This is a first for the Listening Post series in that I have no real relationship with this band at all. I mean, sure I know the “hits” and they’ve been a part of the general tapestry of my musical life since I was a little boy but the “Toxic Twins” or the “American Rolling Stones” or whatever their nicknames have made little or no impact on me at all.
Let’s give the boys from beantown a roll, k?
Aerosmith – Aerosmith – 1973 (Buy it)
If you have come to Aerosmith anywhere between, say, Armageddon and Pump then this should come as a weird little surprise.
Nothing here sounds like Aerosmith, with the exception of “Dream On” and that’s just because it’s been played over and over for years. I’m not even sure that without that single Aerosmith would have made as much of an impact as “Bandit”. Sandwiched between all that mediocre blues-rock (much of which sounds to me like there were a lot of fans of The Beatles, Why Don’t We Do It In The Road in the studio), Dream On sounds…trite. It sounds “Of its time”. A quasi-metal, inoffensive, soaring Wings-esque ballad. Nothing else on the record sounds like it, though and to it’s credit, that’s not a great thing. In a way Dream On raises the level of all the songs that surround it and they, simultaneously, bring that one song down to earth. It’s a weird alchemy I have never heard before.
The album is not bad, it’s not awful, it’s okay. Truth be told, in the wake of Zeppelin there were (and still continue to be) tons of Blues based wannabes. Others did it better, though, much better.
Aerosmith’s blues quotient falls far short of their beantown brethren, J. Geils Band.
Their pop rockness, highly evident on the first two tracks, sound too much like Cheap Trick posturing to have any real teeth. Tyler doesn’t have the sense of humor that Nielsen did nor the range of Zander.
It’s interesting to note that every time Tyler strains for those high notes, which is not that often here, he sounds like he’s struggling. Interesting particularly since that would become his trademark. I’m not sure who he sounds like here, is it the lead singer of Loverboy? Maybe. But it’s not Tyler. It’s bland as hell, though.
And when the band does try to turn up the edge they just come off sounding like Kiss-lite.
There’s some good and ineffectual music here. Like I said, it’s not offensive. It’s just not all that memorable. Nothing earth shattering. Nothing and I mean NOTHING that points to a career longevity spanning a quarter century.
Grade C
A Side: Dream On & Mama Kin
Blindside: One Way Street (I love it when bands put 7 minute opuses on their debut records. This one is good in a “it’s almost as good as Brian May” kind of bubblegumblues way.
DownSide: Movin’ Out (The Jimmy Page Worship really begins right there. On your knees, Perry, start sucking…)
