The limits of the project were tested when I listened to every single Aerosmith song in a row. That's 248 songs by my count. It was really tough. It hurt me - badly at times. I lost something along the way, and not just the 18 hours of my life that I'll never get back. Something more than that. It really dampened the flame of rock inside me and filled me with dread for the state of music in the world, in the past, present, and future. Hopefully, this unease is just temporary until my faith is restored by another artist, but the emotional impact was real and powerful. I felt it as loss. Filled with rage and sadness and grief, I tried to organize my response in an effort to restrain the tide of negative emotion this band has brought forth in me. Plus, if I just started screaming at my computer screen what purpose would that serve? Thus, I present: the Five Stages of Aerosmith Grief. It's not exactly Safe For Work. (Even adding the word Aerosmith to the dictionary just now to avoid those irritating red underlines, caused a little bit of me inside to die, as though I was lending legitimacy to something that is not.)
I. Denial
This band cannot be as bad as I think they are, can they? Why is it, really, that they seem so annoying to me? So...grating, irritating, and middling. I feel about them the same way The Dude feels about The Eagles (actually, I feel that way about the Eagles too: so damn middle-of-the-road.) Perhaps I just haven't heard their best stuff. Maybe they only play the lousy Aerosmith songs on the radio. It happens. Surely, considering their massive following and Classic Rock Legend status, there will be plenty of good songs in their 40+ year career. Right? And while historically I have had some criticisms to level at Boston, perhaps this band will rise above it. (They lived in a still-standing, nondescript apartment on Comm Ave. that I passed many times without knowing or caring.) You know what their first band was called? The Jam Band. OK, OK - I'm sure it will get better. The damn drummer drops out of Berklee to join The Jam Band. They quickly become Aerosmith, but, no, it is not a reference to the Sinclair Lewis novel at all; in fact, some of the band members initially resisted the name because they didn't want the band named after some dumb book they were required to read in high school. The other rejected band name? The Hookers. These guys were dicks right out of the gate, buy they get some kudos for pretty much maintaining their original line-up through the present (except for some temporary departures during the height of drug abuse in the 80s).
Some people call them them "America's Greatest Rock and Roll Band," though I found far more references to people saying that people say that than actual people saying that. Really? This is our answer to the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin? England strip-mines the best of American roots music then spits it back in our face, and our response is to water it down even further with silly antics and filthy depravity? Although they never really took-off across the pond, one sad fact is indisputable: they are the best-selling American hard rock band of all time, which is depressing and difficult to believe but true. Hard rock is key though because Billy Joel, Michael Jackson, Garth Brooks and the fucken Eagles have all sold way more. American is key too because AC/DC thankfully outpaces them. Like the Eagles, taken as a whole it all seems so damn middling and uninteresting. It is barely decent rock. Good enough? At times, sure. It is a rock band after all. I've heard worse. I have. There are worse bands. Maybe...
For a band from Boston they sure sound like some boring southern-fried shit on that first album. What is this, rejected Lynrd Skynrd b-sides? "Mama Kin" especially I would have easily identified as a Skyrnd song if forced to attribute authorship--and they still play it to this day! The unimpressive vocals throughout that first album completely lack the urgency and range of subsequent albums....except perhaps on "Shine On," which I must admit is a decent 70s song with appreciable staying power. It's a good pseudo-epic that I give them credit for writing in the beginning of their career and trotting out with relative success at various points throughout the rest of their long tenure on the stage.
However, while lead singer Steve Tyler's voice is already more nuanced for their 2nd album, 1974's largely forgettable Get Your Wings, it would be another album and a half before I encountered another good song, and that's also where the problems become impossible to ignore or even tolerate.
II. Anger
There were times while driving and listening to Aerosmith's discography that I became so enraged, my musical sensibilities so insulted, that I had to pull over to the side of the road and jot down some notes for this blog. What a fucken waste it is sometime! This wasted rock, this pointless distraction. To echo Jello Biafra, but "where are your ideas?!"
Even though it allegedly marks their break into the mainstream and remains their best-seller, 3rd album Toys in Attic didn't impress me either, except it does contain the first versions of "Walk this Way" and "Sweet Emotion." "Sweet Emotion" remains an undeniable classic rock mainstay. It is their first legitimate hit, and only after it breaks the Top 40 do they re-release "Dream On," which actually ends up being a Top 10 hit despite being recorded and released three years earlier. Thus begins an endless stream of successful pop rock power ballads to irritate any unfortunate listeners of commercial radio for decades.
