Aerosmith
really know how to disappoint. When I first heard about this record - that it
was going to be a back-to basics Blues record, produced by their old-time 70s
producer Jack Douglas - I was so excited. After almost twenty years of trying
to rewrite their past, and becoming a shadow of their former selves, this idea
seemed to make sense. They’ve realised that their Geffen output was sub-par! They’re
going back to their Blues influences! And just to make sure it all works, they’ve
got Jack Douglas back on board to produce the record! What could go wrong?This album is so bad it’s offensive. Everything sounds so clean and polished, they end up sounding like the resident jazz band on the Starship Enterprise. Any indication that they were going back to their roots was then completely swept aside when they went out on tour to support the album. The accompanying tour DVD - You Gotta Move - shows them getting massages and travelling to shows separately in private jets.
If there is one good thing to come out of all this, it’s the fact that they started playing their older material on tour. During their Geffen days they pretty much only played Geffen material live. When I first saw them touring Get A Grip in 1993, and then twice touring Nine Lives in 1997, they pretty much only played their Geffen singles, plus a few album tracks from the respective album they were touring, rounded off with an encore of their three big Columbia singles - Dream On, Sweet Emotion and Walk This Way. Since they reacquainted themselves with their older material for Honkin’ On Bobo, they now tend to play roughly a 65/35 split - with their older stuff still taking the minority - but at least they’re playing a decent amount of 70s material and not acting as though it doesn’t exist.
Hit: Baby Please Don’t Go
Hidden Gem: The Grind
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