Aerosmith: Music From Another Dimension!

AEROSMITH: MUSIC FROM ANOTHER DIMENSION! (2012)

1) LUV XXX; 2) Oh Yeah; 3) Beautiful; 4) Tell Me; 5) Out Go The Lights; 6) Legendary Child; 7) What Could Have Been Love; 8) Street Jesus; 9) Can't Stop Loving You; 10) Lover Alot; 11) We All Fall Down; 12) Freedom Fighter; 13) Closer; 14) Something; 15) Another Last Goodbye; 16*) Up On A Mountain; 17*) Oasis In The Night; 18*) Sunny Side Of Love.

Word of the day is «tedious». Seven years in the making, during which the band almost came to a complete halt (as Joe Perry started spreading rumors that Aerosmith would go on with a new lead singer) — eleven years, actually, since the world's greatest rock'n'roll band, MTV-style, graced us with their last all-original collection of tightly polished, relentlessly professional, thoroughly washed-up rock-a-pop. And now — not only are they back, but what they are offering us is Mu­sic From Another Dimension. Sure thing, guys. Any dimension in which Diane Warren may be residing at present is definitely another by me.

If, like poor deluded me, you ever thought that the not-particularly-inspired, but still relatively tough, blues-drenched, Honkin' On Bobo gave a weak hint at salvation, and that the subsequent live release so strongly reminded us of what was ever so great about Aerosmith in the first place — forget all hopes even before you put the record on. The album cover is cheesier than ever, and once again, they fall back on their corporate songwriter squad: Marti Frederiksen! Jim Vallance! Desmond Child! Russ Irwin! And, oh yes, Lady Di in person, with a brand new power ballad and she's not afraid to use it. If you thought these guys were long since packed in naphthalene, you got another think coming. Another dimension has opened up, and the living dead are upon us.

Except that even the living dead, as it turns out, are not immune to aging. Where «classic late pe­riod Aerosmith» managed to become an outrageous offense to good taste while still retaining a serious level of energy and catchiness, Music From Another Dimension is nowhere near as of­fensive (it is not altogether «mentorial», with neither the carnal nor the humanitarian save-the-world side of these guys over-emphasized as usual) — it is simply dull. Long, overdrawn, repe­titive, monotonous, and deadly, mind-numbingly D-U-L-L.

No one has bothered writing a single new interesting riff. At best, you get rehashes of ʽLast Childʼ, ʽDraw The Lineʼ or even ʽWalk On Downʼ, and at worst, you just get the basic wall of stiffly produced sound that Aerosmith can produce in their collective sleep, having built up so much experience since 1987. Yes, it all sounds like Aerosmith — why should it all sound like anybody else? — and it all sounds tired. Of course, they are old men, and one has to lower the ex­pectations in proportion to age. Or has one, really? With a million and one bands in the world still punching out loud rock'n'roll, why settle for somebody just because they are — just because they used to be — Aerosmith?

Take my advice, if you wish, and make your decision based on the very first track, since most of the rest will sound more or less the same way. Loud, compressed, based on a blues-rock melody taken directly from the stockpile, and featuring multi-tracked vocals from Tyler that finally show serious signs of aging — he is quite consciously sparing his throat after the surgery performed in 2006, and avoids overtaxing the larynx. Obviously, he cannot be blamed, but it is just as obvious­ly clear that, without Tyler's vocal antics, Aerosmith is going to look no happier than the three-legged dog on the cover of an Alice In Chains album. (For honesty's sake, Steve can still hit his famous high notes, but he only does this in exceptional cases now — mostly saving it up for the «climactic» moments of the album-closing ballad, ʽAnother Last Goodbyeʼ, and, actually, it isn't all that pretty any more). And then there are the air-brushed lyrics, no longer dripping sexy sweat as they used to, but somehow it seems that the taming is more generally due to the overall aura of political correctness flowing in the air than the wise decision to finally «act their age»: "Love three times a day, love your life away... there ain't no other way, it's in your DNA" — sounds like a Viagra commercial to me, don't you think?

In terms of general «musical philosophy», the album continues the line of Just Push Play, subtly erasing the line between «rocker» and «ballad» and throwing on poppy lines and psychedelic hugs every now and then — but it also cuts down on the most overtly «Beatlesque» moves of that album; on a purely formal basis, Another Dimension rocks harder (on an intuitive basis, it does not rock at all). Will this please old-time fans? Not sure. Even with the fast-moving songs like ʽStreet Jesusʼ and ʽLover A Lotʼ, there is really no feel that these were recorded with any other purpose than «hey, we still have to prove that we can do another ʽToys In The Atticʼ». Forget it. They can no longer do even another ʽFeverʼ.

Then there are the genuinely dorky bits. The album's equivalent of ʽBack In The Saddleʼ, for instance, is ʽOut Go The Lightsʼ, with the sexual bravado culminating in a chorus that will just have to go down the annals — or the drain, one of the two: "If you wanna take a lookie cookie / Tonight might be your lucky". And ʽCan't Stop Loving Youʼ is a duet with American Idol winner Carrie Underwood — and the song sounds like it belongs on American Idol, one of those «neo-country» pieces of garbage that even a post-Permanent Vacation Aerosmith should be ashamed of being associated with.

And it's loooooong. Sixty seven minutes of one non-descript piece of muzak after another (occa­sionally my brain even fails to register the pauses between the tracks). In this totally draggy at­mosphere, there are almost no high- or lowlights: even the Diane Warren ballad is no better or worse than everything else. Perry gets two lead vocals, including the one on ʽFreedom  Fighterʼ, a perfunctory anti-war rant that sounds as if made on order; it ain't even no ʽWalk On Downʼ — back in the days of Get A Grip, you could at least count on old man Perry to strike out some old-timey rock'n'roll excitement as an antithesis to the band's generally glossy sound, but here there is no difference: the glossy sound has worn off some of the gloss, and the exciting bits have lost some of the excitement. It's all just one big gray blob of sonic murk.

Music From Another Dimension! is not a general offense to good taste (at least, not until the Ameri­can Idol woman enters the studio): even if they still wanted to, Aerosmith simply no longer have it in them to spearhead the «MTV taking over the world» movement. But, much like every bit of original material that their forefathers, The Rolling Stones, recorded in the 21st century, this is first and fore­most merely a reminder — that this here band, Aerosmith, is still with us, whether we like it or not. Naturally, they have every right to issue a reminder like that — and we have every right to remind them that this is nothing more than just a reminder. By giving it a certified thumbs down, for instance.

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Aerosmith: Rockin' The Joint

AEROSMITH: ROCKIN’ THE JOINT (2005)

1) Beyond Beautiful; 2) Same Old Song And Dance; 3) No More No More; 4) Seasons Of Wither; 5) Light Inside; 6) Draw The Line; 7) I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing; 8) Big Ten Inch Record; 9) Rattlesnake Shake; 10) Walk This Way; 11) Train Kept A-Rollin’.

Recorded in 2002 at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, not released until three years later when nobody really cared, featuring a suitably trashy album sleeve and an oddly short setlist, the album was either mildly trashed or ignored by the critics — and has no chance whatsoever to join Live! Bootleg in its semi-legendary status. Too bad, ‘cause it’s a lot of fun.