In 1991 "Sweet Emotion" is re-released for no damn good reason (in conjunction with one of their stupid box sets), and that's when I heard it. Or more accurately, that's when I saw its salacious phone-sex themed video. Oh, I saw it many times. It kinda made an impact on me. I was a teen. I could just barely figure out what was going on in the sexy video with the twist ending (the phone sex operator turns out to be a fat old lady with kids- ha). In fact, when I think about the Aerosmith I came in contact with as a youth, all I can picture is scantily clad women gyrating and showing off, whether it's the video for "Love in an Elevator" or those even more exploitative videos of their 90s heyday, which famously included not just an adorable Alicia Silverstone but also, even more sleazily, Tyler's own daughter, Liv. Something is wrong here. As a young horny person without clear thinking, should I have know this band only as that band that I can count on to show off some sexy women? I know sex sells and that's part of life, but there has to be a point where it is taken too far beyond tasteful eroticism and becomes sleazy sexploitation. I'm not saying you can't have sexiness in a music video, but when that's all you've got and you keep hitting it again and again in different ways then it becomes a bit obscene. If I was in a superstar band I'd like to be known for the actual music coming out of the band. There's something so unseemly about repeatedly and blatantly using sexual exploitation to sell your stuff to people, especially impressionable young people.
Night in the Ruts gave us "Bone to Bone (Coney Island White Fish Boy)," which is literally a song about a used condom. Toys in the Attic also includes a cringe-worthy cover of an old Bull Moose Jackson number, "Big Ten Inch Record." The depressingly relentless perversions continue with the predictably titled "Jail Bait" on Rock in Hard Place, along with little else of note. What is wrong with these men?! How many songs do they need about jail bait, shagging the groupies, and trannies (at least 2, apparently)? Why?! That's me using the word they used; they should have listened to Lance Bass schooling us all on why we should avoid that slur, but that was actually in the future. Yet- as that Huff Post article makes clear, it's actually a surprisingly open-minded response to a transgendered person, again, almost progressive. That's Boston for ya! Read the whole thing, but, spoiler: the song was literally about Vince Neil of Motley Crue.
In 1987 we get "Rag Doll" on Permanent Vacation. Let's talk about the lyrics to "Rag Doll":
Rag doll, livin' in a movie
Hot tramp, daddy's little cutie
You're so fine, they'll never see ya leavin' by the back door, mam
Hot time get it while it's easy
Don't mind come on up and see me
Rag doll baby won't you do me like you done before
I'm feelin' like a bad boy
Mm just a like a bad boy
I'm rippin' up a Rag Doll
Like throwin' away an old toy
...
Old tin lizzy do it till you're dizzy
Give it all ya got until you're put out of your misery
Fuck you, you fucken sociopaths. This sound like a celebration of violent, degrading sex. What the fuck?! Why are you singing about that on the damn radio? And why are we letting you? Who the fuck do you think you are that you can a.) treat people like that; and b.) brag about it in a song? I'm no Puritan, but I hardly think this constitutes appropriate behavior to praise in the public sphere. Not when rock bands could be telling us to fight for our right to party and/or party for our right to fight. Again- I'm not going to stop anyone from being a filth monger, but I don't think that shit should be rewarded by things like GRAMMY and MTV awards, pop radio success, and the praise of so-called music critics; this album and their next are highly regraded by the likes of Rolling Stone and bands like tour-and-label-mates Guns N' Roses, Motley Crue (makes sense), but also Metallica and Kurt Cobain (who specifically mentions Rocks in his posthumously published diary). It makes me incredibly angry that this awful band is so widely recognized and appreciated as anything other than the sleazy hacks they are.
III. Bargaining
The next album, the unoriginally named Rocks (1976) is perhaps slightly better, though not to any great degree. There is a bit more sonic variety, although the varieties don't all work and some are still ridiculous. Much of it seems poorly mixed; "Back in the Saddle" does not sound good with everything dumped in the mids, but the looser funk of "Lost Child" works better and is almost fun.
