That was a cool interview. Lisa Robinson I assume? Interesting that Tony Bongiovi was the initial producer on RIAHP and Jack Douglas came in halfway through and Tyler co-produced. I always assumed Jack Douglas produced with Tony Bongiovi assisting.
And he said they had two more albums worth of material ready to go after recording RIAHP, probably the usual hype and bluster but they must’ve had a decent amount of material by the sounds of it. Tyler was well ahead of the curve too talking about 3-D videos and stage effects.
What must've happened to all this material? And, more importantly, why did they scrap before releasing it? They had 1983 and 1984 to release something else. Today I feel more curious than ever to how new material from Crespo/Dufay would sound.
I'm not a big Run DMC fan but Christmas in Hollis isn't at all what enters my mind when I think of them. I know tons a lot of young rap fans and I wonder if they even know who Run DMC is? Having lived through the 80s personally, I know very well their cultural impact. In the rock world everybody is a historian, much less so in the hip hop scene, from my observation. I live in my bubble and know my observation is pretty anecdotal.... I do remember a lot of white guys in the 80s using the work "illin".....
Permanent Vacation Released August 25, 1987 Permanent Vacation is the ninth studio album by American rock band Aerosmith, released by Geffen Records in August 1987. The album marks the band's shift to a pop-metal sound that they would maintain up to 2001's Just Push Play. Three hit singles were released from the album, "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)", "Angel", and "Rag Doll". It was their first to employ songwriters outside the band, instead of featuring songs solely composed by them.[4] This came at the suggestion of executive John Kalodner. He also pushed the band to work with producer Bruce Fairbairn, who remained with them for another two albums. It was also the first Aerosmith album to be promoted by heavy music video airplay on MTV. Though Done with Mirrors was intended to mark Aerosmith's comeback, Permanent Vacation is often considered their true comeback, as it was the band's first truly popular album since their reunion. "Rag Doll", "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)", and "Angel" became major hits (all three charted in the Top 20) and helped Permanent Vacation become the band's greatest success in a decade. Permanent Vacation has sold over five million copies in the U.S. In the UK, it was the first Aerosmith album to attain both Silver (60,000 units sold) and Gold (100,000 units sold) certification by the British Phonographic Industry, achieving these in July 1989 and March 1990 respectively. Track listing Side one No. Title Writer(s) Length 1. "Heart's Done Time" Joe Perry Desmond Child 4:42 2. "Magic Touch" Steven Tyler Perry Jim Vallance 4:40 3. "Rag Doll" Tyler Perry Vallance Holly Knight 4:21 4. "Simoriah" Tyler Perry Vallance 3:21 5. "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" Tyler Perry Child 4:23 6. "St. John" Tyler 4:12 Side two No. Title Writer(s) Length 1. "Hangman Jury" Tyler Perry Vallance 5:33 2. "Girl Keeps Coming Apart" Tyler Perry 4:12 3. "Angel" Tyler Child 5:10 4. "Permanent Vacation" Tyler Brad Whitford 4:52 5. "I'm Down" (The Beatles cover) John Lennon Paul McCartney 2:20 6. "The Movie" Tyler Perry Whitford Tom Hamilton Joey Kramer 4:00 Total length: 51:46 Personnel Adapted from the album liner notes and AllMusic. Track numbers refer to CD and digital releases of the album. Aerosmith Steven Tyler – lead vocals, piano, harmonica, organ, plunger mute Joe Perry – guitar: lead guitar (all except 10 & 12), lead and rhythm guitar on track 1, backing vocals, pedal steel guitar on "Rag Doll" Brad Whitford – guitar: lead and rhythm guitar on track 1, lead guitar on tracks 8, 10 & 12 Tom Hamilton – bass guitar Joey Kramer – drums Additional musicians Drew Arnott – mellotron on "Angel" and "The Movie" Tom Keenlyside – clarinet, tenor saxophone, horn arrangement on "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" and "Rag Doll" Ian