On the heels of South Of Sanity, you’d think the guys would be happy enough to entertain the Vegas crowds with a generous serving of their glossy hits. They do not; with the exception of two numbers from their latest studio album (well, they were promoting it, after all), and one more that is pretty painful to mention at this time, everything they play goes back to the gold period — in­cluding freshly unearthed rarities such as ‘No More No More’ and ‘Seasons Of Wither’!

Everything changes in an instant. Where the Sanity tracks, with a few exceptions, reflected Aero­smith honestly earning their daily bread, giving fans note-for-note perfect versions of pre-poli­shed plastic rock’n’roll hits, on Rockin’ The Joint they are clearly having fun. Because with the­se old classics, you don’t care for ideal execution; you just care to get your kicks. The way Joe Perry hammers out that riff for ‘Train Kept A-Rollin’ — don’t you want to trade the band’s entire post-1987 career for that experience? The way Tyler screams his head off on the last verse of ‘Draw The Line’, even if a bit of it is off-key, isn’t it more exciting than all of his come-in-at-the-right-moment bansheeisms on Sanity? The way the band jams its toes off during the instrumental sections of ‘Big Ten Inch Record’, don’t it send these Vegas people into a dance frenzy, so much more exciting than the alleged two-step of ‘Rag Doll’?

Look at this. Midway through, the waves of excitement are unexpectedly interrupted as Steven bursts into a perfunctory rendition of ‘I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing’, the worst song ever to be associated with the name of Aerosmith — not only is it a power ballad, after all, but it was writ­ten by Diane Warren, a weapon of mass destruction from outer space fifty times as destructive as the asteroid in the bullshit movie Armageddon for which she wrote the song and Aerosmith, look­ing for new, thrilling, and ever more humiliating ways to sell out, recorded it. (How fortunate it is that the studio version is only available as a single, or on compilations that nobody need buy any­way). Anyway, once they’re done with this monstrosity, obviously targeted at the tasteless gamb­ling ladies in the crowd, “So you like the old shit or the new shit?”, asks Tyler — “OLD SHIT!” yells everyone in the audience with the power to yell. Good for Ms. Warren she was not among the audience that evening.

So, overall, this is terrific — a rejuvenation, a return to senses, perhaps only temporary, but who cares: this is Aerosmith playing as if they were in some lousy joint in 1976, and they haven’t lost a thing — Tyler’s singing still perfect, Perry’s playing still gritty as hell. Perhaps the Peter Green blues cover, presaging Honkin’ On Bobo (‘Rattlesnake Shake’) is a bit too slow and drawn out, but they do insert the fast jam from ‘Rats In The Cellar’ in the middle, so I’d rather hear that than another rendition of ‘Falling In Love Is So Hard On The Knees’.

Absolute fuckin’ best rock’n’rollin’ moment: the band totally cuts loose with ‘Big Ten Inch Re­cord’, fluid guitar solos from Whitford and some guest piano player, and then, when everyone is already pretty well on their feet, “JOE PERRYYY!” from Tyler and the guy cuts in like mad, a cross between Chuck Berry and Alvin Lee. Tune in to this and it may yet make your day. With the sordid exception of the Diane Warren thing — even the two numbers from Just Push Play are decent — this is Aerosmith’s best live offering since Bootleg, and one of the best live albums ever from a band of rock veterans each of which is way beyond 50. For the record, the Stones have never played with that kind of quality upon crossing the half-century age range, although they still get by on enthusiasm and great material. Thumbs up.

Aerosmith: Honkin' On Bobo

AEROSMITH: HONKIN' ON BOBO (2004)

1) Road Runner; 2) Shame, Shame, Shame; 3) Eyesight To The Blind; 4) Baby, Please Don't Go; 5) Never Loved A Girl; 6) Back Back Train; 7) You Gotta Move; 8) The Grind; 9) I'm Ready; 10) Temperature; 11) Stop Messin' Aro­und; 12) Jesus Is On The Main Line.

Most bands, sooner or later, experience the back-to-roots drive — because, once you've got no­thing left to prove, the only thing left is to realize just how much the grass was greener back in the days when you did have something to prove, and still greener even before those days. With Aerosmith, though, who were never all that attached to their roots in the first place, and whose proverbial sellout made everyone see they weren't even all that attached to the stems, everything was possible — including the preposterous thought of «Hey, maybe these guys have lost them­selves so hopelessly in the world of Top 10 hits, Vegas galas, and safe, sterile sex with MTV teenage whores, they will never release their back-to-roots album?»

But perhaps the disgust that Joe Perry had to live out every night upon the release of Just Push Play, an album not horrible in itself but farther from the spirit of Aerosmith than anything ever associated with the band, had served as a catalyst — and here, three years after Aerosmith tried to become Lenny Kravitz & The Beatles, is Aerosmith trying to become The Chess Blues Singers. Or, rather, Kid Rock & The Chess Blues Singers.

Honkin' On Bobo has been usually billed as their «blues covers» album, but Aerosmith are not, nor have they ever been, a blues band; they probably did just one or two pure blues numbers in their entire career, usually to fill up some empty record space at the last moment (remember 'Ree­fer Head Woman'? No? That's what I thought). But if you speed up and toughen the blues, you get rock'n'roll, and this is what they try to remind us of by covering Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, and Mississippi Fred McDowell not the way those guys sang their songs, but the way other guys, less tolerant of the blues' monotonousness and semi-religious infatuation with itself, sang them. Loud, fast (if possible), dirty, sleazy — the way slum kids like it the best.

If this does not work exactly the way it should, this is because it can't. The 'Smiths have been re­moved from this territory way too long to be able to meet anyone along the way who'd tell them how to do it right. Granted, they even went back to their old producer Jack Douglas for an extra pinch of authenticity. For brass, they used the Memphis Horns. On piano, they recruited the le­gendary Chuck Berry accompanist Johnnie Johnson (lucky to catch a bit of the good old spirit in him before he died next year). So many pieces in place, and yet the final product still sounds fair­ly calculated and surviving somewhat on artificial breath.

Perhaps the discrepancy is in that Honkin' On Bobo might have originally been conceived as a semi-improvised, good-time jam-party record, but then Douglas went on to make it sound like an Aerosmith album, with emphasis on the second word. I do not care much for the production; it still bears the patented late-Aerosmith post-1987 gloss, and as loud and roaring as the guitars are, welcoming you to the hard rock of 'Road Runner', they just don't kick ass the way they used to. Still, if it's the best we can get, better 'Road Runner' than 'Eat The Rich', I'd say.

This whole idea of «Let's have fun fun fun, but let's also sell this thing to the kids who want ano­ther Permanent Vacation» sort of ruins the experience. An Aerosmith album for the kids has to have power ballads, right? And there ain't no such thing as a blues power ballad, right? So they take Aretha Franklin's 'I Never Loved A Man', change the title and the lyrics, and make it into the next 'Crazy'. Not good.

Nevertheless, shoot the legs off the context and 'Road Runner', 'Baby Please Don't Go', 'I'm Rea­dy', and 'You Gotta Move' rock out well without any back thought (the latter even mutates into some sort of psychedeliv heavy metal monster midway through; thankfully, Mississippi Fred mi­s­sed hearing it by a good thirty years). Backup vocalist Tracy Bonham (no relation to John) does a good job helping Perry out with the singing on the swampy 'Back Back Train', and the way they all wind it down with an acoustic gospel sing-along ('Jesus Is On The Main Line') is truly heart­warming. Maybe they should have done it all unplugged.