But...What if I told you there's a nearly forgotten Aerosmith album that is actually good? It is called Draw the Line and it came out in 1977. It is the album where they are struggling through the excesses of their early success. In other words, they were all super high and having lots of sex. Ironically, it is actually stripped down and devoid of attempts at studio wizardry and needless effects. As a result, it is actually so much better in terms of recording and mixing; everything is isolated and clear. It's like you're in the room, as they say. Despite all the partying, Tyler somehow restrains the worst of his vocal eccentricities without retreating entirely to the boredom of the first album. When certain people checked out for drugs and sex, others were taking up the lead in terms of both performance and song writing, producing new and different sounds. I'll admit it: this album actually rocks, and occasionally is even interesting! It's a bit more jam-oriented than their typical Verse/Course and solo-based blues progressions. The album also ventures into damn-near-prog rock territory, particularly on "Kings and Queens," which charted and remains a live staple. "Kings and Queens" is a song that Rush would have written if they were C-students instead of nerds.
And then, OMG WTF is this song, "Bright Light Fright"? Is this Hawkwind? It sounds like a very deliberate nod to the Velvet Underground; it rocks, briefly. The story is that lead guitarist Joe Perry brought it to the band, who hated it, so he sang it himself. It's supposed to be inspired by the Sex Pistols, which is certainly believable and fine. The song doesn't seem to have the cult following it should.
In the end, they literally didn't have enough original material to cover the running time of a full album, so they threw on two blues covers. It sold much less than their previous albums. Rolling Stone called it "a truly horrendous record, chaotic to the point of malfunction." I counter that it is an almost great album, a hidden gem. They apparently look back on it in dismay, calling it "the decay of our artistry." So there you have it - the one good Aerosmith record is the one they disavow themselves.
As since this is during their druggiest period, there is the slight Beatles association: they somehow appear in the Sgt. Pepper movie, and elsewhere play a version of "Come Together" that I'm trying to find tolerable.
Live! Bootleg is supposed to capture their drug-fueled rawness, and alright, sure. I was definitely up for their first live album at this point in the chronology, and it actually does not disappoint. They are certainly punchier, faster. It's not all good, but "Toys in the Attic" live is practically heavy metal, and I thought little of the song upon first hearing the album version.
It is several albums away, but as long as I'm trying to find value here then their proto-rap/rock stylings should be mentioned and validated. Actually, that collaboration with RUN DMC was pretty cool, I have to admit. Nobody disputes the value of that team-up, and that it worked relatively well. I mean, he's still annoying as shit, but one could call this "ahead of their time," even progressive.
I even cheated a little:
I'm not listening to any of those repackaged collections of theirs with alternate versions of songs I didn't want to hear the first time and do not need to rehear. And I'm not leaving them all downloaded on my phone, as a typically do until the blog entry is finished.
IV. Depression
By this point I have listened to only five of the band's fifteen studio albums, plus several more live albums.
Then, at some point, it's like the third week in a row of me listening to nothing but Aerosmith. I'm listening to another sub-par live album, this one from the very peak of the resurgent career in the late 90s. It's summer. I pull up to a red light with my windows down, and the guy in the truck next to me has his windows down too, also playing some loud rock music. I have to say, I was very embarrassed. I found myself tapping along to the music in the adjacent vehicle while my own music continued to blare on unabated. He was playing "Trampled Under Foot," and, say what you will about Led Zeppelin, but I sincerely love that John Paul Jones clavinet breakdown; it's so good he does it twice. I turned my music down, shamefully. It wouldn't be the only time. Pulling into my driveway, pulling into the parking lot at work, I would often have to turn Aerosmith down, mortified by my own listening and anxious about being publicly shamed for it.
"Reefer Headed Woman" is, without exaggeration, the only song I have any memory of listening to from Night in the Ruts. The ensuing tour is when the band almost breaks up; their wives were fighting with each other. Perry leaves for the aptly titled Joe Perry Project. <eye roll> Some other guy plays his parts for awhile before he gets over it and returns. Tyler's on so many drugs he collapses on stage in Portland, Maine in 1980, then lays on the stage for the rest of the show. Then he's in a motorcycle accident, which takes him out of commission for months. The band releases Greatest Hits to distract us. We buy it.
This rough period in the 80s is so rough. There's a shit album called Rock in Hard Place (eyes rolling again for the title alone); Perry and the other guitarist both come back for another shit album, Done with Mirrors, which can't even manage to produce a single. They tour playing much smaller venues, fight on stage, play poorly, collapse on stage again, get divorced...
