yeah - I prefer it when he plays it straight, or at least plays it a bit more straight on a few more songs … I know the scatty shuck and jive thing has always been part of his tool kit from the start, but less is more - it can get a bit overused. Let us not forget he managed to sing this brilliant line: “Living, loving, getting loose, Masturbating with a noose, Now someone’s kicking out the chair” as recently as the album just before GaG without a knowing chuckle or scat. But like I said, this more comedic persona is what he was really accentuating now, and I guess it clearly fit well with the times. We had GnR for when we needed the more slithery, bad ass rock stuff.
so it was you who made me notice it lol. it doesn't bother me and maybe he did it before but was mixed so its not noticeable but its like someone told him in the dead space do something. "livin on the edge" and other tunes its like every dead space as a "yeah", scat, "uh huh" . etc
not to get involved in this imbroglio, but just pointing out that being a hard core fan is not synonymous with only liking pre-Permanent Vacation Aerosmith. This thread is full of super fans who love both eras - indeed they’re probably the more hardcore!!
Go back and read what the other person I was replying to said. This could be the same for any artist, including The Beatles. If you are not a big fan of the Fab Four, you should be able to relate. Indeed! Now, I am an Aerosmith fan, but not a super-fan. I was a casual fan up until 1987, and I grew up with hearing their music on the radio. I am still nowhere near a superfan. I bought "Done With Mirrors" somewhere in there but heard nothing of interest. After that, my only memory of the band between 1977-1986, whatever, is seeing the albums in the record bins.
Maybe we could divide the fans between old-schoolers and new-schoolers? Being hardcore shouldn't have anything to do with listening only to 70s Aerosmith, IMO.
Big Ones - Honestly they should have left off "eat the rich" and put "let the music do the talkin" from mirrors on here. Other than that here are the big hits from the Geffen years with some tracks not available before on other Aerosmith albums. "Walk on water" to me is better than a few of the rockers on GaG and "blind man" is slightly less cheesy than "cryin". "Deuces are wild" however is one of the best songs released by the band after the 1980's.
The point you seem to be missing is that it was a huge bubble, but your fairly correct about people being stuck in it. Being such, there is a memory and loyalty. I don't dispute your point that people who lived outside the bubble took no notice of Aerosmith in the mid 80s.
The thing is, was hard rock your primary musical style in those days, or was it balanced out by other types of music? In the early 80s, my music was mostly R&B, jazz, and pop. I listened to rock, but it was stuff like Van Halen, Ratt, Def Leppard, Pretenders, and the old stuff from the late 60s and early 70s. So, Aerosmith was easy to not see or hear.
Just a thought....I realized last night after hearing some soundtrack music in a movie that Livin' On the Edge has a sonic connection to some trad Irish music in the verse. Agree?
listen to Otherside and there is a fantastic blues rhythm Perry plays in the verses but it’s buried in the mix & hard to decipher. That should not happen on an Aerosmith song…
Well from the mindset I've been addressing you, my thinking is in terms of the 1977 Aerosmith fan remembering them in the mid 80s. I suppose in 1977 my variation was OK for a 12 year old--Beatles/Stones/Zep/Aerosmith/Kiss/Elvis/Monkees... and by 1980 you could add a whole lot of other rock--I was listening to WPLJ- New York and liked pretty much everything they played. I heard the pop of the time too and liked some of it. Back then I didn't even know I was an R&B fan because I got it through rock artists, like the Stones. I liked all the bands you listed there, but jazz and R&B came later for me. The 1st real R&B album I ever owned was the debut by Terrence Trent Darby, and I was also pretty familiar with the genre from dance clubs where I went for the ladies. Guess my taste in women leaned more toward pop and dance than rocker chicks..This dates back to about 78. I think the point you make is that a lot was going on in the early 80s, Aerosmith wasn't at the forefront, I agree, I'm just saying that if you were a fan in the 70s, there were a lot, an impression was made and you didn't forget.. This might be particularly the case for a guy like me for whom they were among the 1st few hard rock bands I dug.... My tastes weren't as expansive as yours in the early 80s, but rock had a handful of it's own genres, I was non committal and liked every one of them- Metal/Hard Rock/New Wave etc...... was a minor issue later on when I started playing in bands, bandmate's wanted to be a part of a particular scene and were concerned about image. I wanted to be above that.