Or maybe not. It's been a long time, after all, since those of us that drew a sharp line between 'Rats In The Cellar' and 'Monkey On My Back' got the occasion to rock'n'roll to a 'Smith tune without a vague fear of breaking some unwritten code of honour. So, even if Joe Perry has not invented any new riffs and Tyler still uses each song as an opportunity to practice his animal scream (what a scream, though, especially for a guy in his fifties), it's all decent shit. Certainly better to go out this-a way. Thumbs up.

Aerosmith: Just Push Play

AEROSMITH: JUST PUSH PLAY (2001)

1) Beyond Beautiful; 2) Just Push Play; 3) Jaded; 4) Fly Away From Here; 5) Trip Hoppin'; 6) Sunshine; 7) Under My Skin; 8) Luv Lies; 9) Outta Your Head; 10) Drop Dead Gorgeous; 11) Light Inside; 12) Avant Garden.

When this came out, even some of the biggest fans of Get A Grip must have felt stumped. No matter how slick all of the band's albums from 1987 to 1993 turned out to be, they were at least nominally rock'n'roll — loud rhythmic headbanging music with distorted guitars, screaming, and, if not always fast, then at least always danceable grooves. Nine Lives was a mixed bag, but you still couldn't say no to the title track and 'Crash' and... well, much of it was boring and bland, yet somehow it was still «rock music».

But Just Push Play is not «rock music». About a third of it consists of so-so attempts at mimick­ing and mining the latest trends — most notably, the twenty-first century edition of hip-hop (on the title track and 'Outta Your Head', but, strangely, not on 'Trip Hoppin') and various electronica achievements (usually in the form of «spicy» sound effects scattered all over the place). The other two thirds, in dire contrast, are dedicated to some bizarre retro-psycho-pop thing that, at times, al­most threatens to invoke nostalgia for the sunny Sixties — a place where Aerosmith, of all people, have never ever set foot before.

In all likelihood, the culprits are fellow songwriters Marti Frederiksen and Mark Hudson, present on all of the tracks (although not always together), and if Hudson's decision to steer the band to­wards a retro style comes as no surprise, given his previously mentioned successful restoration of Ringo Starr's solo career, Frederiksen is a darker sheep — although his first significant contribu­tion is usually logged as writing and performing for Almost Famous' «Stillwater» — this might give you a clue if you are familiar with the movie.

Regardless, the simple fact is that Just Push Play is the most un-Aerosmith Aerosmith album ever recorded. It's not as unimaginable as AC/DC doing an album of Gilbert & Sullivan covers, perhaps, but close. A simple test involves playing the first ten seconds of 'Luv Lies' to any of your friends still in the dark — and then making them believe, prior to hearing Tyler's vocals come in, that this is not frickin' Electric Light Orchestra they are listening to.

It is no surprise, then, that in terms of overall respectability, the experiment had failed. It still hit the charts high enough, but, I believe, more due to inertia power — Aerosmith's «power run» of 1987-1993 has certainly ensured that, like with the Stones (who had their «power run» much ear­lier, of course, but it still affects public opinion), people will continue buying the records no mat­ter what. But quite a few fans — as can be easily seen by browsing through amateur reviews — were quite unable to «get it», not the least of them Mr. Joe Perry himself, who has openly distan­ced himself from the album in press, saying that the final product had very little, if anything, to do with Aerosmith as a real band.

The most ridiculous thing about it all, however, is that Just Push Play is not at all bad! Once one has discarded the most obvious «ones for the kiddies», there are some interesting melodies and arrangements to be found. The big hit single 'Jaded' is a solid power pop anthem, a little on the pathetic side (these are the 'Amazing Crazy Crying' guys, after all), but with cute «astral» guitars, nostalgic strings and stuff — it may take a while to understand that the song has nothing serious to do with the generic Aerosmith power ballad, but it will sink in, eventually.

'Trip Hoppin', despite the title, has more to do with Beatlish pop of the Revolver era, only ear-splittingly overproduced. So does 'Sunshine' — with both songs featuring psychedelic backing vocals to boot, fresh off the 1966 train. Even 'Light Inside', rushing along at a far more frenetic pace than the rest, has «Beatles» written all over it; and 'Avant Garden', again with a totally mis­leading title, could have been a non-hit for Big Star, for all I know. There is also a drastic change in the lyrics — most are far less obnoxious and «mock-dirty» than we are used to.

Now how on earth did Hudson and Frederiksen drag the band in on this non-trivial project, made three times less trivial by being donated to Aerosmith, is something that will take only a very skilled biographer to figure out. Because the biggest weakness of Just Push Play is not the songs: it is just that the songs have just about the same relationship to the band to which they were en­trusted as the real Marilyn Monroe has to her robot facsimile on the album sleeve.

What I mean is, out of all the band members Brad Whitford alone, with his old predilection to­wards «colourful» guitar playing, could have readily adapted to this kind of music. Joe Perry, wherever he is, looks like a fish out of water — when he does not even try to rock out, the resul­ting sound is boring, and when he does try, he just gets smacked in the face with the «poppiness» of the melody that he cannot subdue. And Tyler? Hard rock screamer, yes; R'n'B belter, perhaps; power ballad guru, by all means — but there is nothing he can do to make this new style, or these new styles, his own.

All of which makes Just Push Play an eccentric, unpredictable, and thoroughly misguided expe­rience. It is not a «sellout» — they sold out for good fourteen years before the fact; it is, in fact, their least obviously commercial album in all that time. Rather, it's a pre-doomed experiment. It's their Satanic Majesties Request, in a way, but condemned by the epoch — in 1967, you could risk trying to make the Beatles out of the Rolling Stones and get something weird, but worthwhile in return. But to make the Beatles out of Aerosmith, long after the band has been dragged through the gloss, the big bucks, and the cheap, generic sleaze of its downfall — nah. And Hudson and Frederiksen should bear the blame, no doubt. "You're so jaded, and I'm the one that jaded you", indeed. Thumbs down, but with a certain dose of respect.

Aerosmith: A Little South Of Sanity

AEROSMITH: A LITTLE SOUTH OF SANITY (1998)

CD I: 1) Eat The Rich; 2) Love In An Elevator; 3) Falling In Love (Is Hard On The Knees); 4) Same Old Song And Dance; 5) Hole In My Soul; 6) Monkey On My Back; 7) Livin' On The Edge; 8) Cryin'; 9) Rag Doll; 10) Angel; 11) Janie's Got A Gun; 12) Amazing; CD II: 1) Back In The Saddle; 2) Last Child; 3) The Other Side; 4) Walk On Down; 5) Dream On; 6) Crazy; 7) Mama Kin; 8) Walk This Way; 9) Dude (Looks Like A Lady); 10) What It Takes; 11) Sweet Emotion.

No matter how deep the depths this band has attained with its latter day career, one thing is for certain: Aerosmith have always been terrific live performers. This is one unquestionable ad­van­tage they have on their forefathers — most of the Rolling Stones' shows have followed the hit-and-miss principle ever since the departure of Mick Taylor, always depending on just how much out of focus the guitar players are on this particular evening, and on how «playful» the frontman is feeling (as in, «do I want to sing tonight, or do I just feel like jumping?»).

