366. Aerosmith, "Rocks"

 


Long before they were the MOR/power ballad/"Jamie's Got a Gun"/office E-Z listening nightmare they became, Aerosmith was fundamentally a raunchy blues-rock bar band.  The kind of stuff Matthew McConaughey's character in "Dazed and Confused" would listen to in his Camaro or Trans Am or whatever he had.  In this incarnation, they wrote and put out some incredible rock songs, like "Dream On" and "Mama Kin" (which still fucking bangs hard as hell) and "Sweet Emotion" and "Toys in the Attic."  

Unfortunately, none of those songs are on this dreary, mostly boring collection of similar-sounding songs, with none of the verve or style of those aforementioned hits.  This album is really more of a sound than a collection of songs, like a mood board for cock-rock.  I'm not surprised that Kurt Cobain named this album as an influence - a lot of Nirvana guitar sounds you can trace straight here - but thank god Cobain took the sounds and then attached, you know, songs to them.

Well, at least the lyrics are good:

Um, hey good looking
A-what you got there cooking?
You a young spring chicken
A-make your feet start kicking
No-no, no-no
No-no, no-no
No-no, no-no
No-no, no-no

Haha j/k.

[Today we're introducing a new feature, at the suggestion of reader Stephen, called "Does this album deserve to the in the Top 500?"  It represents my own purely subjective take on whether the album is one of the 500 best albums ever made.  Your opinion may differ.]

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500?  No.  I would have put Toys in the Attic in the Top 500 or their self-titled debut, but not this one.  Nope.

Comments

  1. StephenMay 9, 2021 at 10:27 AM

    "Sick as a Dog" is an all-timer for me. Puts this album in my top-200.

    ReplyDelete

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