCKS so don'get mistaken, aerosmith RULES, all of their stuff, and i don't know where the hell you got this, but based on INTERVIEWS WITH THE BAND i've gathered this. they don't manufacture soleless albums, tyler and PERRY think what they're doing now is better than the old stuff. It has been admitted that a few of the songs on permanent vacation were manufactured as hits (i'm not sure which ones but i know angel isn't one of them) and they said that they did make get a grip a little too commercial, but what you said is wrong! (also, they always atributed their success to their clean up, and pump and nine lives deffenately not just made to sell albums, remember, i gathered this from INTERVIEWS so up yours!

p.s. (On a note totally unrelated to aerosmith, you'r quote "This is you'r brain on drugs" on the floyd page is misguided, only Sid's music was at all influenced by the drugs, I know this had nothing to do with aerosmith but I wanted to correct all you're mistakes in one entry)

stoo@Imsa.edu (John McFerrin)
I've yet to buy any Aerosmith, but this has to do with the only "Syd's music was druggy" comment

Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Listen to the title track on ASOS. You telling me that doesn't have drug influences in it? Can't you _hear_ the heroin withdrawl in that song? Same goes for Echoes, anything off of Ummagumma, and of course Shine on You Crazy Diamond is generally regarded as one of the greatest LSD tripping songs ever (ok, I've never actually used drugs, I just know of people who have and say that WYWH is a great drug album).

j_smith_@hotmail.com
the only comment about only sids music beign drug influenced came from david gilmore! O.K., he didn't say the other stuff wasn't at all influenced by drugs but he said it pretty much came from what they came up with when not on drugs, and only sid dropped acid REGULARLY. They never wrote or recorded on drugs and never preformed on more than maybe one joint. This isn't missinformation becouse it came from an interview with dave gilmore I HEARD MYSELF.

ClashWho@aol.com (Tim Eimiller)
Forget that other guy, you ARE right, Mr. Mark Prindle. All that bozo has to do is look up the writing credits on Permanent Vacation, Pump and so on. Many of the songs were co-written with tunesmith Desmond Childe. What, you think Steve and the boys called up that dude with no provocation? "Hey, wanna help make our songs hits?" No way. Going the song-doctoring route is the biggest reason Aerosmith has lost a lot of my respect (not that they would, or should, care). They wrote some great stuff in the seventies with no help. Resorting to song-doctoring violates the integrity of the band, in my opinion.

Nick.Walford@nettec.net
so david GILMOUR (learn to spell, nimrod) claimed not to take drugs, and you believed him? that just goes to show how dumb you are. they were all on drugs, it's incredibly obvious, and even more so when you listen to Floyd whilst high/tripping/whatever. SYD (learn to spell, numbnuts) was just much more of a dedicated acid-head than the rest of them, that's all, that's why after he died they did less of the bizarre sonic experiment type stuff and started writing songs. well, mostly. well, sometimes. whatever.

I'm kent brockman, that's my two cents'.

JohnnyB8@aol.com
Steven Tyler is sooo old. He should stop kidding himself and quit rock and roll. Really Steve, give it a break. As most of you can guess, i am a younger person, but i do respect older music. The Who and the Beatles are my favorite bands. I also like the Association and the Cyrkle (which John Lennon named and Brian Epstien managed). I do like "Dream On" and "I Don't Want To Miss a Thing". And "Dude Looks Like a Lady" and "Walk This Way" are good tunes too, but other than that Aerosmith was just a flop. I give ALL of their albums a 4/10. They weren't really that good.

porterl@rba.gov.au (Luke Porter)
Nick - Syd Barrett is not dead (yet - as of early 2004) - he was kicked out of Floyd because he basically couldn't function due to too much acid.

As for Aerosmith in recent years... indeed - as soon as you 'need' song doctors to come in and help you, you are purely doing it for the moula and you are no different than the latest winner of American Idol (or Aussie Idol cos I'm in oz) - cept maybe you HAD some talent. For a second example see Van Halen - the desire for a song doctor was why Sammy Hagar originally left/was pushed - cos he didn't want them and Eddie did.

tplotkin@rms-law.com
I believe the reason Aerosmith wound up handing over their songwriting to hacks is actually forgivable, if the rumor is true: when they were a fledgling band, they were signed by the same management team who handled the NY Dolls, and who took a hellacious percentage while mismanaging them wildly. The management contract was hugely disadvantageous. I think one of its terms was managements ownership of half their publishing rights, and while the band eventually broke the contract, they couldn’t get this term voided. Rather than continue to get make these guys rich by writing songs, Aerosmith just stopped.

Add your thoughts?

Just Push Play – Columbia 2001.
Rating = 4

Every time a new Aerosmith album comes out (and the same goes for the Rolling Stones), the band members go on and on in the press about how they were unhappy with the previous (commercially unsuccessful) record because the record companies were forcing them to do certain things and the record didn't really represent what the band wanted to do, etc etc etc shut the fuck up. So Joe and Steve are doing it again. Talking about how there were too many outside writers and producers involved with Get A Grip and Nine Lives (both perfectly enjoyable records – better than this one), and now they're getting back to controlling their work. Playing as a band – jamming! Like in the old days! Rekindling the old flames! Bullshit. It's nonsense. This album is a bunch of generic "trying-really-hard-to-be-a-hit-single" songs buried in clichéd techno-style studio tricks (distorted hip hop beats, echoey ring modulation, psychedelic phasing, fuzzed out vocals). Half of it sounds like they're trying to rip off Kid Rock and the other half tries desperately to give the kids a Celine Dion fuckhead ballad every bit as dull as the smash shit "I Don't Want To Miss The Grammies."