Aerosmith have steadily remained far more reliable. There is not a single video or live recording of the band that I've seen that does not combine a fun atmosphere with a lot of hard work, and their stage presence has only solidified with age. They could be slightly wobbly in the good old days of drug rule, as is clearly seen on Classics Live and bits of Live Bootleg!, but ever since the big clean-up it almost feels like Perry and Whitford have not missed or flubbed one note, whereas Tyler's on-key screaming is, if anything, even more precise and powerful than in the early days. In other words, in the studio they might have still be selling their souls to the devil from dawn to dusk, but onstage, no matter how many crappy MTV hits they had tucked behind their belts, they were still one of the world's greatest rock'n'roll bands.

Which would have surely made this lengthy double CD of live recordings from the Get A Grip and Nine Lives tours their best offering to true fans since the Seventies — if not for the utterly depressing setlist, of course. With but seven out of twenty-three selections recreating the glory of their classic period, this is not even an accurate reflection of the way these tours really went, since normally they used to do about half old stuff, half new stuff. It may, of course, be simply due to the fact that the band did not want to reuse the same tunes that everyone had already heard live on Live Bootleg! etc., but it is way more likely that they were simply hoping to play more into the hands of their new generations of adoring fans, open-minded to the point of digging 'Livin' On The Edge' on par with 'Last Child' and 'Hole In My Soul' on par with 'Dream On'. Well — «no harm in being open-minded», said the executioner, swinging his axe.

Of course, not all of these new hits are bad, and sometimes the live renditions can make you think twice of their quality: 'Love In An Elevator', for instance, in this particular version comes across more like a nice pretext for Perry and Whitford to do some blazing guitar sparring than a forced attempt to outgross the hair metal bands of the late Eighties. But what is the point in offering us note-for-note recreations of all the power ballads they had recorded from 1987 to 1997? As silly as it looks when the entire stadium is rocking its lighters to the steady hypnotic sway of the next processed anthem, it is much sillier (and just as dangerous) when your average fan is doing it alone in front of his stereo.

The one true moment for which the whole record is worth owning is the start of the second disk, as the band, speared on by Tyler's mega-yell of "I GOT BLISTERS ON MY SISTERS!", threate­ningly launches into 'Back In The Saddle'. "So you like the new shit, the old shit, where were you in '78?" he teases the audience. "Where the fuck were you in '79? Magic Mountain, baby, Magic Mountain!" Well, at least the band still remembers where it was in '78, and is able to rock out with the exact same strength. Too bad they only do it for one more number in a row, 'Last Child', and then switch back into teen-pop mode with 'The Other Side'. Oh well; at least they make sure that the album says goodbye with a true classic like 'Sweet Emotion' rather than a generic power ballad like 'What It Takes' (I admire Tyler's courage in singing the first verse acappella, but, gi­ven the number's nauseating level of bathos, the effect is even uglier).

Still, despite all the obvious reservations, a thumbs up — if only out of respect for the band's le­gacy and its ability to maintain integrity on stage even when wading through all the dreck. Plus, 'Walk On Down' rocks. They should let Joe Perry take lead vocals more often.

Aerosmith: Nine Lives

AEROSMITH: NINE LIVES (1997)

1) Nine Lives; 2) Falling In Love (Is Hard On The Knees); 3) Hole In My Soul; 4) Taste Of India; 5) Full Circle; 6) Something's Gotta Give; 7) Ain't That A Bitch; 8) The Farm; 9) Crash; 10) Kiss Your Past Good-Bye; 11) Pink; 12) Falling Off; 13) Attitude Adjustment; 14) Fallen Angels.

No less than eight outside songwriters this time, ranging from real old friends like Richard Supa (who'd already worked with the band on 'Chip Away The Stone' in the late 1970s) to trusty work­horses like Desmond Child to completely unbelievable surprises like Glen Ballard (of Alanis Morissette fame!). The biggest disappointment is actually Mark Hudson, the man who singlehan­dedly reinvented and rejuvenated Ringo Starr's lackluster solo career — but not before saddling Aerosmith with the triteness of 'Livin' On The Edge' and the ridiculousness of 'The Farm' (at least he also takes responsibility for the second best song on the album, 'Crash').

On the other hand, having to feed so many mouths must have gotten the band's minds off the idea to expand their role as godfathers of / spokesmen for «MTV Rock». Nine Lives does not have as many imperatives in its song titles, as many Alicia Silverstone videos, and as many obnoxious, hypocrite lyrical banalities as Get A Grip. These are its good sides. The bad side is that there is no sense of purpose to the record. The band's old-school rocking instincts, its natural propensity for pathetic power ballads, and the mainstream pop pull of the outside songwriters all seem to mingle in one sticky, viscous, ponderous lump where it is no longer possible to distinguish «bal­lad» from «boogie», «teen pop» from «hard rock», and «sincere» from «forced». Upon first listen, it is bizarre; subsequently, it is just boring.

The record starts out with a promise. 'Nine Lives', as an appetizer, is their ballsiest track to open the proceedings since at least 'Let The Music Do The Talking'. That gruff opening chord, the little feedback bit, the funny «Steve Tyler outscreeching the local feline competition» bit, the lyrics that fall back on the exquisite innuendo principle instead of yer basic foul-mouthing, the drive, the guitar tones... old Aerosmith back? Not quite. It may take a couple listens to understand that the balls are, unfortunately, quite low on life-giving content. For one thing, there is no distinctive riff; just a fast tempo against which Bradford and Perry play a bunch of basic blues-rock and po­wer chords. For another, the chorus ("Nine lives, feelin' lucky...") is pure MTV pop again. Perfect for a headbanging session? No doubt. Timeless classic? No way.

And then the record, head forward, dives into that strange, strange muck. 'Falling In Love Is Hard On The Knees' — what the hell is it? Should it rock? Should it bring tears to your eyes? Should it get you to dance at the local night club? All of these, some of these? Is it even a good song? It's about as catchy as the average Lenny Kravitz song, and just about as nutritious. What the heck are 'Hole In My Soul', 'Ain't That A Bitch', 'Kiss Your Past Good-Bye' (in the latter's case, dock a point for Tyler explicitly uncovering the pun in one of the choruses) — fist-punchers or tear-jer­kers? With Get A Grip, you knew the three ballads and could easily program them out if they annoyed you more than the rockers; with Nine Lives, it is not so easy, because all dividing lines have been blurred. If the melodies were great, this might even have been an asset. As they are, it is a troublesome bother.

I must confess, though, that 'Ain't That A Bitch' is a fine performance; the melody is generic po­wer-balladry, but the mix of slide guitars, strings, blues-rock solos, and Tyler's crescendo from «lazy» to «schizophrenic» is a vast improvement on the technique of, say, 'Crazy'; one may not go wild about the pomposity, but the song aspires to more than straightforward dumb teen bait, and it is hard not to at least tip your hat to the amount of work that went into it. The same applies to quite a few other tracks as well; some fans may complain about overproduction, but, if you ask me, overproduction is fine as long as it gives you something to concentrate on rather than the limp songwriting levels.

True «dumb teen bait» does not really start until 'Pink', which was, of course, the biggest single, the most famous video, and the Grammy-winning song off the album. With a title like that and lyrics like "pink on the lips of your lover, 'cause pink is the love you discover", it is not difficult to understand the primary target audience of the song, arranged as loud, but toothless pop without any Aerosmith trademarks whatsoever (shame on you, Joe Perry). But let us cut them some slack: when you are a fifty-year old rock star, you have to be extra meticulous about finding new ways to attract freshly pubescent girls, or you risk getting stuck with an old, ugly wife forever.

