Honkin' on Bobo - Aerosmith (CD 2004)

Soon after Aerosmith dropped 2001's Just Push Play into America's lap-- after the ensuing debacle and the onslaught of deprecating reviews-- the promises, again, began to pour in. "Our next album will be a blues album." "It'll be for the fans." "It's a return to form."

Right. Now, i like to think of myself as a fairly open-minded music listener: that is, I don't think a "return to form" is necessary for a veteran band's artistic success. That said, anybody actually holding their breath for a "return to form" should have realized that this is what Aerosmith promised back in 2001, and that what they delivered was an album of electronically-laced pop-rock with a rejected Autograph robot on the cover. Orchestral ballads and psychedelic drone-rock is, in my mind, as far-removed from "Dream On" and "Mama Kin" as John Mayer is from NWA.

So here's my rationale: if Just Push Play was Aerosmith's idea of a "return to form," and Aerosmith once again promised a return to form for their next album, past experience should dictate that Just Push Play is what an Aerosmith return to form sounds like with Steven Tyler's head inside a bong. Then, when Honkin' on Bobo was released, any good fan worth the lipstick stain on their harmonica should have anticipated another JPP, and leapt for joy when they realized that Honkin' on Bobo does, actually, kind of sound like old-school Aerosmith. So, unless you _really_ liked Just Push Play-- and i _liked_ it, but _really liked_ is a stretch-- it's impossible for a level-headed Aerosmith fan to be disappointed in Honkin' on Bobo.

Honkin' on Bobo doesn't stack up to Aerosmith classics like Rocks and Pump. I'd even say that 1997's Nine Lives was better. Still, it's an impressive re-creation of the grimy, distorted blues-rock sound they once helped cultivate, and the title (which sounds like a bizarre, weed-addled sexual innuendo) and cover art (depicting a bright red lipstick stain on an Aerosmith harmonica, nesting in velvet like a museum exhibit, the title unassumingly and drably hanging in the air) betray the magic of Bobo.

**

Surprise one: Aerosmith's much-vaunted "blues album" is a covers album. It's not that covers are necessarily a bad thing-- and they even throw us fans a bone with an original blues ballad in the second half-- but a whole album of covers, especially by an established and kinda-respected musical act, is generally a career-killer (Guns N' Roses, where art thou?) or a massive, uninteresting slop of aural diarrhea. Aural diarrhea's better than creative constipation, i suppose, but either way you cut it, they both stink and they both originate from somewhere unpleasant. Luckily, Honkin' on Bobo is not The Blues Incident?-- but it could have been, and if fewer songs didn't hit the mark, Aerosmith'd probably be slapping photographers with Axl as we speak.

So Aerosmith took a risk in releasing a covers album, but their manner of execution is pretty safe. Most of the covers are played fairly straight, albeit with cranked guitars and some more of that proverbial "oomph!" for good measure. And the band is in rare form, all amps-to-11 and metronomically-pounded drums-- still, the band is unable to sustain a consistent level of interpretive prowess throughout. And, while it all sounds good while you're listening to it, the tracks have an alarming tendency to blur together-- squalling harmonicas and workaday blues melodies are cool in small doses, but need to be spiked with more creativity (or at least more SOUL!) to work as something better than, say, background music for a night of brews and barroom brawls in your favorite smoky pool-hall.

Honkin' on Bobo takes its good old time building momentum; fortunately, it makes good and grabs you by the beanbag around track four, when the jackhammer-like crush of "Baby, Please Don't Go" kicks into overdrive and launches a run of delightful tracks capping off with the pleasing, "What It Takes"-like original "The Grind" (great chorus, although an opening couplet of "i never thought that a first-time love could ever last/ how could a kiss like that knock me flat on my ass?" doesn't exactly promise a Dylan-esque lyrical experience). In between, a gender-inverted rendition of Aretha Franklin's "I Never Loved a Man" (aptly, "Never Loved a Girl," and inadvertently referencing the band's perpetual adolescence by not going with, say, "Never Loved a Woman") actually makes good on lyrically altering an established tune to reflect the uncomfortability in the singer's sexuality-- what, y'all can't just play it straight? Still, Aerosmith's update is a screamy shot of white-hot slow simmer, despite the pesky lyrical inversions. Bite me, Joss Stone.

"Back Back Train" is the album's centerpiece, a snaky, Joe Perry-sung mini-opus of creepy, voodoo-addled swamp blues, enhanced by guest vocalist Tracy Bonham's potent caterwauling just enough to topple it into classic territory; it's the one song here that i can imagine Robert Johnson cranking out a terrifying rendition of with just voice and guitar. Delicious, and the following fist at Fred MacDowell's "You Gotta Move" is fine listening, too. It's true no-frills blues-- in fact, so devoid of frills that Aerosmith allow the song's identity to take over and direct the band, instead of vice-versa. Beautiful, especially that drum/wheezing harmonica/squealing guitar breakdown in the middle.

If more of the album was as airtight as it's ineffable center, Honkin' on Bobo'd be that classic fans were rabidly anticipating; still, it's bookended by some of the most nondescript material the 'smith have ever dared to put to wax. "Road Runner?" "Shame, Shame, Shame?" "Eyesight to the Blind?" I'll take "Jaded," thanks. It's not that they're bad-- it's just that they sound like anything an average bar band could bang out onstage any given night. The entire thing's worth sitting through just for the fantastic "Jesus is on the Main Line," but much of the late-album material is as devoid of true crunch and bellyfire as soggy Cheetos.

The common thing I've read in critiques of Honkin' on Bobo is that Aerosmith have finally found their balls. Myself, I'll take the creative effort over the testicular approach any day of the week; still, there must be a way to reconcile Aerosmith's skill and their clackers. Honkin' on Bobo's not it, but I think the band has the right idea. They've failed to eclipse, or even really compete with, any album up to and through 1976's Rocks; but I think that they're on the right trail. Perhaps Aerosmith's next album will resurrect Aerosmith's fruitful past with a vengeance (and a host of ballsy _new_ tunes-- none of this COVER stuff!). Still, Honkin' on Bobo is a marginal success, a disappointment only to the severely deluded, and a solid album in its own right.