dinner-theater might've been bit of hyperbole on my part but for some reason... that's how i remember it. back then, there was a big calender section in LA Times every sunday where they list all the upcoming shows. although i was still too young (13~14 years old) to attend many of them, i still keep tabs on them as a young music collector. in LA, this was the concert hall dynamics in the mid-80's (mostly the same to this day ~). stadium shows were rare & far-between (LA Coliseum, Rose Bowl, Dodger Stadium). only reserved for acts like Stones & Springsteen, Inglewood Forum obviously is the top venue to play and if an act could do multi-nights there then that's how one will know the current status of their standing. for mid-size acts, Universal Amphitheater was the go-to place...sort of like MSG-Radio City Music Hall dynamic for NYC. then there are other arenas like Long Beach Arena or Irvine Meadows but those are bit far off distance wise from actual LA. there's also the LA Sports Arena but that's where the Clippers play (Lakers play the Forum, of course ~) and the general perception was the same as that basketball analogy. there are of course many other venues around town in various sizes (Greek Theater, Hollywood Bowl, etc.) but those were main ones. what i remember from back then was taking notice that Aerosmith, a premier American hard-rock act of the 70's were playing none of those venues mentioned above. perhaps they were doing better business in the East Coast (orgin) or Mid-West (premier rock market) but here in LA...that's what i remember them to be at the time (85'). of course, everything changed in the next few years and that's why i call it one of the greatest comeback in rock history ps: when i finally saw them in '93, it was at The Forum
Hmm, I missed the discussion on GAG. No worries.... Not a big loss.... Just gonna echo what others said, namely that this was the Aerosmith album to REALLY disappoint me, after thinking they were on a creative roll with Pump. Basically you've got "Living On The Edge" and.... Not much else. "Eat The Rich" is decent enough, although I had an ex-GF who used to sing this to me as a double entendre (ahem) so my feeling towards the song are tainted. "Cryin" is the only ballad I remember.... Over-the-top but catchy. I just played the video for "Crazy" now and it all came rushing back: "Yes I LOVE this video.... Boy do I HATE this song." "Amazing" is terrible, the rest too forgettable to recall. "Deuces Are Wild" is a killer track tho. Should've made the cut. Give Aerosmith credit though. They alone survived the Great Pop Metal Purge of 1991-92. And yes, you could argue that they didn't "really fit" with that genre, except we already confirmed with PV/Pump that their sound meshed easily with the MTV bands of that era. Between 1990 and 1993, almost every single hard rock band that was sharing space with Aerosmith on radio and MTV has either fallen off a cliff (Poison, Warrant, Motley Crue), released a much-hyped follow-up album with disappointing sales (Def Leppard, Bon Jovi), or disbanded (Whitesnake, probably many others). GN'R was legitimately HUGE in 1991-92, but by the time GAG is on its 4th single, they're basically imploding. KISS (another 70s act to align itself with the 80s pop metal production and aesthetic) is back in commercial purgatory yet again, and a couple years away from putting the makeup back on (and reuniting with the guys they fired) to get the fans back. Hell, a band like Extreme has basically gone from upstarts to platinum sellers to has-beens in the 3-year gap between Pump and GAG. That's how quick the musical landscape shifted. And yet Aerosmith comes out with an album that's basically "Pump, But Longer & Crappier".... and doesn't miss a beat. Same sales numbers in America, MUCH bigger sales overseas. What other hard rock band did that? (Obviously the answer is Metallica.... but that only happened because the Black Album was FAR more commercial than anything that came before. Plus, Metallica was seen as the antithesis of pop metal in the 80s. If anything, the changing landscape benefited them.) So for pulling off that impossible feat, I gotta give Aerosmith credit. (Well, Alicia Silverstone deserves MOST of that credit, but....) Forget rock bands: Very few artists PERIOD with significant success in the 80s were able to sustain even bigger success in the 90s. And yet Aerosmith is gonna roll right on through the decade, finishing with their first-and-only #1 single ever.... which is also gonna be their creative nadir, but that's not happening for a while yet. (Thank God!)
Don't forget the teased hair on him and Joey. Like, in the parts shot when they're actually in the studio they look fine. The one-on-one interview stuff is yeesh.
Only because I collect concert recordings, I know off the top of my head that Aerosmith played these venues in the LA Area after Rock in a Hard Place came out and before Permanent Vacation was released: Long Beach Arena 1/6/83 Pacific Amphitheater, Costa Mesa 8/5/83 Greek Theater, Los Angeles 8/25/84 and 8/26/84 Los Angeles Sports Arena 1/31/86
No trouble, pal. I'm always late for the discussions but they're good. I've yet to write my thoughts on GAG too.
the verse/chorus first half is…fine. The second half of the song is some of the best Aerosmith on disc. Tyler’s scatting actually works here and Perry’s solo is particularly inspired.
“Crazy” to me is the best but I wonder how many people don’t get “amazing”in about overcoming drug addiction