Little bits of experimentation on the album mostly fall flat, or land like heavy boulders on your toes. 'A Taste Of India' has Glen Ballard, who'd already once saddled Alanis Morissette with Eas­tern influences, for better or for worse, lending the same overtones to Aerosmith, except that, as one could guess, for Tyler «a taste of India» does not surmise a trip to the Taj Mahal, but rather something a bit more flesh-related. The effect is dirty cheap. 'The Farm' begins and ends with sni­ppets of The Wizard Of Oz, again suggesting unhealthy sexual fantasies about getting it on with the Tin Man and Scarecrow at the same time (the lyrics make no sense, but "somebody get me to the farm" somewhat echoes 'Last Child', yet, again, with more emphasis on the "I ain't no Peter Pan" part, if you think like I think what they think).

Overall, Nine Lives is a cooling-off record; it is much less teen-geared than Get A Grip, and thus, comes off as nowhere near as insulting for Aerosmith's adult audience. But it also contains fewer guilty pleasures, and it's dreadfully long, too; when half of your album consists of overproduced mid-tempo rock-ballads, you do not really need to extend it over an hour. So take your pick: the disgusting titillation of Get A Grip or the more restrained, but boring pop strains of Nine Lives.

Aerosmith: Get A Grip

AEROSMITH: GET A GRIP (1993)

1) Intro; 2) Eat The Rich; 3) Get A Grip; 4) Fever; 5) Livin' On The Edge; 6) Flesh; 7) Walk On Down; 8) Shut Up And Dance; 9) Cryin'; 10) Gotta Love It; 11) Crazy; 12) Line Up; 13) Amazing; 14) Boogie Man.

If you do not own this album, go out and buy it, now. Listen to it in your best ceremonial robe, your mind intent on prayer. Then take it out and solemnly burn it in your back yard, if you have one, or in the nearest forest, if you live near one, or, if that fails, just grind it to little pieces and flush it. Repeat said procedure each Sunday, and, provided you keep it up for at least ten years, you will undoubtedly find grace in the eyes of the Lord as well as earn gratitude undying in the eyes of your descendants the way they are pictured in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

"There's something wrong with the world today, I don't know what it is", they sing in 'Livin' On The Edge'. But it is not hard to guess, really, because Get A Grip takes its time to embody pretty much everything that is wrong with the world today. It is difficult even to decide where to start. How about this: the song before that features lyrics that go "Fever gives you lust with an appetite, it hits you like the fangs from a rattlesnake bite", and the song immediately after that states that "When the night comes, everybody gotta have FLESH — the only thing that's worth the sweat". Er, I'm pretty sure few of us would abstain from having a little FLESH every now and then, but if it is really "the only thing that's worth the sweat", there must surely be something wrong with the world today, and I do know what it is.

As the «St. George» of grunge bands started hacking away at the «dragon» of hair metal, one would think that Aerosmith, of all people, might finally get their heads straight — after all, with their natural predisposition towards hardest-rock-riffage and punkish attitude, they could have fol­lowed other heroes of the past like Alice Cooper in rejecting the Bon Jovi aesthetics and re-set­ting a fine example for the kids. Instead, they hardened their hearts and came out as defenders of that aesthetics against the grunge wave. The risk paid off. Get A Grip sold almost as many co­pies as Nevermind, became the band's best-selling album ever, and solidified the basis for «MTV Rock» for years to come, plunging the brains of millions of teenagers worldwide into a hedonistic coma whose end, even today, is nowhere in sight.

Get A Grip is a thoroughly evil album — easily in my Top 10 Most Evil Albums Ever Recorded — and, although I am well aware that this is just a convenient symbol, the symbolism is just too overbearing so as not to merit a little verbal pathos. One of the most ironic aspects of its evil is that it's catchy: with the corporate songwriting machine continuing its run, most of the songs con­tain hooks that are exceedingly hard to get out of your head. But what are these hooks? Mostly the same trashy pop choruses, tolerable, perhaps, if steeped in moderation, irritating if molded as pseudo-rebellious anthems.

Embarrassment jumps sky high already with the first track. Musically, 'Eat The Rich' is a poor man's 'Walk This Way' (it even starts out with a brief quote from the song), whose main vocal melody (verse) also has the nerve to rip off Zappa's 'Trouble Every Day' (a transparently obvious observation which, for some reason, I have never met stated elsewhere). Lyrically, it is exactly what its title suggests: a primitive diatribe against rich people. Uh... excuse me, Mr. Tyler, may I take a peep at your latest tax declaration form? Oh, that's right: you only go heavy on "rich folks who get rude", and you "believe in rags to riches", so you're only rambling against those who have not earned their right to yacht clubs and poodles and pills. Oh, excuse me, and here I was thinking that, perhaps, you were sort of poking fun at your own attire the way it looks on you in the opening bits of the 'Love In An Elevator' video. How silly of me. And when you tell me that "you gotta live large, gotta let it rip" in the very next song, you obviously do not mean that "you gotta live large" may surmise poodles and yacht clubs. You probably mean it just surmises having FLESH — the only thing that's worth a sweat. My, my.

Get A Grip is, indeed, a philosophical album; almost every song has its moral. We get instruc­tions every step of the way. How about this: 'Talk is cheap, shut up and dance / Don't get deep, shut up and dance'. If so, what is so surprising about the fact that 'there's something wrong with the world today'? And yet, there is consistency. 'If you can judge a wise man by the color of his skin, then mister you're a better man than I', Tyler adds, periphrasing the Yardbirds — that's about as deep as his understanding of the world's problems can really reach. Yes, sir, your whole life path is set out here before you. You gotta eat the rich, gotta get a grip, gotta shut up and dance, gotta love it, gotta line up, and, of course, you gotta have flesh — the only... oh, excuse me. The whole album is a veritable Bible of MTV faith.

And I have not even yet mentioned its Psalms — three power ballads that are all clumped toge­ther, with very small breaks, on the second half of the album. All were hit singles, and all intro­duced us to the High Priestess Alicia Silverstone, MTV's house-rebel Barbie doll of the mid-Ni­neties whose chief acting talent consisted of knowing how to give the finger with a dismissive glare on the face. If rumours about introducing navel piercing into mainstream culture with the video for 'Crying' are true, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised — the ludicrous idea of mass-marketed self-muti­lation as the expression of «one's true self» or «rebellious attitude» ties in one hundred percent with the overall shit-aesthetics of Get A Grip. (Or was it, instead, the cow udder piercing on the album sleeve? which raises the question of the analogy between Alicia Silver­stone and a domesticated quadruped, and, mind you, it is not me who is responsible).

Of course, it does not help mat­ters much that 'Crying' and 'Crazy' are more or less the same song (the only big difference is that the first one has brass where the second one has harmonica... oh, wait, the first one has harmonica, too, never mind...), and that both satisfy the stereotype of the big bad hairy power ballad to a tee.

