Aerosmith

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Educated Fool
I couldn't find an official Aerosmith thread...

I'll start off by saying something relatively controversial: I really enjoy (and primarily listen to) their "commercial sell-out period" (permanent vacation/pump/get a grip). The first five records are certainly classics, but I like the glossy production of the late 80s stuff....and I admire the fact that they had success in both the hair metal era and the alternative/grunge era.
 
Agreed. Permanent Vacation is my favorite. For a long time, all I knew of their 70s work was the Greatest Hits album. But Permanent Vacation and Pump dominated my portable CD player as a kid.
 
I admire the fact that they had success in both the hair metal era and the alternative/grunge era.

Thats true. Not that many bands can claim to have had an almost equal amount of success in the three different decades...70s, 80s and 90s and even going into the 00's they were still very popular. They've dropped off the map a bit since then though...
 
I caught the Permanent Vacation tour twice and the Pump tour once; haven't seen them live since. But those shows were fantastic, and I've watched a lot of concert footage from the 90s / 2000s. Once they sobered up, they turned into a monster live act -- tight, polished, but still raw & dirty. Live recordings from their drug days were definitely raw & dirty, but also sloppy in a bad way, especially Steven's vocals. He was hitting unbelievable notes live from the late 80s on -- that last verse of "Draw the Line," for instance; yikes.

But I'll always prefer their 70s material over what came later. Permanent Vacation was a fine comeback, and I still enjoy "Heart's Done Time," "Hangman Jury," and a couple of others. Nothing really grabbed me about much of anything that came after, at least not the radio/MTV hits. I haven't dug deep enough to judge all of it, there may be some good album cuts that I'm just not familiar with.

Everyone knows the big hits from Aerosmith's 70s albums, but the first four all have great album cuts as well. Particularly recommended:

Debut album: "One Way Street." That swing, and those guitars, both Brad (first lead) & Joe (second lead).

Get Your Wings: "Woman of the World," "S.O.S. (Too Bad)," "Seasons of Wither." "Seasons of Wither" especially -- nice long slow build in mood.

Toys in the Attic: "No More No More."

Rocks: My all-time favorite Aerosmith record. "Combination," "Sick as a Dog," and "Nobody's Fault" are solid deep cuts. "Sick as a Dog" was recorded live, in an interesting way - Joe Perry played bass on most of it, with Tom (bass player) on rhythm guitar -- but then during that little breakdown toward the end, Joe handed the bass to Steven to play on the outro, picked up a guitar, and came in with that smoking double-stop outro lead (which reminds me of the outro lead on "No More No More," lots of heavy-Chuck-Berry stuff). "Nobody's Fault" may be the heaviest song Aerosmith ever did -- Testament recorded a pretty decent cover of it.
 
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They've dropped off the map a bit since then though...
That is true as far as studio releases are concerned (I think there is enough good material on Just Push Play and Music From Another Dimension to fill a solid EP, not much more) but certainly not as a live act: they easily headline huge venues both in the US and in Europe (e.g Hellfest 2014).

My favorite albums are Rocks, TITA, Pump and the underrated Nine Lives. Their latest DVD (Donington 2014) shows how well they still manage live and can be used as a good live best of for those who want to reconnect. As for CDs, A Little South of Sanity is still their best live release in my opinion. Honkin' On Bobo (a compilation of blues covers, 2003 or 2004) is possibly their best release in C21 and the extracts from it in the subsequent live DVD (You Gotta Move) are great.
 
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Once we're done with the Purple discography I wouldn't mind digging into Aerosmith, if someone would host it? Anyone else down?
 
Aerosmith is really awesome. They will be performing in Israel in May. Steven Tyler, lead singer of the rock band Aerosmith, dedicated the group’s hit song “Dream On” to abducted soldier Ehud Goldwasser at the request of Golwasser’s wife Karnit during a New York concert this week.
 
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