So that's the bitching moaning complaining portion of the review. Now let me pat Aerosmith on the back for coming up with a nice handful of wonderfully melodic, singalongable pop rock radio fare that make a fine addition to their cannonball – "Beyond Beautiful," "Jaded," "Sunshine," "Avant Garden" and "Light Inside" – these are great pop songs! If only they had issued a five-song EP instead of a 12-song pukefeast, I'd be screaming about how terrific they still are. Instead, I just have to recommend that everybody keep their "skip track" button close and handy. Youses're gonna have to be needing tits!

And no, the silly studio effects do not in any way ruin the record. It's the songs themselves that really aren't that good at all. A quarter of them, as a matter of fact, are among the worst songs I've ever heard by any band ("Fly Away From Here," "Under My Skin," "Luv Lives," "Outta Your Head" – AWFUL!!!). But heck - nobody really expected the record to be any good anyway, so a pathetic, pathetic 4 comes as "No Surprize." Surely even Pump fans can't like THIS album, can they?

Reader Comments

blppt@hotmail.com (Pat D.)
Damn i wish i could rant as coherently as that. Right on the money again, Mark. I had the unfortunate displeasure of hearing this pile o crap in my sister's car on the way down to Baltimore. Yuck. I feel sorry for Joe Perry. He cant seriously enjoy playing the sappy, schlocky ballads that Tyler comes up with. Can he? Please tell me its not true!!! (cries)

foland_ratzl@hotmail.com (Roland Fratzl)
Just push skip.

jeffm007@hotmail.com (Jeff Melchoir)
I haven't heard this album in its entirety yet, and if the sampling I got at a local HMV listening station is any indication, I'm not sure I wanna. I could not believe the CRAP I was hearing coming out of those headphones. There are no riffs - just heavily-distorted chords playing over a hip-hop beat. It's a shame, because Nine Lives was a really, really good album - the closest Aerosmith has come to their '70s glory days in the comeback era. I loved that album so much, in fact, that I could not quite bring myself to believe that this is as bad as it is. "Just buy it and it'll grow on you," I thought. Thankfully, I realized after reading your review that what I heard was not just my imagination. Thanks Prindle, I guess I owe you a Coke.

On the positive side, I guess "Jaded" is a nice enough little song, but it's certainly no screamin' hella great as James Hetfield might say because he's a moron. Otherwise, Joe Perry as we knew him in the '70s left the building a long time ago. He's perfectly content to roll around in the money that every sappy Stevie Tyler ballad (or rocker, for that matter) will inevitably make him. That, of course, is assuming he doesn't have a lot to do with them himself.

express@UDel.Edu (Jonathan Schneider)
I personally like the album. I agree that "Beyond Beautiful," "Jaded," "Sunshine" and "Avant Garden" are good, but I personally like the title track and "luv lies" as well (other than luv lies' wretched beginning). "Light Inside" seems truly awful to me.

"Outta Your Head" is truly horrendous, I'll grant you that. "Under My Skin" has a good riff, but gets drowned in strings and weird shit. Why so many songs have strings on them I'll never know.

I guess my biggest disagreement is over the conclusions we've reached. Yeah, there're some great songs on the album, some mediocre, and some lousy. How is this different from any other album they've done? In the seventies, for every "Walk this Way" there was a "You See Me Crying." For every "Last Child" there was a "Sick as a Dog" (if the word "please" came up one more time on that tune I would have blown out my speakers). When they hit, they're one of the greatest there ever were. When they miss, it wasn't pretty then and it ain't pretty now.

joeypimp@prodigy.net
Hey! Why are you doggin' on Aerosmith? I bet you couldn't do as good as they have. What are you talking about," And they blow." That's a bunch of bull; they are one of the best bands out there. Just cause they are starting to wear down you gotta start talking crap about them. They've lasted for what like 20some years; they isn't too many other bands that last that long, and still put out a few good songs.

At least they are making music! If you're gonna spend this much time talkin' about a band you should at least like the band.

beckys@apex.net
I've always loved Aerosmith but this one- Well, I guess it's the worst I've ever heard out of them. "Jaded" & "Fly Away" are the only desent songs. I could have saved my$16.00 and taped those songs off the radio. No, wait-those songs aren't even worthy of tapeing. Hopefully next lp will be better. They have had some great ones and I still think they have greatness in them. I am planning to see them live because I know they'll put on a good show. But trust me,save your money on this lp.

ian.moss@yale.edu (Ian Moss)
Bucking the trend as always, I like this album quite a bit. It's not as good as Get a Grip, or Permanent Vacation, but there are loads of solid, harmless pop songs that will ooze over you and surround you in oodles of soupy Aerosmith goodness. The first half is undeniably better than the second, and indeed I am hard-pressed to slap a quality label upon such fare as "Drop Dead Gorgeous" and "Light Inside"...but if you sit back and just listen, as opposed to judging all the time, it's not bad at all. That's it--this album is great background music! Every time I listen on headphones or really closely, I find myself not liking it as much, but when I have it blaring as I make myself some Kraft macaroni & cheese in the kitchen---mmm!!! An aural and gustatory treat.

I can't believe, though, that no one has mentioned what is far and away my favorite song on the album: "Trip Hoppin'"! This is the only one that's too good to be listened to in the background. Catchy and musically interesting at the same time! I like the lyrics too, 'cause they're about hippies. My parents were hippies! Yay hippies.

Icehockey351@aol.com
To say that you have no taste in music whatsoever is an understatement. Sure, I enjoy Aerosmith's old songs as well; but this album serves to verify that the "bad boys from Boston" are still rocking as hard as ever. Just Push Play is a truly great record; perhaps the best Steven Tyler and Co. have done since Pump. It may not make anyone forget Toys in the Attic, but it's very clear in my mind that your thoughts on this newest album simply have no basis in fact.

