Aerosmith Rocks Full Album
Wesley Godinez
I was a big Aerosmith fan when I was in middle school. Everyone was. After all, it was the early 90's, and pretty much every other video on MTV had Alicia Silverstone prancing around to Steven Tylers shrieking voice.
In this trip down memory lane, Id like to take a look at the albums that Aerosmith produced while they were at Geffen, and discuss why I think theyre so good, why I enjoyed them then, and why I still enjoy them now.
The word in the cafeteria when I was a kid was that the name of this album had two meanings. The primary being a reference to how magic tricks can be done with mirrors, the secondary being that this was Aerosmiths first album after rehab, and they were done snorting coke off of mirrors. Its a nice little play on words. My three brothers and I used to listen to this album while we played poker.
Names aside, this album is pretty unremarkable. Most non-Aerosmith fans dont even know it exists. Now, dont misunderstand me. Its a very passably good rock album. But the only song I ever remember hearing anywhere other than on the album itself was Shes On Fire.
You cant really blame them, though. They had only just gotten back together after some serious substance abuse, and were still finding their sea legs. They sound a little like a garage band, but thats a good thing. They were starting over again, and needed to create a new chemistry.
Ah, yesthe reason I became an Aerosmith fan. For a long time, this was my favorite album. My brother Joe had it on cassette, and he copied it onto a cheap blank tape for me (the kind you get in a 3-pack at the Dollar General that dont have cases). I listened to it over and over again on my walkman. I will now relate a story:
When I was in 6th grade, my class went on a trip to Harpers Ferry. Now, because I was a good smart kid, my teachers always saw fit to put me in groups with bad dumb kids, hoping I would temper their behavior. I always resented this, because Ive always loved museums and parks and stuff like that, and it meant I would never get to do and see everything I wanted to. Well, long story short, my parents felt bad for me, and took me to Harpers Ferry several weeks later all by myself. I told you all of that because of this: I listened to Permanent Vacation all the way there and all the way back, singing along at the top of my lungs. My poor parents. But I had a great time.
This is the album that made people realize that maybe Aerosmith wasnt dead after all, with great songs like Rag Doll, Dude (Looks Like a Lady), and Angel. They created a wholly unique sound with slide guitar, synthesizers, and a fantastic horn section. This is also the first album in a long collaboration with producer Bruce Fairbairn, and songwriter Desmond Child.
Permanent Vacation was a hard act to follow, but Aerosmith was on a roll. If Permanent Vacation was testing the waters with a toe, Pump jumped in head first. Ive heard the term momentum used in reference to entertainment phenomena. The Aerosmith ball was rolling hard and fast and this point, and its obvious they aimed to keep it that way. Pump sounds cleaner, more carefully produced, and rocks much harder. If there was ever an example of the quintessential Aerosmith sound, this is it. Songs like Love in an Elevator, Janies Got a Gun, and What it Takes prove it.
More than anything, I just remember this album playing in the background a lot. At friends houses, in my brothers rooms, on TV, at the mall, everywhere. By this point, we were all pretty well steeped in Aerosmith. No complaints here.
The release of this album put Aerosmith mania into full swing. Aerosmith was everywhere. It seemed like MTV was trying to meet some kind of daily quota for the video of Cryin. Amazing and Crazy werent far behind. Alicia Silvertsone was the Aerosmith poster child/pinup girl. Practically every song on this album was a hit single, with matching hit music video. There was even an Aerosmith arcade/Super NES game: Revolution X. They were probably the biggest act at Woodstock 2 (which, in retrospect, wasnt nearly as big a deal as everyone made it out to be). Wayne and Garth were particularly enamored of the band.
Dont get me wrong. I was just as crazy about all things Aerosmith as the next teenager, but I have to admit that I was starting to get annoyed. Nobody likes being force-fed, even if its something you like. The music was great, but Aerosmith was starting to get played out. Even so, we listened to Get a Grip a lot. Cryin started to get annoying, but the rest of the album was thoroughly enjoyable. Great music for either driving in the car, or running on the treadmill.
I remember a big deal being made over the album cover. Some animals rights people thought they had actually pierced a cows nipple and branded it with the Aerosmith wings. Of course, even now in the 21st century, people have trouble spotting photoshopped pictures, but I always thought the cover looked pretty fake.
