Greatest Hits (1972-1979) - Aerosmith (CD 1993)

INTRODUCTION
Hello, everybody. This is John Bishop typing, the DeadMilkboy of Epinions.com. Before I launch into the following review, I d like to mention that this is part of a series of reviews I m writing based on one of the greatest American rock n roll bands in history, AEROSMITH! I d like to thank Aerocat (another Arizona native, bless her soul) for giving me the chance to do something other than write reviews of classic B-movies and current CD/DVD releases, and besides AEROSMITH F*CKING ROCKS! Posted here is the URL to Aerocat s official Epinions.com Aerosmith Write-Off page, and a list of names of other hopeful Aero Force fellas and freaks joining me in the write-off. For reference purposes, I got the lyrics and and quotations/information from www.rockthisway.de and aerosmithlyrics.homestead.com.

URL: http://aerowriteoff.bravepages.com/index.html
MEMBERS: Aerocat, hipyx, matta75, thevoid99, deaser26, netnut746, pt-paratroopa, pmills1210, pearl-drum-man, jeff_wilder78, kcfoxy, fartzarellah, sparkospunky, joubert, mattbjorke, shilmafone, donignacio, ned1, fuche_bu, and frostiepekkle.

GREATEST HITS
In 1980, it seemed as if times we re looking too tough for Aerosmith. Joe Perry finally separated himself from Steven Tyler and the rest of the band in 1979, before the release of the 1980 LP NIGHT IN THE RUTS. And after the album was released, Brad Whitford left Aerosmith. And Steven Tyler s drug habit started to really kick in during the live shows, as he collapsed following the first few dates of a US tour.
And in 1980, Columbia Records decided to release everything good about the classic Aerosmith with 10 songs of GREATEST HITS caliber. In the end, what became of that album has become surprising.

As of today, this little compilation sold over 10 million albums, even though it fared poorly upon its original release. By 2001, over a decade and a half later, it had made a splash as a catalog item and shifted 10 million sales as certified by the RIAA. This was and is the quintessential best-of compilation of early Aerosmith tracks, from 1973 to 1980. And although future greatest hits releases came, they hardly reflected on the Columbia Records era, and shifted more attention to the band s comeback glory days. But if the casual Aerosmith fan wants to get the best without the rest, he can either: a) pick up a copy of this album and a copy of the 1988 GEMS album (and TOYS IN THE ATTIC too); or b) purchase a copy of PANDORA S BOX, the 1991 3-CD retrospective which left no bases uncovered.

But I stumbled upon this one thanks to my uncle, always the avid metal/glam rock lover. He had an old CD copy of GREATEST HITS, and I had snuck it out of his house to mine in order to hear the songs I loved. Of course there was Walk This Way and Dream On, but I was going mad over this song I heard called Back In The Saddle. It sounded like the band s finest moment to me, and in some way still is. The bass line and drum fills, the sharp licks, and banshee vocals jack hammered into my ears, creating one of those moments when I just gave in and thrashed. It was how I came onto Aerosmith, and bless them for that song.

The power ballad has become something of a redundancy in rock music these days, but to me, it all started in 1973 with Dream On. Aerosmith had released their self-titled debut, and both fared rather badly upon its original release. And my birthday is April 3, so I was surprised to learn that eight years before my birth, in 1976, their self-titled album finally made a re-ascension to the Billboard charts, peaking at #21, on that very day. In the coming week, Dream On also made a comeback as a #6 hit single.

There s no strings or heavy synthesizers/pianos on this song, making it 100% pure rock n roll. It s just that classic Joe Perry electric guitar melody (which was originally conceived on a piano in Tom Hamilton s room) and the measured flow from the reflective verses ( The past is gone/It went by like dusk to dawn/Isn t that the way?/Everybody s got their dues in life to pay ) to the majestically hopeful chorus ( Sing with me/Sing for the years/Sing for the laughter, sing for the tears/Sing with me, if it s just for today/Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away ). By the bridge, Steven Tyler and the band are doing a call and response, from Steve s Dream on dream yourself a dream come true to the band s insistent delivery: Joey Kramer s fluid drum beats, bassist Tom Hamilton s anchoring line, and both the great guitar talents of Joe Perry and Brad Whitford. And in 1973, you heard 24 year-old Steven Tyler scream, and even up to today, nobody can do it like he can.

A year and many supporting gigs for Mott The Hoople later, the sophomore album GET YOUR WINGS was unleashed upon the music world. Like the album before it, it would belatedly peak in the top 100 a long while after its original release. And the song that stood out from the pack enough to make it a single was Same Old Song And Dance, which slapped a gnarly blues lick with jazzy horns way before George Thorogood even considered himself Bad To The Bone. The rhythm section is up to par with the urgent guitar fire, and Steven Tyler wraps his rasp around some funny lyrics about inevitable fate in cycles, in this case a down-and-out pusher: Get yourself cooler, lay yourself low/Coincidental murder with nothing to show/The judge s constipation will go to his head/And his wife s aggravation, you re soon enough dead/It s the same old story/Same old song and dance, my friend.