The record starts off on a high note with "Beyond Beautiful," which has a masterful introduction, along with great riffs and the typically sex-obsessed Steven Tyler lyrics. There's also the contagious single, "Jaded," which has some very original guitar riffs which keep the song going strong. You don't seem to like any of Aerosmith's ballads, but it's quite clear that "Fly Away From Here" is a great, engaging song. Then there is the exciting, fast-paced "Trip Hoppin'," along with solid, powerful ballads like "Sunshine," and "Luv Lies." You disliked "Under My Skin," but it seems to me to be another good contribution; I like the riffs. "Outta Your Head" and Drop Dead Gorgeous" don't quite match the standards of some of the album's earlier material, but are still better than what a lot of bands could put out.

The highlight of the record, though, is the hard-rocking title track. It's one of my favorite Aerosmith songs, in fact, and one I listen to quite frequently. The riffs are great, especially at the very beginning and very end of the song, as are the lyrics. "We're going...We're going...She gave you a flower...The one that God gave her." "Just Push Play...FNA...Just Push Play...We're gonna bleep it anyway...Just Push Play...FNA...We're coming at you anyway." It's a truly great song.

And, seeing as how you dislike Pump and claim that its guitar riffs are boring, I ask you to look no further than "Love in an Elevator." It's nearly the perfect song; and I can't imagine how anyone can consider Joe Perry's riffs "boring." They are some of the best I've ever heard. And you know what? Get A Grip is a good album as well; especially the title track and "Cryin'." It's just like I said at the beginning of this review: You have absolutely no taste for music at all.

DinoSergakis@aol.com
I agree with Roland Fratzl. I mean you finally made a No.1 hit with Don't Want To Miss A Thing(I think thats what it's called). It sucked and it hit No.1 because chicks think it's a love song. To me it ios a song how someone is dying and they are gonna miss everything. So Just Push Play was to fucking gay(hey thats a rhyme I should do it all the time). And the thing that really killed me was, what the hell are you doing with that boy band, that chick, and those rapper(who aren't RUN-DMC). I mean if you are gonna play the Super Bowl, please with RUN-DMC. That is why Walk This Way is such a classic, it was done with a classic rap group RUN-DMC. Now on with the album, they sold out, theyr'e old farts, got no smarts, to play with a bunch a fags, a tramp, and a buch of rappers(so that is the problem now with Aerosmith).

Yeah and what the fuck is Dodge thinking sposoring Aerosmith. I mean he made a mochery of himself and the band, at the Indianapolis 500, changing the lyrics of The Star Spangled Banner(a true American classic) and changed it from "Land of the free, to the home of the brave." And the new lyrics this pitiful bastard Steven Tyler(who by the way is the ugliest guy in music)to "The land of the free, and the home of The Indianapolis 500." So fuck Aerosmith because what they did isn't as worse than the band slipknot.

becsmith@mediaone.net (Brandon K. Thorp)
Hello, folks.

Now, I've been fan of this page for several years (love what you've done with the place, Rich, and I do hope college is agreeing with you. English major, is it?), and I've never once written in. "Oh, I've got BETTER things to do with my time," I've told myself, "They don't need MY input."

Tonight, how'ere, I feel way deep down in my bones that some of the shite that appears on these pages absolutely needs to be addressed. The reader comment from DinoSergakis was the final straw. I'm writin' in, baby.

I mean, sucks syntax, right Sagarkis? If you can't form a complete sentence with moderately good grammar and moderately good spelling, you've got no bloody business stating your opinion in a public forum. Put a little effort into the thing, if you want to be taken seriously. Jesus. I mean, Ben Greenstein is no Robert Christgau, but at least he and guys like him take the time to deliberately and lucidly express their thoughts on the issues at hand, be it Aerosmith's shitty last album or "Train In Vain" or "In The Evening." Or "Late In The Evening," for that matter. Amanda Kenyon, why have you not reviewed Simon's solo Central Park album? It's awesome. Check it out. Great rearrangement of many, many songs, although they do sort of ruin "The Boxer." Much better on the 2000 Parisian DVD, with Paul harmonizing beautifully with the audience.

But enough about Paul. This is an Aerosmith page, and let me ask all of you: Why does Steve's voice suck so so so terribly on this album? You hear him reaching for the high notes during the bridge of "Avant Garden?" I mean, he hits em', sure, but it sounds like it's really really hurting. And it doesn't have to be that way! I saw two of their shows from the Just Push Play tours (one at Mars Music Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach, on September 23rd, and one in Tampa at the Ice Palace, on November 27th), and at the last show, especially, his voice was stronger than I've ever heard. I'm a college student, majoring in music performance, and my guest at this show was a voice major named Emily Biondi. The whole way back to campus, all she could say was "I can't believe he still has a voice! I can't believe he can sing like that! How old is he again?" The man's a freak, I tell ya. So how come the vox on this album are so sub-par?

But it ain't so bad, really. "Just Push Play," the song, is rather cool, as are a handful of other tracks (including "Avant Garden," though the lyrics are pretty abysmal. Not as bad as "Fly Away From Here," though!). Yet nothing on here is as well developed as even the most mediocre tracks on _Nine Lives_ (perhaps their finest album). Remember "Ain't That A Bitch?" Listen to it again. It's brilliant! A perfect pop-song, along with "Kiss Your Past Goodbye." And "The Farm!" Wow! Best use of 12-step terminology on a rock record yet. I got terminal uniqueness! I'm an egocentric mess! I get caught up in my freakness! I am the living dead! YES! Now we get "Sunshine." Pleasant? Yes. Does nothing for me, though. Does it do anything for you? What? Why?

Furthermore, Prindle, you're kind of fucked in the head, you know it? You gave Yes's _The Ladder_ an eight. How can you just sit there and enjoy music this pretentious? Jon Anderson actually feels that he is more enlightened than you and I, and feels he has something valuable to say. And you contribute to this man's wealth! The man is stupid. He's a horrendous lyricist ("Without Hope You Cannot Start The Day?!" "TIME AND A WORD?!?!?!" Anything after _Drama_?), and he can't tell the difference between a hokey funny melody and a genuinely moving melody. Furthermore, this is the band that did "South Side of The Sky," perhaps the worst song ever written (aside from anything by the Velvet Underground, whose frontman Lou Reed has no qualms with rhyming the word "head" with "head," or claiming in interviews supporting his recent solo release, _Ecstasy_, that he's never once done drugs. Sure, Lou). How can anything of their's deserve an eight?

