Every Aerosmith album and tour comes with a truckload of Samsonites.Īerosmith is a band with rare technical gifts - a band wherein every player is an ace and the singer is incomparable. This is not a band that leaves their baggage behind. According to their lead singer, Aerosmith thrives on the clarity that comes through restoration. And Steven Tyler’s greatest love seems to come after the betrayal and after the tears and after the bottom. To him, the greatest music comes from the greatest love. For years, Steven Tyler has spoken openly (and proudly) about the break-ups, the addictions and the reconciliations. The wonder of Aerosmith’s great and enduring codependence is not a secret.
Because the miracle of Aerosmith is that, for more than forty years, the same five guys - Steven Tyler (lead vocals), Joe Perry (guitar), Tom Hamilton (bass), Joey Kramer (drums) and Brad Whitford (guitar) - stayed together. But neither are the miracle of Aerosmith. They have great songs and some very good albums. But they were also, more often than not, limited by their weighty influences and their intoxication. They were always a great band, an elite Blues-based Rock band.
In truth, they were always just a fraction of Zeppelin’s magic power and a scrap of The Stones’ breadth and depth. The miracle of Aerosmith is not even specifically their music. But those triumphs are not the miracle of Aerosmith. And, with “Dream On,” they can reasonably lay claim to the greatest Rock ballad ever recorded. Since 1973, they have enjoyed two number one albums and six top ten albums. It might - yes - except for the fact that those five brothers and all their baggage are almost exactly like Aerosmith.Īerosmith holds the distinction of being the best selling American Rock band other than The Eagles. Maybe all of this harping on about baggage sounds like a bad fable. And, finally, imagine that, every time they go on this trip, they pack new bags but also brought all of the old bags with them. And, every decade or so, one of the brothers is in the midst of a divorce or new marriage. And imagine that every few years, they disinvite one of the brothers, sometimes for petty reasons and sometimes for a serious offense. Imagine that these five brothers do this for forty years. And imagine that, on this road trip, the five brothers and their wives and their girlfriends stop in a different city every night for fifty nights straight. And imagine that two of the guys are politically conservative, two are liberal and one seriously could not care less. OK, now imagine that most of the guys are high on cocaine. Imagine that every single person in the group is very particular about their clothes. Imagine their wives and girlfriends are joining.
Now imagine them packing for a family road trip. No band/power ballad – straight piano and strings ballad.Imagine five American brothers. Piano ballad with strings, Beatles harmonies. Cool, slow, bluesy rocker, complicated melodies, interesting vocal – is that Joe? One of the best.ġ5. Pretty mellow but a bit bluesy and dark.ġ4. Cool heavy one, Joe singing again? Again, tame tone on the guitar. Interesting sparse production, tight, small, cool changes.ġ1. Best track on it? Heavy, fast, punky, a bit like Ted Nugent. Fast, Toys In the Attic rocker with shuffle. Interesting production and textures again. Like Beautiful, so overproduced it’s hard to tell how heavy it is. You can tell this is one of the Jack Douglas ones? Totally different guitar and drum sound from the others. Ballad, but folky guitar, but then there’s strings too. heavy but way over-produced, with poppy chorus. Mid rocker, a little overproduced, hard to tell guitars, sorta Get A Grip-era production. Each part more melodic than last, but good song.Ģ. Rumbling heavy like Hearts Done Time, cool, complicated.