But Aerosmith were about to become breakthrough rock stars in 1975, and TOYS IN THE ATTIC sealed that fact. Not only did it spawn two hit singles/classic rock mainstays in Sweet Emotion and Walk This Way, it broke Aerosmith in the album charts and gave them a bigger rep. Their live shows were talk of towns, and the album would launch sales of over six million by 1994. The first single was Sweet Emotion, presented here in blandly truncated single form, minus the trippy voiceover intro and explosive guitar breakdown. Even with these losses, the raw power chords, the hard-hitting drums and Joe Perry s stinging verse riff still send this song home, as well as Tyler s rhyming styling. It is also one of the Aerosmith numbers which was borne out of anger. Sweet Emotion was about how p*ssed off I was at Joe's ex-wife, said Steven Tyler about this song, and all the other frustrations of the time. I could never get through to him. With this, you can hear bitter resentment in lines like Well I got good news, she s a real good liar and A month on the road and I ll be eatin from your hand. And the original riff, conceived by Tom Hamilton, was once turned down during GET YOUR WINGS sessions.

With Walk This Way, however, things looked good. A riff was set in stone by Joe Perry, and all the members of the band (except Steven Tyler) got the title from a line in Mel Brooks classic film YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN. Steven wrote the lyrics, and the result was a hard rock masterpiece. It s sped-up delivery and raunchy bravado made it natural for Run DMC to resurrect, but the original version promptly peaked at #10. Still, it s one of the most wild songs ever to become a smash: the unlucky young strike-out finally gets plenty of action from the girls he meets. Backstroke lover always hidin neath the covers/ Til I talked to my daddy, he say/He said You ain t seen nothin til you re down on the muffin /Then you re sure to be changing your ways. The elements here all combine to create a sleaxe rock masterpiece.

Aerosmith then unleashed what has been dubbed their masterpiece, ROCKS. Evidence of how the title came could easily be found in the first hit single, Last Child. It s structured like an R&B number, but bursts with hard rock intensity and expert performance. Sure enough it opens with a small melodic intro, but then kicks into a walloping 4/4 beat courtesy of Joey Kramer, while Tom Hamilton, Joe Perry, and Brad Whitford (who wrote the music) bring the guitar bluster . And even Steven gets soulful when he s not playing banshee with his lyrics, a portrait of his wonderful ghetto home sweet home.

Back In The Saddle was the leading song on that album, and the next single, also a top 40 hit. If it s not Kramer s gargantuan beats or Whitford and Hamilton s raucous rhythm throughout every second, then it s either Steven Tyler s throaty wails or Joe Perry s volatile lead guitar (and six-string bass riff) that will get you going. Like its predecessor, Back In The Saddle is a funky fireball. And its cowboy on the prowl scenario makes it adequately fitting to the relentless melody floating throughout.

The band followed up ROCKS with 1977 s DRAW THE LINE, which was a more simple hard rock album when held up to their previous albums. The opening number, Draw The Line, was a mammoth rocker driven by stomping drum beats and fuzzed-out riffs (including Joe Perry s slide guitar), and although it doesn t awe like the other songs, it remains a really great song nonetheless. And Tyler himself kicks into high-pitched yelping by the fourth verse in order to keep up with the crunching melody. Lyrically, you could tell the excess was kicking in for Aerosmith: Oh pass me the vial and cross your fingers/It don t take time, know where to draw the line.

Also from DRAW THE LINE was Kings And Queens, which fared more poorly as a single but saw Aerosmith bringing a fiery awareness to the lyrics and music, and also a touch of Zeppelin-ish bombast. The verses are loud guitars mixed with majestic acoustic picking, whereas the song is padded by squelching synths that can resemble Bernard Hermann at times. By the end of the song, a wistful bass line and piano give way to ragged guitars and Steven Tyler s wild screams. As Steven Tyler once explained, "This one was just about how people died from holy wars because of their beliefs or non-beliefs." Steven even draws lyrically from medieval tones, referring maidens, Vikings and knights (and mares).

In mid-1978, Aerosmith were tapped to perform a cover of The Beatles Come Together and appear in SGT. PEPPER S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND alongside The Bee Gees and Peter Frampton and other 70s pop icons. The Aerosmith track was only one of a couple songs that were actually good, and even brought Aerosmith back into the American Top 40. While time hasn t been really kind to the legendary failure, Come Together was a rocking FM mainstay. And rightly so: the Aerosmith version turns The Beatles version into a meaty fuzz rocker with Steven Tyler adequately spitting out those classic verses and clattery vocals with game.

Their last single in 1980 was a cover of The Shangri-Las Remember (Walking In The Sand) which appeared on NIGHT IN THE RUTS, their last album with both original guitarists (before 1984). This wasn t entirely the high point of that album: the song straddles the line between faux-Spector production/delivery and the classic electric bombast of good Aerosmith. Not even the snappy rhythm could help launch this track above its #67 peak, and by the time the song was released, the downward spiral of Aerosmith kept plunging further along.

So which led Columbia to this compilation, a set of all the Aerosmith A-sides from to . 10 songs was enough to make it a quick, fluid compilation, worthy of bargain bin pricing. But the obvious fault with this album was that it missed out the classic album cuts, songs which could stand side by side with their hits. They re obviously missing Train Kept a Rollin , No Surprize, Seasons Of Wither, and Mama Kin. This was a fault that wouldn t be corrected until 1987, and even then, Columbia would go on to release the quintessential compilation of old Aerosmith tracks in the boxed set PANDORA S BOX. And their recent O YEAH! ULTIMATE AEROSMITH HITS compilation contains the essentials from the GREATEST HITS package.

And Aerosmith were soon to be legends again, only it was very hard to tell it in the early 1980s. I shall recommend this and GEMS for the most non-collective fan, PANDORA S BOX for aficionados, and for every insane Aerosmith fan, their six separate studio albums from 1973 to 1980. GREATEST HITS is harmless nostalgia, the set that started them all.