Oh, except that triple live album. That's pretty good!

And, Prindle, you promised us Page & Plant reviews way the hell back in the beginning of 2000, and they still haven't shown up. Where's the nunfucking Page & Plant reviews? And have you noticed how much Robert Plant's voice sucks just lately? Note that when I say "lately," I mean 1976 to the present. Although, come to fink of it, his one song on the new Afro-Celt Soundsystem album is surprisingly decent. Have you heard Afro-Celt? Will you be reviewing them? I think you'd better!

What was I going to say?

Oh, right. Why so down on King Crimson? Do you own _Absent Lovers_? Buy it now. And have you heard any of Adrian Belew's solo stuff? Review it! You like guitar noise, and Adrian's far more consistently innovative in that arena than, oh, say, Sonic Youth.

Don't buy his 90's albums, though. Not so hot. But _Twang Bar King_, and that one with the rhino on the cover - brilliant! Like the Thinking Fellers, crossed with The Beatles, with a little David Byrne and a little Peter Gabriel tossed in. Bizarre, but great.

Christ, this has nothing to do with Aerosmith. But speaking thereof, there's a great bootleg floating around of a demo from _Pump_ called "Sudona Sunrise." Easily one of their best post-heroin songs. Don't know why it didn't make the album. Do any of you know where more cool stuff along these lines might be found/traded/purchased?

And lastly, Prindle, no one has commented on your _Who's Next_ review in many moons. But on that topic, I feel, personally, that an eight is way, way, way too high. Meaningless word-painting lyrics, three-chord riffs, cliche'd melodies and repetetive primitive synth noises do not a decent album make. The only good thing The Who ever did was Quadrophenia, and that was only good by the slimmest of margins. You're pretty much right on in your review of that one.

Ever heard of a band called "Of Montreal?" They've only been around a year or two, and I'm not sure where to find their albums, but their sound is utterly new. I can't spot a single bloody influence, save maybe a little bit of Paul McCartney, circa 1966. Truly original. Check 'em out.

That's it. I've got more to bitch about, but really, how many people would suffer through another paragraph? Not me, certainly. But thanks, Mark, Rich, Amanda, for filling up lots of my empty hours, and creating such a great forum in which to use dirty language. And, Fratzl, stop being so fucking generous. Good music is the exception, not the rule.

GJW0721@aol.com (Glenn Wiener)
I'll play this CD. Not as riff infested as during the early days, but the guys are dabbling into pop in their later years. Maybe not outstanding but certainly pretty darn good in spite of the excessive reliance on strings and horns.

Arbore1952@aol.com
Steve Tyler and I share the same Aunt and Uncle. I have pictures of Steve when he was about 4 or 5 years old. Beautiful looking boy with blond hair and a big, big smile. Looks much like his mother. A very beautiful woman. My Aunt has stories of Steven. He was a terror, even at a young age. Very, very active child, who could tear up a house in a minute. Growing up, I was closer to Steve's cousin, August (Augie), who was Steven's best man at his wedding. Just want his fans to know that Steve came from a very beautiful, classical Italian family. We are very proud of him and love him very much. God Bless you Steven!

hatter99@email.com
I believe that Bauhaus's Press The Eject And Give Me The Tape provides the best example of antithesis here, and sums up how I feel about Aerosmith now.

The fact that they still exist to this point, I find, is sad. They clearly don't understand the value of quitting while they're ahead.

pedroandino@msn.com
maybe you should shut the fuck up brandon suck my cock fag!

(one month later)

EAT COCK, YA' FUCKING FAGGOT!!!!!! WAIT! 2001? AW CRAP! NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! whew! (deep breath for 5 minutes) okay. what is the synthesized, coporate, mcdonalds produced, digital edited, computerized, cocksucking, PIECE OF SHIT IN THIS CATALOG?????????!?!?!?!?!?

SEE!!! SEE!!! SEE!!! SEE!!! SEE!!! SEE!!! SEE!!! SEE!!! SEE!!! SEE!!! SEE!!! SEE!!! THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE COCKSUCKING, MCDONALDS PRODUCED, HYENA SHIT WILL BE SHOVED IN OUR FACES!!!! SEE!! SEE!!! SEE!!!! SORRY TO TEAR YOUR HEAD OFF BUT WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU COMBINE NSTYNK, 2 FAGGOT NIGGERS, A SLUT WHO FUCK GAY GUYS, AND YOU GOT A RECIPE THAT MAKES ME YEARN FOR THE STUPID AND RETARDED KISS ALBUM I ALREADY TRASHED!, THE FUCKING SUPERBOWL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BUT I HAVE THE UNCONTROLLABEL SILLINESS THAT REMINDS WHEN I GET MAD! LOTO! LOTO! LOTO! LOTO! LOTO! LOTO! LOTO! LOTO! LOTO! LOTERIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHEW! I GET STUPID WHEN I GET MAD! REALLY! DID DRANK 5 BEERS! VAS KAYOOSA WE BERA! EEEMA KEE WA YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! sorry I was wasted! the album sucks! I am way too lazy to do this! a 1.

orlandodude
My thoughts on this as a life-long Aerosmith fan: Bought the CD at Best Buy the day it came out, listened, projectile vomited, passed out...

Woke up, had the choice of hearing this CD again or licking vomit off of various things, chose the later.

Especially in light of the Diane Warren abomination, this is among the worst albums that a major rock group has released. Forget the "They should go back on drugs" debate. These guys need to pull their cocks out of their ears, so they can hear again. Even when they were stoned, they could at least approximate a rock band. This album is a steaming pile of shit that only the deaf could appreciate.