Words cannot express the way I hate this album, even as I can't help but bop along to the funky instrumental break in the title track, sounding like the accompaniment to some particularly cheesy Nintendo karate simulator. Against the background of this wave after wave of cultural pollution, only Joe Perry's 'Walk On Down' sounds like a vague, vague reminder of this band's fabulous past, and only makes the pill more bitter in the process. It's one thing to have your intelligence insulted by some good-for-nothing twenty-year old sucker raised on Grease and Van Halen, and another thing to realize that the dragon — nay, the Antichrist — of MTV culture has bought off one of the world's formerly greatest rock'n'roll bands to serve as its chief weapon of mass destruction. For what it's worth, Darth Vader has nothing on Steve Tyler. Thumbs? Can't even see where they went. Too dark, too deep.

Aerosmith: Pump

AEROSMITH: PUMP (1989)

1) Young Lust; 2) F.I.N.E.; 3) Going Down / Love In An Elevator; 4) Monkey On My Back; 5) Water Song / Janie's Got A Gun; 6) Dulcimer Stomp / The Other Side; 7) My Girl; 8) Don't Get Mad, Get Even; 9) Hoodoo / Voodoo Me­dicine Man; 10) What It Takes.

As promised, the vacation goes on. The only difference between Pump and its progenitor is that the last traces of creativity and freshness have been expertly removed from the final product, en­suring even greater commercial success. The record sets new standards of slickness which, true to their competitive nature, the band would then raise with every new studio album.

Everything is loud, roaring, catchy, and guaranteed to keep the customer satisfied. Intelligent de­fenders of the album frequently point out that it does stand out from the average hair metal record of the day, because, like it or not, Perry and Whitford are still masters of their instruments, and both gentlemen honestly try to come up with twisted, sleazy, funky riffs and honest bluesy solos. Remove the pop choruses, break through the glossy sheen of the production, they say, and you will still see the same old gritty Aerosmith rockin' out like there was no tomorrow, no matter how many Desmond Childs there are in the studio ensuring that there be plenty of tomorrows, and that each such tomorrow bring in a sizable check in the mail.

As a matter of fact, I absolutely agree. Play Pump back to back with all them Bon Jovi and Def Leppard albums, and you will immediately notice what difference there is between a hair-metal album from a new-generation hair-metal band and a hair-metal album from an old-style Seventies blues-rock band. Faced between these two monsters, I will undoubtedly sacrifice my ears to the Scylla of Pump than the Charybdis of New Jersey or Hysteria (which should, generally, be un­derstood as simply preferring the old school to the new school rather than a direct slap-in-the-face for these particular albums — hey, Def Leppard is a guilty pleasure if there ever was one).

But we are talking Aerosmith in the context of Aerosmith, and in the context of Aerosmith, 'The Other Side' and 'Monkey On My Back' is as dull as they come. Most of this blends together into one never-ending mess of monotonous riffage (again — it may not formally be monotonous, but Fairbairn's production smoothes out all the edges; even when Perry is playing something inte­re­s­ting, he makes sure to overdub another guitar on top of it which is not playing anything inte­re­sting), screaming for the sake of screaming, and big dumb drum patterns that sound louder than everything else put together. In fact, in between the drums and Tyler's throat-tearing, everything else just sort of gets lost.

The big hits were 'Love In An Elevator' and 'Janie's Got A Gun'. The former is credited to Tyler and Perry alone, as they are trying to outdo Mötley Crüe without outside help, and come up with a catchy, fun, but gruesomely inadequate sex anthem, sending elevated society into a state of shock with its accounts of making out you-know-where. Overdone, overplayed, and rather pitiful, it's hardly the worst thing they ever did, but one cannot even call it «self-parody» — in the past, they sang about sex, not about silly sexual fetishes flashing in dirty old minds. How come they never realized — or, if they did realize, how come they were never disturbed by the fact — that this ongoing sexual bravado simply made them all into show-biz clowns?

'Janie's Got A Gun' belatedly returns us to the field of «social relevance». The girl gets raped by her own father and then pulls a gun on him. This can be cutting edge. But as it sits there in the middle of all these dumb sexual anthems, it ceases to be cutting edge and becomes a musical tab­loid — somewhat like the Stones' 'Too Much Blood' or any other song whose author will probab­ly defend it as «an attempt to draw public attention to important social issues», when in reality it is simply one more application of the «give the people what they want» principle. Rape, pedo­philia, and murder — all in one bag! Cool. Let's make it a hit single. At least it's a half-decent pop song (notice, too, how it borrows the alarm siren thing from 'Kings And Queens').

I have, and can have, no personal favorites on Pump. 'Voodoo Medicine Man' could theoretically have gotten my hopes up — why couldn't they justify the title by turning the song into another Southernish romp like 'Hangman Jury'? — but it's just another slab of similar hair-metal. 'Young Lust' raves along at a fast pace, but what's the point if the stylistics is just the same? 'What It Ta­kes' is not the awfulest ballad to disgrace the name of Aerosmith, but it is still a power ballad that takes the aesthetics of 'Home Tonight' and turns it into a big lump of melodic and lyrical clichés.

To reiterate the obvious, Pump is a step down even from the standards of Permanent Vacation. Never mind the experimentation of 'St. John', there are even no traces of light funny funk à la 'Rag Doll', for which 'Janie's Got A Gun' is no acceptable substitute. "Going down, Mr. Tyler?" You bet your ass he is, and taking the whole band with him. Thumbs down.

Aerosmith: Permanent Vacation

AEROSMITH: PERMANENT VACATION (1987)

1) Heart's Done Time; 2) Magic Touch; 3) Rag Doll; 4) Simoriah; 5) Dude (Looks Like A Lady); 6) St. John; 7) Han­gman Jury; 8) Girl Keeps Coming Apart; 9) Angel; 10) Permanent Vacation; 11) I'm Down; 12) The Movie.

Permanent Vacation. What a brilliant title — no, not for the album, but for the entire career of Aerosmith starting with the unhappy day of September 5, 1987, when the first record buyers sub­jected themselves to its treatment. Or, perhaps, starting with the Run D.M.C. collaboration on 'Walk This Way' from the previous year? No, probably not. When they did their rap-rock thing in mid-1986, the band was still drugged out and scary, and the friendship between rock'n'roll and hip-hop was still an exciting, rather than languid, thing to consider. In fact, when Steve Tyler pop­ped his head through that hole in the wall that Perry cut with his guitar, screaming a bloody 'WALK THIS WAY!' into the surprised faces of his black partners, this just might have been the very last time we caught him in a genuinely scary appearance.

With the appearance of Permanent Vacation, the bodies were healed and the souls were sold. This, of course, is not just a personal impression, but is deeply rooted in factual basis. In order to «modernize» (shudders!) the band, Geffen Records brought in producer Bruce Fairbairn, whose main claim to fame was engineering Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet, and outside songwriters Desmond Child and Jim Vallance, to «help out» the band in the same humiliating way that mai­nstream labels were «helping out» old-time heroes like Cheap Trick and Eric Clapton. The goal was as obvious as the quest — the goal, to make a record that sells, the task, to maintain some sort of artistic integrity and save some sort of artistic face in fierce battle with the demon of cor­porate songwriting. The goal was achieved; the quest, mostly flunked.