Putz – baritone saxophone on "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" and "Rag Doll" Bob Rogers – trombone on "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" and "Rag Doll" Henry Christian – trumpet Bruce Fairbairn – trumpet, cello, background vocals, production Scott Fairbairn – cello Mike Fraser – plunger mute, engineering, mixing Morgan Rael – steel drums Jim Vallance – organ on "Rag Doll" and "Simoriah" Christine Arnott – backing vocals on "The Movie" Production Bob Rock – engineering Ken Lomas – assistant engineering George Marino – mastering Kim Champagne – art direction Andy Engel – illustrations Neal Preston – photography
Permanent Vacation Hearts Done Time Glorious feedback and floating vocals and effects….and that is just the intro. A big B chord eventually makes its way in, and Steven lays down a trademark vocal and the big E riff follows naturally. The verse shifts back to the Dominant B blues style and the chorus follows right after. A mixolydian turnaround at the end of the chorus. Familiar to the ear so no real wow moment this time. OK though. The verse and chorus follows and a heavy down picked guitar from Brad holds it together heavy. The bridge is a trade-off between Joe and Brad with spit fire guitars. The chorus follows and outros the song with killing vocals from Steven. The mixo riff leads the song to its end with squealing guitars. A decent hard rock tune to open things up. 8/10 Magic Touch A fine boogie riff anchors the song’s verse and then the pre chorus rises out. The chorus is a power chord fest with taut toned guitars. Some effects on them. A Stones like chord progression but with a lot more grit. The break solo is a fine JP deal with out much melody but lots of attitude and blues bends. The Chorus outros the song with a mid term arrangement change and then the boys gradually build it into a fire breathing blues screams fest for the fade out. 7/10 Rag Doll A little bit of stripper in the drums to start it off. The chorus leads the way, and it is a great one…. trademark Tyler use of jazzy chromatics with a big arch. The verse is bluesy with shifts between E and B. A quick pre chorus rise out leads back to the chorus. The horns sound right to me. Big and brassy. Joe’s solo in the break is another one that does not try to get too melodic. More for texture. The Verse follows and the chorus returns. Call and response in the horns. Some Mae West from Steven brings us to a scat like outro that gets laid back in the arrangement. Great song. 9/10 Simoriah Cool power pop like riff in the intro. A sus D chord follows before the verse. The verse changes chords again and is standard riffage but the vocal melody is real ear candy for me. A hint at a key change as the verse rises. The break at 1:24 is a sus chord fest that really does not go much of anywhere at first, but a solo follows with Tom using a descending line turning it around. The verse follows and the outro uses Tom’s descending line with some guitar fills that do not go anywhere but they do fill the sound in. 7/10 Dude Looks Like A Lady Effected vocals and the intro turns into a New Orleans sounding horny fest. The verse riff is based on A boogie, and it swings. The chorus has a fine call and response. At 1:41 Steven cuts loose in surprise…. which we will keep to ourselves. The bridge is fast and gets the job done in standard pop fashion. Joe’s solo has some connection to Allen Collin’s style IMO. The chorus gets treated to heavy use in the outro, but the boys change things up to keep it sounding fun. And then of course there is Tyler’s screeching which is not meant to scare but to let it all loose. 