Rocks In The Attic #100: Aerosmith - ‘Toys In The Attic’ (1975)

It only seems apt that as I covered Aerosmith’s Rocks as the 50^th entry in this series, I would need to do Toys In The Attic as the 100^th, completing the name of the blog which took inspiration from these two albums.

So the story goes that not long after I was first exposed to Aerosmith - via an Aerosmith music video weekend on MTV - I went on holiday with my parents to Cornwall. I had, by this time, bought Pump on CD - in fact, I think I bought it the following weekend after that MTV weekend, from the Our Price that used to be next to Boots on Market Street in Manchester.

These, however, were the days before CD players in cars had become commonplace. I think we travelled down to Cornwall with a taped copy of Pump playing on the car stereo. When we landed in Newquay, the first thing we did after checking in at the Bed & Breakfast, was to walk down the road and pop into the little adjoining row of shops. In that row of shops was a second-hand record store, and in the row of tapes on the counter was a second-hand copy of Toys In The Attic. I snapped it up, and alongside Pump - which I’d probably played too much on the journey down - Toys In The Attic became the soundtrack to that holiday.

To me, Toys In The Attic and Rocks are very much like Rubber Soul and Revolver - two back-to-back albums with a very high watermark, and indistinguishable enough to be double albums in their own right - hence Rocks In The Attic as the name of this blog (or I guess to take the song from Rocks, the alternative to this would be calling it Toys In The Cellar).

Of the two, I believe Rocks is the better album, but I prefer Toys In The Attic. It’s a little looser, and has a bit more light; whereas Rocks is the shadier, more serious of the two. Rocks really doesn’t let up, and you can almost hear the cocaine on it. Toys on the other hand, sounds like it was only made with the assistance of a joint or 200.

I love this album so much, I have it on CD twice - one of those being the 1994 collector’s edition gold disc version from Sony’s Mastersound 20-Bit Super Bit Mapping Series; and I also have it on LP twice - one of those being a Japanese pressing with an Obi strip. I probably still have that worn-out copy on cassette that I picked up in Cornwall too.

Hit: Walk This Way

Hidden Gem: Big Ten Inch Record

Rocks In The Attic #93: The Beach Boys - ‘Pet Sounds’ (1966)

Okay, stand back. It might not be easy to hear somebody actual say this, but this album is boring. Give me California Girls and Do It Again over this any time.

Supposedly this was influenced greatly by Brian Wilson’s desire to match Rubber Soul. This album then spurred The Beatles on in the recording of Revolver. Arguably the two Beatles albums sound more varied - but you’d expect them to be, being the compositions of three men. Pet Sounds, chiefly written by Brian Wilson with a few others sharing co-writing duties, doesn’t have the advantage of sounding so three-dimensional.

The other thing that really irks me about this album is that people who really love it tend to really hate Sloop John B - like how dare they tarnish such a classic album by daring to cover a traditional folk song? For me, Sloop John B is one of the highlights of the album. Unlike Rubber Soul and Revolver, once you get past Wouldn’t It Be Nice, Sloop John B and God Only Knows, all of the other songs tend to merge into one big melancholic ballad.

Which brings me to God Only Knows. Wilson may have failed with composing an album’s worth of material to challenge The Beatles’ dominance of the pop LP, but in God Only Knows he succeeded majorly in writing an enduring classic, superior to anything else coming over the Atlantic in that decade.

Does it excuse that LP cover though?

Hit: God Only Knows

Hidden Gem: Let’s Go Away For Awhile

Rocks In The Attic #19: The Band - ‘The Band’ (1969)

Who can’t love this album? Surely it’s impossible. To me, this and its predecessor Music From Big Pink (1968) are like Rubber Soul and Revolver - two back-to-back classics with mostly interchangeable songs. Or Toys In The Attic and Rocks for Aerosmith fans.

I think I prefer Music From Big Pink as it sounds ever so slightly rougher around the edges. That album sounds like a bunch of guys who had a great idea of making an album, this one sounds much more like they’re hitting their stride.

Levon Helm, the band’s drummer, died not too long ago and it was nice to see a wealth of respect paid to him from the music world. There was a documentary about him playing at the Auckland film festival last year which I couldn’t get to see, but I’ll hopefully get to see it one day.

Hit: Rag Mama Rag

Hidden Gem: Jawbone