Big Ones - Aerosmith (CD 1994)

There was a time when Aerosmith was my favorite band. I think the same could be said for many people my age or near it, as judging by the number of records the band sold in the 1990s (their biggest success). This Big Ones collection is a pretty good sampling of the best from that era.

Big Ones collects nearly all of the singles from three albums: Permanent Vacation, Pump and Get A Grip as well as adding two new songs and the bands contribution to the Beavis and Butthead Experience album. Seeing as all those albums, aside from the classic Pump, were rather inconsistent, this is one-stop shopping for one of the more idiosyncratic eras in Aerosmith history.

The Aerosmith Geffen era (which Big Ones covers) began in 1985 with the Done With Mirrors album. Nothing from that album is included, which is somewhat annoying. "Let The Music Do The Talking" would have sounded great. Instead the album begins with the first truly rejuvenated Aerosmith album, Permanent Vacation.

All of the selections from that one are pretty good. We have the sleazy, bluesy hard rocker "Rag Doll" ("Rag Doll/Living in a movie/Hot tramp/Daddy's little cutie"), the classic R&B rocker "Dude Looks Like A Lady" which is still fun to listen to, even if the naughty naughty appeal has kind of dimmed with age. And there is "Angel" which would doom us to a thousand sound alike power ballads from the Aeroboys. Listening to it now, I can taste the cheesiness of it a lot easier than I used to. Nevertheless there's something about it that I like. It seems to have something that the Celine Dion reject "I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing" lacks.

All of the selections from Pump are pretty good, aside from the fact that Pump should be listened to in its entirety to be truly enjoyed. Songs like "Young Lust" and "F I N E" were superb album tracks that should have been on here instead of some of the weak material I will soon get to. But since this is a Greatest HITS records, I guess the band felt obligated to make sure they actually had hits on here, even if some of the hits could be referred to as pits.

From Pump we have Aerosmith's best power ballad ("What It Takes") and Aerosmith's Best Social Commentary song ("Janie's Got A Gun"). The former is a truly terrific rock ballad with great lyrics and an astounding guitar solo from Joe Perry. The latter is a chilling rocker with lyrics that depict an incident of child molestation and violent revenge. Steven Tyler drives the point home on the chorus as he sings "Run away/Run away from the pain" in an aching wail.

Also from Pump is the truly funky rocker "The Other Side". "Funky" is truly the appropriate word to describe the song, complete from the James Brownesque horn section to the "ooohh" singing that opens the track and the get down on the dance floor feel of the song. And of course there is "Love In An Elevator". Nuff said about that one.

Unfortunately, we start getting into some of the weaker material with Get A Grip. That album was one of Aerosmith's biggest sellers and it was also the first Aerosmith album I ever bought. Yet hindsight reveals that Get A Grip, despite all its success, was a mediocre album.

The good tracks from Get A Grip on Big Ones include "Eat The Rich" and "Crying'". The former is an upbeat hard rock with great fun lyrics that attack rich snobs ala Donald Trump that put down regular people. The latter was the first of three power ballads that became hits for Aerosmith in 1993-95 and is easily the best of the three Get A Grip ballads. For some reason I like that one quite a bit. Probably because of the bluesy backing and Roy Orbisonesque lyrics.

The other two ballads from get A Grip do not do that much for me. "Crazy" and "Amazing" to me are simply lame. L A M E lame. The latter is a direct rip-off of "Crying'" while the former falls directly into the late 80s metal category. And "Living On The Edge" comes off as a weak attempt at re-writing "Janie's Got A Gun" that falls flat.

The Beavis And Butthead track "Deuces Are Wild" is decent if an unexceptional. Unfortunately, the two new tracks "Walk On Water" and "Blind Man" were put on simply to entice the serious Aerosmith fan that already had most of the contents of this album and the greedy record company wanted to milk some more money out of them. One could easily title them "Generic Aerosmith Rocker" and "Generic Aerosmith Ballad" and that would be truth in packaging.

Aside from record company bottom lines, there was no need to include those two duds when far better material existed on the albums. They should have included the bluesy "Hangman's Jury" from Permanent Vacation or "Fever", easily the best song on Get A Grip, yet it didn t become a hit or any of the Pump album tracks I mentioned above.

So overall, Big Ones is a fairly decent sampler of prime Aerosmith from the Geffen era. It's not definitive however and that may be a problem for some. If you want more I d recommend getting the Pump album and making a self-compiled CD-R of the better songs from Vacation and Grip. Or check out the 2-CD Young Lust Anthology, which covers this period in greater detail.

This review is part of the Aerosmith write-off, hosted by the Amazing Angelic Aerocat. To read the entries by our fine hostess and the other participants, go to http://aerowriteoff.bravepages.com/index.html