9/10 St. John The intro is a nod to The Turtles and Broadway IMO. The verse then shifts to a power chord. The intro riff then returns and sets the pace for the verse again. A boogie turnaround chorus follows the verse that leads to a break with cliché’ guitar riffs from Joe. The second break has vocals that fade in and out and another series of licks from the Chuck Berry vocab. The intro riff brings the song to a gradual fade with some bongos in the tail. Any thought to guitar solos/fills that original sounding are missing but solos that you can sing are not on the menu for most of this album. Some of the riffs sound like snippets of Pat Benatar songs as well. 6/10 Hangman Jury Delta blues fable and mystery is the soup of the day on this song but with a lot of twists. Steven has a fine blues voice though the way he can mimic percussion. The verse gets standard pop sound with harmonies and power chords. The chorus goes back to a bluesier sound with slide. I like Tom’s bassline in the verse how he raised the tension. At 4:00 the shuffle beat gets more pronounced, and it leads to a reset of the opening refrain in the outro. Lots of cool twists and turns on blues riffs in the song make it a winner. 8/10 Girl Keeps Coming Apart I like the riff that opens the song. Power pop sound with the upper strings. The verse is based on the blues loosely with a blues refrain from Steven. The post verse turnaround is interesting and catchy enough to keep the song interesting. The break solo from Brad is toney and fluid. Great stuff. Everything repeats the same until the coda at 2:59 that turns into a funky breakdown section. The guys cook here especially Tom and Joey. Fine song. 8/10 Angel Well darn it the song is cliché’ ridden as all get out but I like Steven’s vocals. Cliché structure as well but that chorus vocal is a nice R and B/Soul attempt from Steven. Joe’s solo at 2:47 this time has some melodic development, and it works fine. The bridge is a welcome addition after the break. Everything else is samey same but still……Steven can take a by the numbers song and make it interesting. 8/10 Permanent Vacation Hammering chords and then jungle sounds from Steven open this second side song. The riff is from Brad but sounds like it could have been from JP. The chorus is not a big brassy deal but instead laid back and keeps with the rest of the song. The second solo from Brad damn near has a country vibe to it. Pretty good song but not a knockout. 7/10 I’m Down This song is tailor made for any band that likes to boogie. Brad really smokes on rhythm guitar. Joe’s solo could have used a little more fire, but it gets by. Not a bad cover but not a wow moment. 6/10 The Movie A repeating bass riff and the keyboard chords rise to a decent groove with lots of guitars floating in and out. The main theme is sinewy and very cinematic sounding. Some interesting rhythmic changes. I get a little tired of the whammy bar though. The outro has arrangement changes that build a little tension before the ending. 7/10 I still enjoy this album. The production grates at me on occasion and I miss the amazing melodic guitar solos but overall I like most of the songs. Steven is the star here IMO….his vocals carry the old Aerosmith trademark regardless of the arrangements and production. The new songwriters don’t totally ruin it for me. The guys still are able to insert the traits that remind you of what the band is about….most of the time. The unique riffs are replaced with taut rhythmic stuff but I can live with it. I just don’t live with it as much as I do the earlier stuff.
I don’t even mind that some of the tracks are the Dufay lineup, but my god, the drum sound. And it’s not even “oh, it’s a crappy drum sound,” it’s like…a crappy drum sound that feels completely unique to these albums and nothing else I’ve ever heard. I know these were released without the band’s consent or involvement but my god how did that happen. It’s like they tried a bunch of gimmickry to get things sounding consistent despite the widely varied sources, but had no idea how to do it.
I can't stand Angel. Not just because it's schlocky. But also, because it was such a big hit, every Aerosmith album from now on would have to feature several huge slices of schlocky ballads like this one. I don't like any Aero-ballads from this point in their career onwards (not even ones that are considered to be 'good', like What It Takes). I give this 1/10 (because I like some of the chords in the verse. I suppose Tyler wrote that bit whilst schlockmeister-general Desmond 'Bon Jovi' Child wrote the painfully obvious chorus).