They sorta clean up and all get back together. At least nobody will accuse the next two live albums of being overproduced; they sound like someone just stuck a microphone in the crowd and let it roll. All the flubs and bad high-notes are there too. Some might call that refreshingly real, but I didn't really enjoy the live performances of weak songs much. It doesn't sound great. When they play "Movin' Out" (not the Billy Joel song) he says it was the first Aerosmith song they ever wrote, and I'm like, "It sounds A LOT like Queen." Too much. The live albums, and the pointless collection Gems (total misnomer), are really just contractual obligations resulting from them switching labels. The best thing they do during this era is appear with Run-D.M.C. on their cover of "Walk this Way," which kinda resurrects them from near-death.
There's got to be a difference between refreshingly-entertaining antics to spice up a performance and outright clowning, but if so the front man in this band has not learned it. To me, he's an irritating clown without tricks or makeup. They should get some recognition for touring consistently and thoroughly throughout this time period. Despite all the inevitable addictions, personal problems, and stints in rehab to challenge their existence, the boys from Boston manage to pull through somehow - for better or for worse.
And those horns. I don't know what it is about this band that every time they throw in a horn section it sounds so stale, so darn white-bread. Too easy. As if that's not bad enough, live they seem to often rely on fucken keyboard horns that sound so awful, but not as bad as the live "strings" via keyboard that show up later in their career. It's all so awful. Why would a musician do this? They just keep cranking them out...
* * *
I should now mention that I've actually seen Aerosmith live, once, in 1994 - when they were riding high. In my defense, my friend wanted me to go with him because he was on a delicate sorta first date, and I was the awkward third wheel. Believe me when I say I can recall not one moment of Aerosmith's performance: nothing about the light show, not one song, not one moment of stage banter, nothing. I'm not being facetious; they literally made absolutely no lasting impression on me, and it's not because my memory is shot. I remember that 4-Non Blondes was the opening act, and I even remember seeing those ladies onstage. I remember getting stuck in the notorious traffic leaving Jones Beach Amphitheater. And, most of all, I remember that before the band went on the venue played a Rage Against the Machine song over the PA and it was the first time I had ever heard them. When it got to the "FUCK YOU I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!" part, my friend and I looked at each other and we were both like, "What is THIS?!" (RageATM is not beyond criticism, but there had never been anything like that first album of theirs before.) I can't tell you anything that Aerosmith did that night, good or bad. So there you have it.
[Edit] I never owned an Aerosmith album, but when I was in high school I had a tape with a dubbed copy of Pump on one side and Get a Grip on the other. The only song in my digital library prior to this experience was "What it Takes" - and for that I listened to 15+ albums.
After Get a Grip things quickly take a turn for the absurdly bad. They were already facing criticisms as sell outs for bringing in outside writers and pandering to youth culture, but contractual obligations demanded more music. Nine Lives is irredeemably bad, coming as it does along with various personnel problems and the firing of their long-time manager. Lead single "Pink" is such an awful song, but it somehow earns them their fourth GRAMMY; that's one more than Elvis Presley, by the way.
And then at this point I'm just gonna have to start ripping it verbatim from Wikipedia because every sentence nauseates me and I just don't even want to talk about it anymore:
First they talk about how during this era the band "become a pop culture phenomenon with popular music videos and notable appearances in television, film, and video games." Retch.
It gets worse.
"In 1998, in the midst of setbacks during the Nine Lives Tour, the band released the single "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing", the love theme, written by Diane Warren for the 1998 film Armageddon, starring Steven Tyler's daughter Liv. The song became Aerosmith's first and only number 1 single when it debuted at the top position on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed on top of the charts for four weeks. The song was nominated for an Academy Award in 1999. The song helped open Aerosmith up to a new generation and remains a slow-dance staple.1998 also saw the release of the double-live album, A Little South of Sanity, which was assembled from performances on the Get a Grip and Nine Lives tours. The album went platinum shortly after its release. The band continued with their seemingly never-ending world tours promoting Nine Lives and the "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" single well into 1999."
No fucking comment.