By the way, as I write this, it's been 10 years since this slice of dung was released and they've done nothing since but release a covers album and bitch at each other. Sounds like they're done, despite recent rumors of a new "kick-ass" album. My guess is that if they actually do a new album, it will suck gigantic balls. But I'll probably buy it.

Add your thoughts?

Honkin' On Bobo - Columbia 2004
Rating = 5

IMPORTANT NOTICE: I HAD BLACKED OUT FROM EXCESSIVE VODKA INTAKE BY THE TIME I SAT DOWN TO WRITE THIS REVIEW. I THEN FORGOT TO REVIEW AND EDIT IT BEFORE POSTING IT A WEEK LATER. SHORTLY AFTER POSTING, I RECEIVED TWO EXTREMELY ANGRY EMAIL RESPONSES, SO I THOUGHT I SHOULD SEE WHAT I ACTUALLY WROTE. AND GUESS WHAT? IT'S PRETTY BAD! IN FACT, IT GOES SO FAR BEYOND "PRETTY BAD" THAT I'VE DECIDED TO JUST KEEP IT HERE. BUT DO UNDERSTAND THAT I WAS BLACKED OUT WHEN I WROTE THIS -- AND I HONESTLY, AT THAT TIME, APPARENTLY THOUGHT ALL THE "FAG" JOKES WERE UPROARIOUS. I COME ACROSS AS COMPLETELY HOMOPHOBIC, BUT SINCE I'M NOT ACTUALLY HOMOPHOBIC, I HAVE TO GUESS THAT I HAS TRYING TO PISS OFF BLUES FANS. AS SUCH, PLEASE DON'T TAKE ANY OF IT SERIOUSLY!!!! THANK YOU!

Do you like the electric blues? You do? Then congratulations on being totally gay! Aerosmith likes the electric blues too. In fact, this whole fucking album is comprised of electric blues covers (aside from one blues-ballad original). But I tell you what, as much of a faggot as you are for liking electric blues (and believe me, you would LOVE a penis up your anus if you like Chicago-style electric blues - they're nearly identical experiences!), then you will go horsewild over Suckin' On Dildo by AeroSHIT. They play the hell out of these songs. They put EVERYTHING they have into them, including Joe Perry singing two tracks lead, hurdy-gurdy, acoustic, slide, pump organs, one of Steven Tyler's daughters and Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham's ex-wife Tracy and pianoand horns and Wurlitzer electric piano. The problem is that an all-covers album is only as good as its material, and twelve different 12-bar blues songs is shitty material. Hey - DON'T rewrite history -- Aerosmith was NEVER a blues band. The Stones were; Aerosmith was not. Their few attempts at true blues ("Reefer Head Woman," "Train Kept A-Rollin'") were WORSE than shitty. But I tell you what - as medicore a release as I personally find this to be (if you like electric blues and are thus gay, you'll probably like it a lot -- they do a fucking GREAT job with these boring songs!), this is still the first time in literally TWO DECADES that Aerosmith has done exactly what they wanted without worrying about whether they have a hit or not. This is a beautiful, wonderful development. Could a good album of originals be far behind? I'm hoping not. God, I'm hoping not. Surely they can come up with some kickass originals without having to bring in outside writers who cornball everything up.

But you want to know what's on it. Well, it has "Baby Please Don't Go" in a version that rivals AC/DC's, it has "You Gotta Move" in an electric version that therefore doesn't compete with the Stones' version, and it has "Eyesight To The Blind" in a dull shitass version that makes me want to listen to Tommy, then it has a bunch of stuff I've never heard by the likes of R. Fisher/K. Hopkins, R. Shannon, J.M. Cohen/W. Jacobs and all kinds of most likely African-American men. I VERY MUCH APPLAUD AEROSMITH FOR RELEASING THIS CD. I WILL PROBABLY NEVER LISTEN TO IT AGAIN, BUT THANK YOU, THE BIGGEST SELLOUTS IN THE HISTORY OF MUSIC, FOR FINALLY ONCE AGAIN RELEASING AN ALBUM THAT ISN'T A COMPLETE SELLOUT.

And don't forget, all you electric blues fans, you will likely raise the grade to a 7 or 8 as you take yet another hard male cock up your sweet lubricated ass. Because you're GAY!!!!

Also - you know all those American soldiers in Iraq? They're ALL FAGS!!!!!

Also, have you seen The Passion Of The Christ - I think it makes it pretty clear that Jesus Christ TOOK IT UP THE ASS!!!!

Also, George W. Bush is a real asshole.

Reader Comments

dr_faustus@earthlink.net (Steven Fouts)
Jesus Christ, Prindle, have you EVER listened to Muddy Waters? How about John Lee Hooker? Both recorded acoustic blues in addition to electric, but you probably hate that as well. In any event, I find Hooker to be a fascinating bluesman, alone, with a band, electric, acoustic, whatever. I endorse IT SERVES YOU RIGHT TO SUFFER (it does, and it will) as Hooker's best LP. Yes, it's electric blues. No, I'm not gay. But what if I were?

The Aerosmith blues LP is actually better than Clapton's Robert Johnson album. They seem to be having more fun.

I'm not crazy about the House of Bush either, but here are our 10 Greatest Presidents (McCain in 2000 might have been the best thing to happen to the GOP in eons; they were just too stupid to realize it.)