Permanent Vacation (3/5) Great review from RRB as ever. My less informed two cents here: So, the “new” Aerosmith is born here, it’s Mk III (after Crespo / Dufay being a brief Mk II). Even if members haven’t changed since Done With Mirrors, the embrace of song doctors is just as significant, maybe more so. Chart domination, MTV ubiquity, financial riches and a whole new generation of fans beckon. Good for Aerosmith, after the lean years. Hard to think of (m)any comebacks that can commercially top the Fairbairn trilogy** of Permanent Vacation through to Get A Grip, or a modernization of 70s sound that was as effective at placing a band squarely into the 80s aesthetic. ‘Vacation is a gleaming pop metal masterpiece, wholly of its time, bright, optimistic and bouncy, studded with huge radio smash ear-worms. This is a polished work - the old darkness, sleaze and grit has been buffed to a shine. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s assertion that “there are no second acts in American lives” feels badly dated - the modern era loves a story of decline and redemption, above all, so the PR promotes and the media laps up the “bad boys now drug free and clean” narrative. Compared to other pop metal of the time, the fusion of Childs / Vallance etc with Tyler / Perry happily does manage to retain some of the zing and zap of classic Aerosmith - the personality - and that comfortably saves the album from being generic pap, even if some songs veer close, and differentiates it nicely from their contemporary competition. So, by its own terms, the project is a massive success - mission accomplished, right? Well, I thought so as a kid at the time, when this seemed an amazingly cool record. The record hasn’t changed, but my preferences and the benefit of perspective have, and it now feels too shiny, too pop, too Desmond / Vallance, whose obvious melodic motifs are just so identifiably them that it kinda jars for me, as it feels like some hooks you hear could just as easily be - maybe more naturally be - from another band (the same way you can spot Mutt Lange bridges and hooks on artists as different as Def Leppard and Shania Twain) And I truly miss the swagger and muscle of classic Aerosmith Mk I or the swampy murk of the Disintegration trilogy**, even the cleaner, tough rock of Done With Mirrors - now, Bruce Fairbairn did a great job of bringing Aerosmith’s sound into the 80s, but it’s not a sound I love. It feels like the band had enough creativity firing to not go down this route, yet still create great music. Hypotheticals. So overall, there IS much to admire on this album - in fact, it’s probably amongst my very favorite 80s pop metal albums … but that still leaves it a long way from being near my favorite Aerosmith albums (I’d take any that preceded it ahead of this), never mind my favorite rock albums. ** I like trilogies - in Aerosmith’s catalogue, I spot three (that’s the number, right!) .. . being their imperial phase (Get Your Wings through to Rocks), their disintegration phase (Draw the Line through Rock in a Hard Place) and their Fairbairn pop-metal-stardom phase (Permanent through to Get A Grip). Dunno if you could bundle Nine Lives, Just Push Play and Music From Another Dimension into a final one (ignoring live or covers albums)? Maybe the “late era doggerel that makes Get a Grip sound good” phase?
To add to my long diatribe - the songs themselves: “Dude (Looks Like A Lady)” and “Rag Doll” are of course keepers (even if I rarely need to hear them again), one sleek and limber, with an indelible hook, the other jumping with Tyler’s brassy scat, even if it’s now precise and machine tooled. “Girl Keeps Coming Apart” and “Permanent Vacation” are decently propulsive and melodic rockers, even if slight. I like them. The two covers (yes, I learned on this thread that “Hangman Jury” is a cover, and of course in hindsight, it hardly sounds like something Jim Vallance had a hand in) are decent. “Hangman …” always reminded me of Zep’s “Gallow’s Pole” and I like that, but I’m now annoyed about the song credits, whilst “I’m Down” is fine, but hardly essential if you have the Beatles version. Beyond that, I kind of lose interest … “Heart’s Done Time”, “Magic Touch” and “Angel” are the three where the song doctors’ hands feel at their very heaviest, and the outcome is the most generic pop metal on the record. Anyone could have done these songs. So overall, a mixed bag.
