I turn off those kinds of songs right away if I hear them on the radio but I won’t skip them if I’m playing the album
BTW, reach back to the first album, it was going to be Walking The Dog or Major Barbara. Walking the Dog was the safe choice, with Major Barbara a tune that you love or hate. I would have put Major Barbara on. You?
i thought tyler once said the label sort of hinted they'd rather have the cover and the rest of the band wasn't high on major barbara and felt one slower tune, dream on, was enough. is there no truth to that tale?
I would rather have On The Road Again or Walkin' The Dog than Major Barbara. I don't really like Major Barbara. Major Barbara is the weakest track not included in my opinion.
I prefer both Somebody and Write Me A Letter to either cover tune or Major Barbara. Subtracting those removes the blues/garage band ambiance of the first album in my opinion.
Anybody else had/have the cassette release of this from the early 80s with the alternate track order? It's how I'm used to hearing it still all these years later.
Rocks (Aerosmith album) - Wikipedia Track listing Side one No. Title Writer(s) Length 1. "Back in the Saddle" Steven Tyler, Joe Perry 4:40 2. "Last Child" Tyler, Brad Whitford 3:26 3. "Rats in the Cellar" Tyler, Perry 4:05 4. "Combination" Perry 3:39 Side two No. Title Writer(s) Length 1. "Sick as a Dog" Tyler, Tom Hamilton 4:16 2. "Nobody's Fault" Tyler, Whitford 4:21 3. "Get the Lead Out" Tyler, Perry 3:41 4. "Lick and a Promise" Tyler, Perry 3:05 5. "Home Tonight" Tyler 3:15 Personnel Aerosmith Steven Tyler – lead vocals, keyboards, harmonica Joe Perry – lead guitar on track 3,4,7,8; six-string bass on "Back in the Saddle", bass guitar on "Sick as a Dog", pedal steel guitar on "Home Tonight", percussion and outro solo on "Sick as a Dog", backing vocals, harmony vocal on "Combination" Brad Whitford – lead guitars on track 1,2,5,6,9 and rhythm guitar (3,4,7,8) Tom Hamilton – bass guitar, lead guitar on "Sick as a Dog" Joey Kramer – drums, percussion, backing vocals on "Home Tonight" Additional musician Paul Prestopino – banjo on "Last Child" Production Jack Douglas – producer, arrangements with Aerosmith, backing vocals on "Home Tonight" Jay Messina – engineer David Hewitt – remote truck director Rod O'Brien – assistant engineer Sam Ginsburg – assistant engineer David Krebs & Steve Leber (for Leber-Krebs, Inc.) – management Pacific Eye & Ear – album design
Rocks Back in the Saddle Guitars tuned down a half step. All of my chords sound a half step lower on the record. This fantastic album opens with some ominous sounding intervals….half minor steps for those that might care. Gallop rhythms arise in some percussion and guitars. An A power chord darkens the ranch scape even more. This ain’t no Home Home on the Range. At :20 a turnaround D chord with some horses whinnying in the background. I am not sure if they are guitars or not…I don’t think so. Anyway, the song’s chorus opens the lyrics on an E chord and Steven sounds like he is flirting with destroying his throat with a blood curdling scream. The verse starts at :43 and is a blues groove on the A chord but with bluesy chord fragments. Guitar fills from Brad moan and groan. I like the six string bass sound from Joe. The chorus returns and Steven unbelievably has some vocal cords left. A bridge follows and then the chorus roars back again. A simple chord progression but made to sound incredible with a brilliant arrangement. At 2:15 the verse gets a rhythmic and melodic reset and the guitars roam in and out. The final chorus follows and the new verse section outros the song with a full gallop and a steam rolling bass from Tom. Lots of ranch sounds git along little doggie and a yodel from Steven. A bruising cadence on the A chord brings the song to it round up. Sorry. 10/10 Last Child Guitars tuned down a half step. My chords sound blah blah blah. A dreamy sounding R and B type arpeggio in D minor fits the intro lyrics amazingly well. We think the song will be a laid back paean to love or something but no way…the song charges up to an awesome funky riff from Brad. Sounds like a classic Motown or Tamla bluesy mixo riff. Shaft like wah wah bounces in and out. The rhythm changes with the shift to the next chord and some call and response is added. Cool. The Blues turnaround is sued in classic fashion as the chorus. The break at 2:16 has Brad taking over on lead and he plays a great solo with a mix of blues and melodic rock. The outro is a gas with the groove getting pushed to the limit with guitars weaving in and out. The song fades. 10/10 Rats in the Cellar Guitars tuned down…..again. I won’t mention any chords. A quick tape effect and then some call and response and a power chord fest follows. Lots of great hooks with the chords. The chorus slows down the chord changes and gives some rest to the furious verse and pre chorus. The break uses the verse chords and then changes key. I can’t say the guitar solos are that memorable, but they fit the furious pace. The pre chorus follows and then the chorus. The outro shifts key again and really cooks. Steven on harmonica and the boys fill in the gaps with skittering guitar fills. Joey and Tom go on a rampage. Some repetition in the guitars try to reign in the craziness and the song and at 3:44 a final torrent comes to a crashing close. 