1) Abraham Lincoln
2) George Washington
3) Franklin D Roosevelt
4) Theodore Roosevelt
5) Thomas Jefferson
6) Harry S Truman
7) Dwight D Eisenhower
8) Ronald Reagan
9) Woodrow Wilson
10)Andrew Jackson

RingofFire112001@aol.com
Dude, fuck you with that Jesus comment. iIrespect your style of writing, the stream of consciousness torrets syndrome thing, but you can edit the shit and you shouldn't cross that line. Not to be p.c. but that is needlessly disrespectful about something that is obviously more than important to many and apparently meaningless to you. This comment goes well beyond the tolerable "(christians are) judgemental pricks", or whatever, quote from your Tournaquet review on the zine page. That maybe had a semblance of humor. What's clever about this? It shouldn't surprise me since you think Crass' pathetic recording "reality asylum" is "awesome". That painfully straight faced, offensive for offensive sake, and plain fucking annoying putdown is symptomatic of why Crass (save "do they owe us a living") sucked major ass and DK, usually reasonably agreeable in tone due to Biafra and company's wit, did not, even as I can't think of an issue besides MTV getting off the air and some stuff about jocks that I agreed with them on. Regarding GWB, I would just summarize my feelings with a quote from the greatest living rock guitarist/most reasonable person in rock n' roll with regard to politics, Johnny Ramone, from his brilliant R'N'R hall of fame induction speech (his entire speech actually, as he is quite unlke the verbose drunken Eddie Vedder was that night or the drunken me is tonight): "God bless George W. Bush and God bless America". And, p.s., I dare you to write the same comment that wrote here about the prophet Mohamed... just try to be more clever if you accept.

nator9999@comcast.net> (Nathan)
In response to an earlier post on here...how can you put Teddy Rossevelt as the 3rd greatest president? The man was verifiably insane. Not to mention he was a racist, jingoist, and social darwinist. You want proof? Some of his quotes during his presidency are simply horrifying:

"I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth."

"This country needs a war."

"Our generals...had to grapple with public sentiment which screamed with anguish over the loss of a couple of thousand men...a sentiment of preposterous and unreasoning mawkishness." (Roosevelt commenting on The Spanish American War)

Yup, he's a psycho. Oh, and don't even get me started on Woodrow Wilson (used to be a member of the KKK). the point is, before you come up with lists like that, I think you should do some real research. Oh, and much thanks to Richard Hofstadter, the historian I ripped the quotes from.

Well I guess that's all for today's history lesson, lets review this album now! So... it's Aerosmith doing a bunch of blues covers. How good can it possibly be? I give it a solid 4!

robotica@rocketmail.com (Adam)
Hahaha! MORE BLACKOUT REVIEWS! Even though it wasn't really THAT funny (so many fag jokes, what are you, Vice Magazine?), but it is funny because you are blacked out, it's a good schtick.

Rojasandres6@aol.com
Damn Prindle! You really were funny in this one. I don't think that listening to Aerosimith is gay (Well, a little bit) . Anyway, the really gay shit is Linkin Park. No THAT is gay. I heard a couple of songs of this albums. They sound emmm less than ok. I couldn't say who was the best president ever but I know who is the worst. 2nd place, Nixon and 1st place, BUSH!!!

Fltrgrl@aol.com (Marilyn Maki, NYC)
Now you've done it! I'm hooked. I couldn't read all of the reviews (I'm legally blind already and that would have secured a nice big doggie to walk me around) but I sampled the page. I like Aerosmith. But I do actually like the old ones best. I bought a videotape of theirs "Texas Jam"a live stadium show from the 70's. It rocks. They're high as kites and I get off on the sexual tension between Steven and Joe! hee hee.

l0k1@free.fr (Loki Harfagr)
OK,

I gotta pack a few albums in there, then why not by commenting on this one.

Globally the facts are :

Aerosmith made 4 albums, then had some trouble having choices on the colors of their Bentlees or other revitalizing such ... It happened though some lost miracles took place in some sturdy glooms like "Done with mirrors" but hell is still frozen in "Giddidrip" or "Honking on teenagers".

Going on this way they'll end up the story in some trash tv set. Not surprising enough though, as their main supposed influence did show the way long ago.

Like you say :
> Aerosmith was NEVER a blues band. The Stones were;

Aerosmith was to be a rock band, slipped off the hill, like the stunned did long long time ago, yawn, last album of TRS to hold a miracle was inspiredly named "exile on ..." (kiddies, fill the numbers to have the complete name) Then "Rocks" was to be the last rock album Aerosmith chiseled, though they sold a lot of beer bock napperons thereafter :D)

MetalloSoran@aol.com
I'd just like to say FUCK YOU UP YOUR SMELLY ASS to that faggot fuck talking smack about Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt was awesome, are you aware he had a radical mustache and would occasionally don an incredibly badass monocle? I bet you weren't Mr. Armchairhistorianblackcocksuckingqueer. Teddy bears were also named after Teddy Roosevelt. Are you saying you hate Teddy bears? Are you saying you HATE CHILDREN? AND AMERICA?? Well Mr. OsamaBinLayin'aLotofGayDudes, you can take that shit to French Canadia. BULL MOOSE PARTY FOREVER! R.I.P TO THE O.D.B!

dr_faustus@earthlink.net (Steven Fouts)
Nator9999 - Yes, I should do some "real research" before compiling my next list. Sorry about the fact you were neutered. BTW- I have a degree in American history.

CraigPorubsky@TitleSourceInc.com
Geez, reading these Aerosmith reviews, one would actually believe they were America's answer to the Stones, at least unless you knew better. Aerosmith never had the talent required for the accolade, nor do they have the tunes. Their "classic" material is sort of listenable radio mainstay, not horrible, but certainly not of Stones caliber. Some of their more recent material is particularly bad. I consider any number of mainstream or underground entertainers far more worthy of space on this site than Aerosmith, but then again these are all just opinions and you can't always get what you want.

fidelsjuarezg@hotmail.com
Best review ever!