I am not saying that Permanent Vacation is a bad album. It has to be approached according to the standards of its day; as a chunk of hairy pop-metal, it is actually better than most of the Poi­son / Def Leppard / Bon Jovi albums of its era, if only because old-time guitarists like Perry and Whitford, even if they really wanted to, could not play in the same flat, leaden, funkless way than the guitarists in most of these bands. But every effort has been taken to make them sound like these guys. The worst news is that the guitar melodies do not register any more in my memory bank. In the Seventies, it was all about the guitar groove; on tunes like 'Toys In The Attic' or, let's say, 'Get It Up', Joe Perry was the hero and Steve Tyler the afterthought. On Permanent Vaca­tion, the roles are permanently reversed. Guitars are there to provide loud, fat (I'd even say «over­weight»), and utterly unmemorable backing to catchy pop choruses. Nothing else.

And they aren't necessarily ugly pop choruses. After all, corporate songwriters usually know their job, and at least a guy like Desmond Child knew a thing or two about catchiness (unlike, for in­stance, Diane Warren, the biggest musical orgasm faker in the history of bad sex). If the chorus to 'Rag Doll' or to '(Dude) Looks Like A Lady' (which otherwise sounds like a bizarre cross between the Who's '5:15' and a particularly sleazy AC/DC anthem) does not stick in your brain, you must be tonedeaf or something. But even 'Rag Doll', arguably the strongest song on the album, is hopelessly spoiled with its dumb electronically enhanced drums and marinated guitar sound.

Nasty green stuff keeps splurging out all over the place. What is the point of covering 'I'm Down' by The Beatles, reproduced note-for-note but with atrocious late-Eighties production values? No point. What is the point of the closing pseudo-«Kashmir»ian drone 'The Movie'? To reaffirm the listener's faith in the band as «artists»? Four minutes is hardly enough time to fish that faith out from the depths of the well in which it has been dropping for the previous fourty. What is the point of the hedonistic title track — to confirm that the band are having a braindead competition with Mötley Crüe, even though it was already obvious from the first two songs? And let's not even get started on 'Angel', the first in a series of deadly biological weapons commonly known as «The Aerosmith Power Ballad» (fortunately, these particularly scary death-bringers were still in the testing stage; real mass production would not start until Get A Grip).

My personal two favourites are in the middle; 'St. John' sort of breaks up the pop-metal formula in favor of something sincerely darker and more bizarre in the blues-rock vein, and 'Hangman Jury' is sort of what it would be like to have Leadbelly produced by Bruce Fairbairn — crass, but fun and, at least, entirely unpredictable. If anything, these two songs show that the band were still not above searching for new sounds and experiences, something that the record industry would completely forbid by the time of Pump.

But these itty-bitty experiments get hopelessly lost in the sea of sludge and filth, with Steve Ty­ler, formerly one of the shiveriest nasty young men in existence, now jumping into the role of one of the ugliest dirty old sleazebags in the industry. Just like in the good old days, more than half of the songs are about getting some; but where the frenzied screams of "doctor, doctor, doctor, get your sweet ass off the floor" once sounded authentic, all this new stuff like "somebody better call a doctor or wake me up with a shove" ('Magic Touch') is no longer convincing at all — a fourty­year old Tyler is, of course, still decades away from being a Viagra patient (at least, I hope he was), but he is no longer able to sustain or justify his sex drive all through the album. Granted, again, there are not as many cringeworthy moments here as there are on Pump ('Love In An Ele­vator' — GOD!), but they're there all right, and I really don't want to hear song after song about dirty old men from dirty old men, be they Aerosmith or the Rolling Stones or Frank Sinatra.

Sometimes I feel genuinely envious of people who have no problem enjoying Permanent Vaca­tion with the same happy abandon that they enjoy Rocks or Toys In The Attic, i. e. with the ide­ology of «these guys rocked in the Seventies, now they rock in the Eighties and Nineties! — sure they rock in a different way, but times change, you know?» Try as we might, I and those with similar feelings will never be able to experience similar emotions from 'Rats In The Cellar' and '(Dude) Looks Like A Lady' — but maybe this is just our problem? Maybe we are overintellectu­alizing things instead of just letting go?

Then again, if we just let go, pretty much every rock song with a mid-tempo 4/4 beat may be able to rock our socks off, and where's the fun in that? Nah. I freely admit there are some good vocal hooks on the album, and a few creative ideas, but no sober Aerosmith album deserves anything higher than a rigid thumbs down. Back to drugs, boys; back to drugs — the only way to save the music. (Then again, maybe not. Dirty old men are bad enough, but dirty old junkies would make Requiem For A Dream look like an innocent joyride).

Aerosmith: Classics Live II

AEROSMITH: CLASSICS LIVE II (1987)

1) Back In The Saddle; 2) Walk This Way; 3) Movin' Out; 4) Draw The Line; 5) Same Old Song And Dance; 6) Last Child; 7) Let The Music Do The Talking; 8) Toys In The Attic.

The second volume in this odd series easily trumps the first one in terms of quality, but somewhat baffles the mind in terms of coherence. Most of the tracks are from a December 31, 1984 show (coinciding with Tom Hamilton's birthday, so there is no escape from the obligatory h-b-t-y with Tyler directing the audience) — most, that is, with the exception of 'Let The Music Do The Tal­king', recorded around two years later, and 'Draw The Line', recorded around six years earlier. So, technically, this is all the same band with all the same five members, but representing three en­tirely different life stages — the drugged-out pre-breakthrough, the still drugged-out reunion, and the cleaned-up, er, post-reunion.

The final product might have gained better credibility had Columbia simply released the entire show from 1984; but, apparently, the point was not to replicate any of the «classics» from the previous volume, so here we are with another bunch of hits (but what the hell is 'Movin' Out' do­ing among them?) hastily glued together. Another waste of vinyl?

Perhaps, but it still kicks ass. As the band was getting ready to enter the «Lite» stage of their ca­reer, the live performances were taking on a special appeal. What I mean is, even twenty years after the completion of the sellout, Aerosmith were still phenomenal onstage when performing the old classics; watch any live version of 'Back In The Saddle' from the early XXIst century and it does not take much to understand that the Tyler/Perry duo have kept their brawn and grit as fine as, or, perhaps, even finer than the Jagger/Richards pair. So how could they go wrong in the 1980s — reunited, refired, and with Tyler's voice so far free from the pranks of old age?

Classics Live II certainly rocks. There is not much need for it on the part of anybody who alrea­dy owns Live Bootleg, but, for the record, 'Back In The Saddle' is way superior to the 1978 ver­sion (all the screaming is carried off with honor, and Perry never messes up the riff), 'Walk This Way' is devoid of the talkbox mutation (provided you hated the talkbox in the first place), and the collective singing on 'Toys In The Attic' generally manages to stay on key (a very frequent prob­lem for this particular number). These are the few tempting moments. The rest is just regular pro­fessional entertainment. It won't blow the pants off any regular Aerosmith fan — but, inasmuch as pure joy is concerned, it is miles better than Permanent Vacation.

Aerosmith: Classics Live

AEROSMITH: CLASSICS LIVE! (1986)

1) Train Kept A-Rollin’; 2) Kings And Queens; 3) Sweet Emotion; 4) Dream On; 5) Mama Kin; 6) Three Mile Smile / Reefer Head Woman; 7) Lord Of The Thighs; 8) Major Barbara.