This was a nice album to take with you in the car if you wanted to listen to your favorite Aerosmith songs without having to carry around a stack of CDs (back in the pre-ipod era). Really, though, I think this album was just another way of keeping the Aerosmith momentum going. Geffen needed a way to keep Aerosmith in peoples faces, and they didnt want to wait for an entirely new album to be written and produced. Big Ones was the ideal solution. Walk on Water, Blind Man, and Deuces are Wild pretty much ensured that all true Aerosmith fans would buy it, even if they already owned all the other songs on the album. We did, and we did.
Of course, theres a lot more that I could say about Aerosmith, but thats unfortunately outside the scope of this article (I particularly like Toys in the Attic, and Nine Lives). Maybe Ill write about them later. Youll have to wait and see.
"The first record that changed my life in a huge way was Aerosmith's Rocks," Godsmack's Sully Erna told us. "I'd been a musician since I was three-and-a-half years old, and I was raised on blues and more jazzy music: Buddy Rich, Ray Charles, Etta James and a lot of old-school stuff. But then I discovered Joe Perry and Aerosmith. A friend played me Last Child from Rocks. I think it was the first time I smoked a joint, and it was a really life-changing point for me, because it really lured me into the world of rock. It was super-cool for a young kid."
Every week, Album of the Week Club listens to and discusses the album in question, votes on how good it is, and publishes our findings, with the aim of giving people reliable reviews and the wider rock community the chance to contribute.
"Despite hard drug use escalating among band members, Aerosmith produced a superb follow-up to their masterwork Toys in the Attic, nearly topping it in the process. Many Aero fans will point to Toys as the band's quintessential album (it contained two radio/concert standards after all, Walk This Way and Sweet Emotion), but out of all their albums, Rocks did the best job of capturing Aerosmith at their most raw and rocking. (AllMusic)
"Steven Tyler is the band's obvious focal point, a distinction earned primarily by his adaptation of the sexual stance that missed the young Jack Flash. On the rockers, his delivery is polished and commanding and sufficiently enthusiastic to disguise the general innnocuousness of the lyrics. On the riff-dominated songs, though, such as Last Child or Back in the Saddle, he is prone to shrieks that don't bear repetition. Unlike Jagger, his vocal performance cannot save otherwise mediocre material." (Super Seventies)
John Davidson: My first introduction to Aerosmith was the highly inauspicious Night In The Ruts so its perhaps no surprise that I didn't really delve into their back catalog at the time.
They seemed more like an amped up Stones than an American Led Zeppelin and there were plenty of other bands around that played to my SF/Fantasy interests in Rush and Rainbow and then the whole NWOBHM.
So having neglected their best albums of the 70s I didn't really listen to Aerosmith again until they started having hits in the MTV years and didn't explore their back catalogue at all until I met my wife (who was a big fan).
On its own merits, without the nostalgia kick of remembering this from the 70s I still like this album. It has a real groove to it and some great riffs but it doesn't quite have that 'epic' feel to it that I enjoy most about heavy rock (though Nobody's Fault comes closest ).
In my opinion Aerosmith had their best run at the end of the 80s and beginning of the 90s with Permanant Vacation, Pump and Get A Grip, all brilliant records. In the 70s they had a few good songs, but that's it. To me it's only 5/10.
Chris Elliott: I must be listening to a different album. It's okay but not much more. This album always left me cold. It's not that heavy. There's no great track that hooks you. It plods along doing blues rock with no great spark.
There's no nostalgia. I never quite got 70s American heavy rock in general, so it's battling an uphill slope. Even so, it still seems the weakest of their "classic" albums. Mind you, it probably makes more sense in a country with Corvettes rather than the Vauxhall Viva.
Evan Sanders: Having grown up outside of Boston, we believe that Aerosmith are rock gods, and it's common to know people who have been friends with the band members over the years. It's hard to write anything bad about this album. Every song is strong, and they seemed determined to show that there would be no fourth album slump after their debut, Get Your Wings, and Toys In The Attic.
Back In The Saddle may be one of the most iconic album openers ever, setting a tone similar to Whole Lotta Love or Immigrant Song on Led Zeppelin II and III. The only criticism is that Rocks isn't quite at the level of the three albums that came before it, which is like dissing on Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy as being not as good as the four before it. Alas, the slump did indeed come with their next album Draw The Line, as the consequences of their lifestyle took their toll. 8/10.
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