ObieJPinkenstein@aol.com
I am going to have to agree with lweitzel@concetric.net (Larry Weitzel). Aerosmith is a wonderful Rock band and always has been and always will be and if you can't see that then you have very bad taste in music. I would like to see you have half the success that they have had and if everyone felt the way you do about their music then they wouldn't be this big would they, you're outnumbered by Aerosmith fans. But I respect your opinion and I am not trying to change merely trying to state mine.

ddickson@rice.edu
Say! The three quotes by Nathan intrigued me. Actually, I happen to have read up a bit about frontier America by chance in the last three months, and I've come to delve a bit into the genocidal freak hatred a lot of famous white men held for the Indians. The simple fact was, with or without government permission, settlers squatted on Indian land without permission throughout our history, and some of the tribes (though by no means all), having heard the stories of what the white man did to the Atlantic coast tribes when they first got here, had (reprehensibly, but understandably) semi-official policies of complete extermination of any white man (or woman or child) seen on their territory. Particularly the tribes in Kentucky and Tennessee in the late 1700's, the Creek Indians of the ealy 19th century, and a few in the mountain states in the 1830's and '40's. So settlers come in for the land (or gold, or oil, or whatever), some violence erupts here and there, government uses that as excuse to break up the treaty, etc. Pretty soon, they weren't even waiting for the violence. I mean, Americans WERE the real assholes in the conflict, but some tribes (and I mean some) weren't exactly blameless. Some of the ways the tribes in Kentucky put settlers to death would make even a Nazi puke. Then again, I read it in the book From Sea to Shining Sea, written by a couple of evangelical fanatics. Maybe they lied??? Maybe the Indians DIDN'T really kill those Kentucky settlers. Maybe they fileted THEMSELVES. Who knows.

So Teddy Roosevelt is by no means unique in that mindset amongst Americans of the time. Heck, you could say we were ALL psychos back then. Most of us, anyway.

"This country needs a war". . . well, that DOES sound asinine. I'll have to admit that. At the time, though, we were virtually defenseless. Had any European country chosen that time to attack us by sea, even giving four months' warning, they would have kicked our sorry asses. I'll forgive him that one.

That last quote I don't even need to forgive. Sorry, but I think it's as true in modern times as it was back then. Hell, most of those men in 1899 died of yellow fever, not in battle.

Yeah, I know. If I'm so eager to kill babies and steal oil, I should grab a gun myself and march off to war. See what it's really like, you rich white imperialist bastard, etc. I'm stepping over the line here, I know. I apologize. Somebody shut me up!

Actually, Teddy was as independent a politician as they come, and he stabbed Big Business in the back, even ruining his party over the issue. No Social Darwinist in an economic sense, this guy. At least in a macroeconomic sense. Microeconomic, maybe, I dunno. I'll have to do more research on his social welfare attitude.

Also, Robert Byrd was in the KKK, too, but he's a liberal icon nowadays. The fuck??

The main thing is this: Making a list of the ten greatest presidents is kinda like making a list of the ten greatest albums. Inevitably, people usually put the most INFLUENTIAL, not necessarily the best. Teddy, while he had many views that would be odious to us today, was a bonafide pioneer in his time. So it makes sense to put 'im there, in a "most influential" sense. For example, Straight Outta Compton is influential, too, but that's a TERRIBLE album. Come to think of it, THEY'RE racists, jingoists, and Social Darwinists, too.

But I'd put Grover Cleveland on that list, too (fuck Reagan). And if we included the accomplishments of the presidents OUTSIDE the office, believe it or not, Herbert Hoover and John Quincy Adams would be on there, too. Well, maybe not Hoover. His performance IN office kinda tarnishes the rest of his legacy. But WHAT a rest of his legacy!!

Oh, and I've never heard this album. Hell, the title SOUNDS sucky.

(the next day)

Oh, I just read the flame by Steven. Don't take too much offense at Nathan's comment there, Steve--one has to get used to people questioning one's intelligence/manhood/right-to-exist-in-this-universe on a site like this, no matter how smart one is. Hell hath no fury like a rock fan and/or political junkie unintentionally scorned. :)

Not that that was your intention, of course, Nathan. I'm just saying.

jenny.randy@sympatico.ca (Randy)
I didn't mind the attempt to re-visit some Blues stuff, but why couldn't the boys have found some better material? "The Grind" was worth a re-play or two, but the rest just didn't do it for me.

sacicc@yahoo.com (L. Stephen Kelly)
Mark:

Putting aside remarks that established one's eligibility for the local funny farm, you completely missed the mark on this 2004 release as well. You mentioned various terms you'd use toward people who listened to electric blues. I have a different definition:

"Anyone who ever, at any time in their life, listened to rock music, and liked it."

Just what do you think rock music is? It IS electric blues, silly.

You mentioned in the review you would probably never listen to "Honkin' on Bobo" again. You should. They took music that was in some cases written nearly a century ago, and made it sound fresh again. Besides, any Aerosmith album recorded with Desmond Child not allowed within a thousand miles of their studio is worth another chance.

Add your thoughts?

Rockin' The Joint: Live At The Hard Rock Hotel Las Vegas - Columbia 2005
Rating = 8

Oh sweet goodness - A 2005 Aerosmith live CD that includes not a single song from Pump, Get A Grip or Nine Lives, and only two of the hardest and best tracks from Just Push Play? It's as if they finally realize what a great hard rock band they once were and could be again if they would just dump the outside songwriters. Have you heard Joe Perry's recent solo album? You take the best songs from that and have Tyler write a couple decent ballads and that's a damned wonderful new Aerosmith album! Unfortunately, Desmond Child and people you've never heard of keep sticking their boring commercial ideas into Aerosmith records and that's how you end up with soulless trashcan music like "Falling In Love Is Hard On The Knees." Now I DO appreciate what Geffen did for Aerosmith's career. Any band that put out six or seven albums as great as Aerosmith's first batch DESERVES to be able to play music for a living (and remember - there was a time right before Permanent Vacation when most of the members were flat broke!). But enough's enough. They've had a string of bland pop hits - it's time to bring back the HarDDD Rock!