Here is the Allmusic review - They give it 4 stars. The much-ballyhooed reunion of the original Aerosmith lineup had pretty much fallen flat on its face after 1985's hit-and-miss Done With Mirrors. Realizing that the band simply couldn't do it alone, A&R guru John Kalodner capitalized on the runaway success of Run-D.M.C.'s cover of "Walk This Way" and decided to draft in the day's top hired hands, including knob-twiddler extraordinaire Bruce Fairbairn and career-revitalizing song doctors Desmond Child and Jim Vallance. Together, they would help craft Permanent Vacation, the album which would reinvent Aerosmith as '80s and '90s superstars. Yet, despite the mostly stellar songwriting, which makes it a strong effort overall, some of the album's nooks and crannies haven't aged all that well because of Fairbairn's overwrought production, featuring an exaggerated sleekness typical of most mid-'80s pop-metal albums. Furthermore, Desmond Child's pedantic writing often compromises the timeliness of even the best material. On the other hand, pre-fab radio gems like "Rag Doll" and "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" remain largely unassailable from a "delivering the goods" perspective. But remember kids, this is Aerosmith, so that can only mean one thing: a guaranteed number of incredible tracks for any time and place. These include the earthy voodoo blues of "St. John" and the excellent hobo-harmonica fable of "Hangman Jury." And, although some of the remaining cuts lean to the filler side, both the awkwardly Caribbean title track and the cover of the Beatles' "I'm Down" are well executed. Finally, the crowd-pleasing schmaltz of "Angel" showcases the band at the peak of its power ballad cheese. A valiant effort, this album proved to be the crucial catalyst in reintroducing Aerosmith to the masses, but if you're looking for an even better example of the band's renewed strength, check out Pump first. My favorites here were Rag Doll, Dude (Looks Like A Lady) and Hangman Jury. I don't have this one now and it was the second to last new Aerosmith album I bought.
Various single sleeves. Dude (Looks Like A Lady) made it to #14 in the U.S. Angel made it to #3 Rag Doll made it to #17
‘Permanent Vacation’ is an album I can’t help but really like - and I say that growing up hating that ‘Bon Jovi’ sound that seemed to take over in the mid-80’s, so ‘song doctors’ were a big no-no for me. But there is just something about this album that really works, it’s a big bombastic production, but still retains a lot of that Aerosmith ‘cool’ that the Columbia albums had. Bruce Fairbairn (and Bob Rock) did a fine job producing this album - there’s a lot going on in some of these tunes, who could ever imagine opening an album with dolphins’ speaking to each other!!! And I love the Gaelic speech in ‘The Movie’ (I’m Irish but not very fluent I’m afraid so I can’t translate). Title track has everything but the kitchen sink thrown in there. This is a long way away from ‘Done With Mirrors’. Favourite tunes are ‘Hearts Done Time’ - Perry just swings on that one, ‘Magic Touch, ‘Rag Doll’ - absolutely love this one, ‘Dude’, ‘St. John’ - Tyler sole credit and great simple riff, ‘Hangman Jury’ - even if it’s a blatant rip-off as addressed earlier in this thread, ‘Angel’ - I should really hate this track but somehow they pull it off, @Rose River Bear is right, Tyler saves this one, ‘The Movie’ - this is brilliant, really different for the band (I think it’s from the DWM period, and I may have seen footage from ‘85/6 of them playing it live on YouTube??). As ‘comebacks’ go, the band (and Geffen of course) knocked it out of the park on this album, a whole new level of fame was unlocked for them, suddenly they were a big name in Europe thanks to great promotion and MTV, with the band finally making some good looking big production videos. They got even bigger on this side of the world with their next album. It must’ve been a great feeling for them to be back in the big leagues, a new set of songs to add to the setlist (I can only imagine this must be a blessing for a veteran act), and the whole world opened up for them in the rapidly fast moving 1980’s.
Aerosmith - Permanent Vacation I picked this up because apparently the title track has an alternate mix (if it does it’s very subtle).
Horrible, isn't it? Reading the praise for I and II I'm amazed it's taken this long for someone to mention it. I think part of the problem is the tracks are sped up. Drums should boom, thud and crack, not be reduced to nothing more than clicks as they are on most of these tracks. Lest anybody doubt there's a problem, there's a bootleg called Classics Live Outtakes - as an example, compare LTMDTT on it (in it's original FM broadcast mix) to the same track on CLII.
Permanent Vacation Oh my gosh what an exciting time! The boys are really back with a huge album that I loved and still do. Plus I'm old enough now and get to see one of my favorite bands live for the first time. I honestly didn't know that this wasn't their comeback album for many years. I thought the collaboration with Run DMC was the manifesto stating they were back and PV the revolution itself.