[Edit] OK - comment. It is their "biggest hit," after all. Wait- what is that song about? It's either so innocent it's off-putting or incredible creepy - maybe both. He's definitely watching someone sleep. It almost sounds like he is watching his child sleep, but surely it would be in poor taste to release that song as the soundtrack of a movie in which the guy's actual no-longer-a-child stars. The Internets will have me believe that U2 was going to play the song first, but then when Liv Tyler was cast in the movie they approached Aerosmith about doing it. They didn't really write it themselves, and it does sound a bit like "Just Like Jesse James," which Diane Warren wrote for Cher. She says it's about "treasuring every moment spent with another person" and, and! she wrote it inspired by James Brolin missing his wife Barbara Streisand! OH and she also told Performing Songwriter: "Some of the lyrics, like 'I can stay away just to hear you breathing,' I'd be like, "No, don't do that. Don't watch me breath. I won't be able to sleep. Go do something else.' It's so funny, because part of me would never want someone to say that to me, but then again, I write it." OK, lady - you've convinced me: it's creepy! She also said she wanted Celine Dion to sing it. Wikipedia claims "the video was highly successful and greatly contributed to the song's success" and who am I to argue. Just to recap, this band of occasional original rock and blue covers had a cover song as their "biggest hit."
That same year the Rock n Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith opened at Disney's Hollywood studios in Florida. When we were there I kept telling the kids I was going to make them go on that ride if they didn't behave.
They played the Super Bowl halftime show in Jan. 2001 because of course they did. Before the end of the year the world would be changed, and Aerosmith would no longer have a place in it. That doesn't stop them from trying. They do play at a 9/11 benefit concert in DC, not the one in NYC. They play for a couple worthy causes in Boston too.
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But Just Push Play, with the stupid cover, is inexcusably bad and almost negates all their semi-legitimate rock. Even they admit it sucks. So of course they get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. VH1 gives them the Behind the Music treatment, and theirs is one of the few episodes to run two hours. Great.
Their inevitable back-to-basics blues album Honkin' on Bobo comes out in 2004, and to me it was a welcome reprieve from their absurdist antics. It's not great, but it's OK. They put out multiple additional collections. They tour the world relentlessly. They occasionally fall off the stage and seriously hurt themselves multiple times(!), leading to a stream of cancellations and reschedules. They feud with each other again, and everyone has solo projects. They hit rehab again, for pills, not booze. I almost feel sorry for them. Tyler enrages everyone else in the band by becoming a judge on American Idol while the rest of them are left to twiddle their thumbs.
Their long-delayed 15th album, Music from Another Dimension! (2012), their first original material in almost a decade, is so pointless and sad. This is some horrific, soul-crushing shit. Meaningless pap. Is this bullshit really produced by alt-rock wonder-producer Brendan O'Brien? Some of it, yes. In a bit of terrible irony, Perry and Tyler are somehow inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame at this point. Total bullshit. To say they were just going through the motions at the end of their career is an understatement. I wish they would stop. I really do. There's been enough Aerosmith already. Too much. Although they tour the world with maddening persistence, they are currently without an existing record contract or any remaining contractual obligations. Meanwhile, Tyler puts out a motherfucking solo country album (the single: "Red, White[,] and You") and tours the shit out of it, playing country fairs and whatnot. Perry plays with Alice Cooper and Johnny Depp in the supergroup Hollywood Vampires. Hard pass.
They keep teasing this farewell tour that goes on forever...
V. Acceptance
MTV gave them an Icon award in 2002, and fair enough.
All the bands they influenced are better than them. Slash says they are his favorite. Staind and Godsmack are also fans. <straight face>
Let's not forget about their associations with Wayne's World, and also Flaming Moes way back in 1991, which is some of the least funny shit that has ever been on (the first dozen seasons of) The Simpsons. The part with Moe singing is alright...
And yet, they had some good songs, right? A few. I would take back every mean thing I said if they would just promise to stop making new music.
Their greatest sin is that they are so American in that it is just a too-neatly packaged product that keeps getting pumped out relentlessly because people will keep buying it. Despite their bad-boys image (and, granted, actual behavior), and despite some of the filth they actually sing about, the music itself is all so safe, so carefully calculated and formulated to sell. Ultimately, the problem is not so much even the quality, as it is the quantity. Perhaps no band has pumped more shit into the world. Quit while you're ahead, guys! (This is, ironically, advice I should have taken myself before typing up 4,000 words about the band. Forgive me - I was mad and filled with grief.)
[Final Edit] I will simply add without any snarky commentary or armchair psychoanalysis that Steven Tyler started a charity for abused girls called Janie's Fund and maybe if something positive comes out of this band it is that everyone who listens to every Aerosmith song in a row (or even just reads about it) gives this worthy organization a little change in the tip jar of life.