This is just a stop-gap record put out while the boys were in rehab, purging their blood and sel­ling their soul. Classics? Absolutely. Live? Most assuredly. I am not so certain about the excla­mation mark, though. The LP is a rag-tag-grab-bag of performances both from the Live! Bootleg era and the Perry-less / Bradford-less stunt (although the liner notes do not specify most dates for each of the performances explicitly), and it boasts neither coherence nor quality.

The truth is that, while Aerosmith were consistently superb at the height of their mid-Seventies powers, from 1977 to 1984 the live performances were uneven and depended a lot on just how far strung out the band members were — the bad boys from Boston or the crap boys from Shitrock­ville? As a matter of fact, spontaneous mistakes and flubs are the essence of rock’n’roll, but no one has ever revoked the golden middle principle. For Live! Bootleg, where the band still had the strength to remain in charge, they made all the right selections — this particular setlist, though, must have been produced by a tonedeaf programmer in search of data to test his newly-program­med randomizing algorithm.

If you respect pre-Armageddon Steven Tyler as much as I do, don’t ever listen to the atrocious rendition of ‘Kings And Queens’ where the man obviously cannot keep up the high notes — it is, in fact, amazing how he can keep it up at all, what with all the crack and booze taking it out on each other inside his system, but why make us all involuntary witnesses of that battle? (And, whi­le we’re at it, Steve’s idea to reproduce the alarming synth-string-siren of the original with his own vocal cords is equally ugly). ‘Dream On’ is only marginally better: this time, the high notes come out decently, but... at the expense of all the other ones.

As for the rockers, they rock, but, without Perry and Whitford, it just isn’t the same. The other guys may have been okay with their own material, and may have given the paying fans a decent time, but as for the record — no, it just does not feel like they are able to pass on the same fervent conviction as is oozed out by Perry ninety percent of the time. One needs only compare the crack­ling improv on the original live 'Lord Of The Thighs’ from 1978 and the pro forma version on Classics. Or, perhaps, one does not even need to compare.

In short, most of this is about as listenably-mediocre as the lone old studio outtake with which the company tried to entice the fans (‘Major Barbara’, a lazy, plaintive cowboy waltz from 1973) — but even so, it is still a way more pleasant experience than having to sit through all of the band’s Nineties’ hits on their later live records in order to break through to the golden oldies, especially if one happens be much too anal about pressing the skip button.

Aerosmith: Done With Mirrors

AEROSMITH: DONE WITH MIRRORS (1985)

1) Let The Music Do The Talking; 2) My Fist, Your Face; 3) Shame On You; 4) The Reason A Dog; 5) Sheila; 6) Gypsy Boots; 7) She's On Fire; 8) The Hop; 9) Darkness.

Reunion! Things happen fast with this band — at the time when their progenitors, the Stones, were just entering the crucial splintering phase, Aerosmith were already welcoming back their lost guitarists. Joe Perry, in some of his interviews, remembers how Rick Dufay pulled out of the new-look Aerosmith of his own free will, stating that this will never work unless the «Toxic Twins» get back together. No idea about Jimmy Crespo, but the dry fact is that by late 1984, all five original members were back together, although still high on drugs much of the time.

Unfortunately, the momentum was lost. The world had already shown a clear lack of interest in the old Aerosmith sound through the diminishing sales of Rock In A Hard Place, and then three years of complete studio silence finished the job. With hair metal on the rise, capturing the mar­ket niche formerly occupied by trashy Seventies' rockers, Aerosmith had to adapt — sacrificing their integrity — or to fade away to the status of a small cult band. It is our big luck, then, that in 1985 their minds were still too clouded by substances for them to see it properly.

Of course, Done With Mirrors is no longer the Aerosmith of old. Much of the fault lies with the outside circumstances: having signed a new contract with Geffen Records instead of the old Co­lumbia association, they dumped their old producer, Jack Douglas, very much responsible for engineering the classic Aerosmith sound. New guy Ted Templeton (of the Doobie Brothers and Van Halen fame) had a solid agenda behind him, but either he was intent on molding a new-look Aerosmith for the new decade or he had little interest in the band as such, because the unique magic that made up the band is gone.

Fellow reviewer Mark Prindle couldn't have stated it better when he mentioned that, all over Done With Mirrors, «the guitars sound like walls, not like the electrical currents and loose wires of classic Aerosmith». But is this really Joe Perry's fault? The old boy is definitely trying, and, even though only a few riffs are memorable (generally at the beginning of the album), with a lit­tle more care this could have been another Draw The Line. But when the guitars are flattened and splattered, muted and muffled, hidden under pillows, glossed and glued together as if someone were afraid that people would laugh at Joe's obvious lack of virtuoso technique — quite possible to expect of a producer guy whose main protégé was Eddie Van Halen — you know that the Ei­gh­ties are upon us indeed.

Granted, it could have been much worse. The drums could have been reduced to electronic pulp, instead of simply made to sound pompously big and non-rock'n'rollish. There could have been a synthesizer invasion, but the record is mostly keyboard-free. All of the songs are self-penned, and the ballads are pretty much non-existent (with a little effort, one could call 'Darkness' a ballad, but certainly not when it picks up tempo). The choruses are catchy (with a few exceptions, such as Brad Whitford's 'The Reason A Dog', which seems to me about as underwritten as its title), Tyler is in his usual vocal form — so perhaps we'd better just get over the sad deal with the production and count this as another solid offering from the band?

Perhaps, except that there is a clear, if subtle, change in the agenda. On Rock In A Hard Place, the agenda still went something like «don't mess with the bad boys of rock'n'roll»; here, it is «you may not believe this, but we are still the bad boys of rock'n'roll». "Nobody gonna get my rock­'n'roll", Tyler screams on 'Shame On You' — hmm, was there any doubt about that in the first place around 1977? And what's with all the self-quoting? "Back in the saddle gets you sore" ('My Fist, Your Face')? References to Aerosmith and Joe Perry in 'The Hop'? Even musical quotations — when 'Let The Music Do The Talking', a re-recording of the best song from Perry's short solo career, starts the record off with a bang, it's like all the problems never happened, but then all of a sudden it goes into the riff of 'Draw The Line' for a few bars, and you realize, with fright, that this little bit kicks much more ass than the rest of the song. That's when you know, for sure, that the band's golden days are properly over.

And yet, let us be fair. Together with Rock In A Hard Place, this album has pretty much slipped through the cracks of the public conscience and the critical appreciation. People have a strange habit of associating the goodness of Aerosmith with chart positions and total revenue: for most listeners, these were the «dark years» for the drugged-out band, steadily on the decline ever since chemicals began to get the better of them around 1977 and then beginning to «come back» ten years later. But the «comeback» was actually just a change of master — freed from the iron rule of drugs, the band sold themselves to fashion.

Done With Mirrors may not be a very good re­cord, a sharp quality drop-off from the former level, but there is no doubt that, at this point, Aero­smith were still doing what they wanted to do. Their tragedy was that no one else wanted them to do it — and that they could not get over it, and so their heart was not perfect with rock'n'roll their God, and Aerosmith did evil in the sight of rock'n'roll, and went not fully after rock'n'roll, where­fore it was said unto Aerosmith, «surely will rock'n'roll be rended from thee, and given to thy betters». But all that was still a couple of years away; Done With Mirrors, in the meantime, may be threatened with a thumbs down for the exe­cution (including the rather silly gimmick of the «mirrored» writing on the sleeve), but still gets a thumbs up for the effort.