Which brings me to another point: people still amaze me by saying, "Aerosmith were so much better when they were on drugs." Well yes, they were, but that's an invalid cause-effect relationship. They were so much better at that time because they were young and full of musical ideas and allowed to do what they wanted - not 'because they were on drugs.' Heck, Done With Mirrors was from their drug era, and it's certainly no classic! Their 'clean and sober' years just happened to coincide with (a) encroaching middle age and its expected concurrent creative stagnation (but only to the usual degree), and (b) Geffen telling the band exactly what to do, refusing to release not just uncommercial singles but entire ALBUMS (the first version of Get A Grip was rejected for being too raw and sleazy -- and for not containing any potential hit ballads) and forcing them to work with outside writers. Unfortunately, from what I understand, Steven Tyler now actually relishes working with outside writers, so perhaps I'm wrong and they never WILL make another good album. But let's get to the point. I've decided to keep taking Tae Kwon Do.

Yes, I know I made a big to-do in a recent "blog" entry about how I was going to quit because I'm sick of memorizing forms and what-have-you, but I had a long conversation with my teacher (or "sominem," though not at all spelled anything like that) last night and he promises that he'll start gearing my classes towards my own personal goals (ie not dying of clogged arteries at age 35; being able to beat people up) rather than worrying about taking Belt tests and worrying about Forms. So what the hey? What the hey indeed? Also, Aerosmith just put out another live album.

Containing two of the few great songs from Just Push Play (Turkishy octave-bouncer "Beyond Beautiful" and punk rocky "Light Inside"), plus "Draw The Line," three each from Get Your Wings and Toys In The Attic, and a pair of stinkers we'll discuss later, this new live album is a celebration of Aerosmith's classic sound - the hard rock, the hard(er) ballads, the speed, grit and raw power of their most memorable material. It sounds like a studio recording, the playing is plenty energetic, and Steven Tyler's voice is absolutely amazing. That guy must be in his 50s, right? How in the HELL does he still hit those ludicrously high screamed notes during the last verse of "Draw The Line"? And this will probably come as a surprise (it sure did to me!), but you know how on the first couple Aerosmith albums, his voice was a little lower and glummer, not so stridently "yeah-booby-beeby-booboo!" excitedly screamingish? Well..... HE STILL HAS THAT VOICE. I'm sitting here listening to "Train Kept A-Rollin'" and "Same Old Song And Dance" and thinking, "Jesus Christ - are these just outtakes from 1974?" I mean, the guy sounds COOL! And MEAN! How come he never sings like that anymore? Who wants to hear some old bag in spandex yelping like a little girl? I mean, besides Catholics.

And rarities? Oh, don't get me TALKING! Can you imagine Aerosmith playing "Seasons Of Wither" in 2005??? Or "No More No More"???? Well, you've got another imagine coming because here they are in all their old-timey splendor days! Other highlights include a long noisy slide-guitar solo in "Draw The Line," Steven yelling "Shit!" during the opening notes of two different songs, and the most arse-kicking rendition of "Train Kept A-Rollin'" I've ever heard -- they play it just like the Yardbirds! The whole thing is played at an uptempo headbanging speed (as opposed to the galumpy bad-funk thing they did to it on Get Your Wings) and Joe alters his guitar intro and background vocals to match that of Keith Relf and his fine-feathered friends of the 1960's era (drug).

But of course Aerosmith can't leave well enough alone so they have to throw on "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" (WHY???? Not only did they not write this bland Bruce Willis ballad by themselves - they didn't even CO-WRITE it! And it shows! There's no hook! Here's an exclamation point, if you need one for later! --> !), a brutally pointless, go-nowhere shit-blues cover of "Rattlesnake Shake," and a needlessly overlong version of the cute but unnecessary "Big Ten Inch Record." So that's FOUR non-Aerosmith-written songs on a live album that only has 11 cuts to begin with. What up wid that? Coulda given that room to some more killer non-hits like "Somebody," "Spaced," "Uncle Salty," "Combination," "Critical Mass," "No Surprize," "Bitches Brew" and "My Fist Your Face"! They were SO MUCH BETTER when they were on drugs!

MOMENT FOR THE BAND TO LEARN FROM:

Steven Tyler: "So do you like the old shit or the new shit?"

Every Single Person In The Crowd: "OLD SHIT!"

In 500 years, robot spacepeople will still wash their cars to "Dream On," "Sweet Emotion" and "Walk This Way." In 6 months, no living human will be able to name more than three songs from Just Push Play.

Because any brain forced to remember that shit for another six months is going to give ITSELF a stroke.

Reader Comments

jenny.randy@sympatico.ca (Randy)
If this CD sells like it should, perhaps it'll become an annual event - live versions of some old stuff (back when they rocked/were on drugs) just in time for Christmas and an arena tour. Bring it on, I say. It's been so long since anyone actually rocked. With no one willing to come forward and be the Kings of Rock, I guess we'll just have to keep on playing the oldies, eh?

9904352O@student.gla.ac.uk
Yes! You are absolutely right about everything you say in this review (apart from your rejection of forms, forms are good. mkay?)

I to am amazed with Steve's "Draw the Line" screaming.

I got into Aerosmith totally the wrong way round (Guff[on] stuff first) Now that I have 'Toys', 'Rocks', 'Wings' and 'Draw the Line' in my blood, I'm feeling like they might be my favourite thing right now.

(Kind of weird to love music that's so overtly sexual in every way when you have virtually no libido though, but hey I'm probably supressing, repressing, regressing... whatever. Freud can fuck off, Jung is much better!)

(When it comes to baking cakes though Leibniz has the best ones...ged it?! Best of all possible cakes! Ah ha...more philosophy jokes! [quick kill me now before this gets out of hand]

Ps. I can't spell, gonnae fix my spelling pistakes (but don't touch the the intentional ones and the slang and scottish-isms...actually yeah just don't touch it at all...well just a little, if you want to. Sicko!

Add your thoughts?


Other Aerosmith Web Sites

*If you're a high school loser who never made it with the ladies, Walk This Way!

*To purchase Aerosmith CDs, please click here! Supposedly, I get a cut!


If you're a cheerleader and a real young bleeder, you'd probably like Mark Prindle's Record Reviews, unless you're a guy, in which case GROSS!