7/10 Combination Guitars….take a guess. Joe plays a down and dirty slippery riff on the guttural open bottom string. A little boogie reminiscence in it. Just E and A chords but with a riff a cool as this that is fine. Sticking to the hard rock blues as well. The chord shifts at :37 and the rhythm changes up as well. The new section deceptively morphs into a chorus like sound with more emphatic lyrics and the arrangement fills in. The break is another one that is more like a guitar orchestra rather than just a standout solo. Tom really cooks on the bass. The coda introduces a new riff based on the chorus. The coda builds and builds and comes to a crashing halt with a feedback howl. 9/10 Sick as a Dog I will post a full review of the song. 10/10 Nobody’s Fault I will post a full review. 9/10 Get The Lead Out Don’t ask if the guitars are tuned down a half step. A slide down the neck and a funky rise thru the notes to a hammer on chord open the tune. Boogie rhythm. A bunch of transition notes around the chord changes and the verse enters. Steven likes that riff, so he cops it for his melody. Another transition leads to the chorus. At 1:00 a spooky sounding bridge enters. The chorus follows and then the verse. The break introduces some change to the riff and another case where there really is not a standout solo but more akin to fills. Same thing with the second break. The outro follows with feedback guitars and effected vocals that gradually fade. Eh. 7/10 Lick and A Promise Guitars tuned…get outta here! A quick drum cadence and then a Stones inspired riff with the chords rising in fourths. And then a burst out gets us to a cool boogie lick. Lots of passing chords but Steven keeps the melody simple. The pre chorus rises and then a chorus of sorts follows with a vocalization. The verse returns and really grooves along. At 1:27 a proper chorus enters and is repeated. Fine harmonies from the boys. The verse comes roaring back. The pre chorus follows with the laid back chorus instead. The break/outro is another laid back section with “fills” from the guitar slingers. A decent song IMO that really rocks and is busy as a beehive but still hits the right down fisted sound. 8/10 Home Tonight Power chords lead off to a laid back R and B type piano situation. Great vocals from Steven. The guitars come in for added emotional impact. The chorus is excellent with dreamy harmonies. They sound a little jazzy to me, but I don’t know why. Works though. A beautiful power ballad type arrangement although I hate to use that term considering what happened in the 80s. An excellent way to end the album both musically and lyrically. 8/10 A great album and a fan favorite that is cited as the “one that made me want to play guitar” from many rock stars. My stupid jokes aside, the majority of the songs are tuned down a half step which adds to the slightly darker heavier sound of the album. Lots of use of open E and A chords and strings and keys adds to the heavy sound as well. Regarding the guitar “solos”, they come across more as improvised fills to me than solos. Not a lot of melodic development and such. I don’t know if that was a product of the sound they wanted or dare I say it laziness. You decide. Regardless, it comes across as less pop oriented due in part to that and the production. Songs with only a few “key” chords are turned into something close to heavy metal with the barrage of passing chords which is another cool thing that separates the album from their others. Toys on any given day is usually my favorite Aerosmith album however, I could not do without Rocks and in some ways, I like it more than Toys. I think it may be their most influential album.
When you solo out the tracks like this you can really hear how sloppy the guitar work is. These would be scratch tracks if they were laid down in a studio 10 years later. But something magical happens when you add the drums and bass. That’s when you get something very special. A truly unique funky rock goulash that’s 100% pure GROOVE. That’s what this band was best at in those early years. No other 70s rock band could create such a consistently smokin' locomotive groove (a bold statement but I stand by it). The groove is always right on the edge of flying off the rails at any moment and yet somehow at the same time it runs as smoothly as an Amtrak Metroliner. That’s what made Aerosmith's 70s work so amazing. That muthafreakin' GROOVE!
The Allmusic review of Rocks gives it 5 stars. Few albums have been so appropriately named as Aerosmith's 1976 classic Rocks. Despite hard drug use escalating among bandmembers, 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. Like its predecessor, a pair of songs have become their most renowned -- the menacing, hard rock, cowboy-stomper "Back in the Saddle," as well as the downright viscous funk groove of "Last Child." Again, even the lesser-known tracks prove essential to the makeup of the album, such as the stimulated "Rats in the Cellar" (a response of sorts to "Toys in the Attic"), the Stonesy "Combination," and the forgotten riff-rocker "Get the Lead Out." Also included is the apocalyptic "Nobody's Fault," the up-and-coming rock star tale of "Lick and a Promise," and the album-closing ballad "Home Tonight." With Rocks, Aerosmith appeared to be indestructible.
Here is the Rolling Stone review of Rocks. They rate it as somewhat mediocre with rehashes of good tracks from earlier albums. Rocks