Gems (1988)

Seeking to monetize its Aerosmith back catalog in the wake of their renewed popularity, Aerosmith's original label, Columbia, compiled this follow-up to their original 1980 Greatest Hits set. It's the kind of compilation I've rarely seen, where few if any of the tracks were hits, and many of them weren't released as singles, but all represent the strength of the band's deep cuts - the "hidden gems" as it were. While songs like "Walk This Way," "Sweet Emotion" and "Dream On" built the band's legend up, the tracks on this album are what solidified them. Every Columbia album, including Rock in a Hard Place, is represented here, as is the non-album single "Chip Away at the Stone" on LP in its studio form for the first time. It's incredibly hard to argue with the quality or consistency of these songs, although perhaps they should be in chronological order... going from "No Surprize" to "Mama Kin" is a bit jarring.

Still, this is 100% pure Aerosmith brand rock & roll, between the thunder of "Nobody's Fault" and "Round and Round," the raunch of "Lick and a Promise" and "Critical Mass," or the inimitable grooves of "Mama Kin" and "Train Kept a-Rollin." It manages to represent what Aerosmith is to a large portion of its fanbase, to create a thorough narrative about what they do. It's still available as a budget disc under the name "Collections," usually for $8-$10, but stymieing many potential buyers who are put off by the lack of name brand recognition.

"Angel" & "The Movie"

Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Roll your eyes now, if you must, but that's the way things were in the 1980s. If you were a mainstream rock band, you had your hard-partying rock anthems and your monster ballads. It was the only way that the thoroughly heteronormative (now there's a word I never thought I'd get to use) audience for hard rock could really communicate with the ideas of love, loss, pain and beauty. They had to be big, melodramatic, widescreen statements. Doubt me if you must, but it was a proven formula. Steven Tyler's account of things in his book is that anytime some tough, burly biker dude comes up to him in public and wants to talk about his favourite Aerosmith song, he knows the one they're going to want to talk about is "Angel."

It always reminds me of that scene in The Wrestler when Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei have a(n admittedly problematic) discussion of the time before Kurt Cobain, Nirvana and grunge made it not okay to just have a good time. In those days, this is how that audience conveyed sensitivity, and as an example of that, it's pretty effective. It hits all the right notes: the grandiose musical arch, the somber, eloquentyet simple (and decidedly vague) lyrics, that unmistakable statement of need: "Baby, you're my angel." It's cheap and sappy, (and the music video is ungodly cheesy) and even this band would do better in future years, but it is what it is, a starting point.

Lest we forget, Aerosmith was the pioneer of this kind of song, it's just that only by 1987 were they becoming a key part of the formula for rock success. It behooved them to provide a good example.



The album ends on a high note with a really cool instrumental called "The Movie," which seals the album up on an oddly ambiguous, yet thoroughly Aerosmithy note. It's always been the place of this band to sort of skew the viewer's headspace at least a little bit, to push the boundaries of what a down and dirty rock band is usually meant to do, without getting too alienatingly experimental. The best tunes are often ones that are just understood by instinct, that don't need to explain themselves.

"Hangman Jury" & "St. John"

Based on an old song once recorded by Lead Belly, "Hangman Jury" adds that extra twist that this album needs: semi-authentic 3rd generation blues melded with 80s pop sheen in an arrangement that's oddly pleasing. It's not that far off from their takes on "Train Kept A-Rollin" or "Milkcow Blues," and is at least a lot more conventionally enjoyable than their stab at "Cry Me a River" on their 1982 album (which again, I enjoy way more than is defensible.) Likewise, "St. John," with its impressionistic lyrics and tough, ominous riff sounds only a few degrees removed from a 1976 Rocks album cut. With its sparse atmosphere, it's a weirdly effective moment of restraint on an album that's mostly noted for its use of synthesizers and horns.

I think in a lot of places on this album, Aerosmith does a great job measuring between staying "true" to themselves and getting with the times. On their next efforts, it wouldn't be so necessary to be cautious, because they were the times.

"Rag Doll"

One thing I like about a song like "Rag Doll" is that it's basically harmless. It's racy but not raunchy. It's seamy, but not sleazy. Sexually charged but not exploitative. It's a funny, weird little fantasy with those Steven Tyler-askew lyrics about "leaving by the backdoor - man." (Always referencing other stuff in his stuff, that guy.) It's also, I think, partly a metaphor for being rejuvenated as a band? And also somewhere he finds time for a Mae West impression, adding to the burlesque atmosphere. It couldn't be done nowadays, we're all too self-conscious and afraid to upset people - you'd either stop way short or go way further. But it's sly and funny, a fitting vehicle for Steven Tyler's particular charisma. Either you get it or you don't.

It's also a weirdly put-together song, not quite verse-chorus-verse, just looping back around over a few disjointed thoughts that are mostly suggestive and really sold by the vocal delivery and the sonic template: those omnipresent horns and pounding, grooving drums. And that guitar. Slide guitar! Pedal steel! Where was the steel guitar in the 1980s? Nobody was using it. Even today, you only hear it lightly dappled in the background of cheesy country songs, but Joe Perry absolutely crushes that thing, making it nice and dirty. And the whole rest of the song just relies on the band's innate groove. I think this song is the key to the whole process behind this album, to basically cub the band'/s worst impulses while also corralling their unique skills.

"Heart's Done Time," & "I'm Down"

Of the 12 tracks on Permanent Vacation, three were hit singles, a few were transcendently good album tracks, and a few were just there. In the latter category, it's up for debate which of these are really good and which you never need hear, but I would posit that this one gives the best representation of the "meat" of the album. It doesn't sound like inspired hits, they aren't inspired flights of fancy, they're just big shiny 80s rock workouts with aplomb. The opening track underscores the trend of Aerosmith albums to open with tracks that sound transparently like opening tracks, with builds, or long-running riffs. With its classicist blues lyrics set to a pop rock beat, it's fun, if forgettable.

Their Beatles cover here also befits their status as old pros, playing to their strengths. I also wanted to post a clip of "Girl Keeps Coming Apart" and maybe the title track, which suit the same purposes, but legal issues seems to have gotten them, and I think one or two will do the trick.

"Dude Looks Like a Lady"

Do bear in mind that this is apparently a song about meeting, being seduced by, and perhaps ultimately enjoying sex with a male transvestite.* Although Aerosmith was sometimes dark and sometimes thoughtful in the 70's (I swear!) they never really presented themselves as a serious band. They concerned themselves with finding all these odd corners to play in, and their 80s comeback era really accentuated that image of them. The success of that comeback hinged on creating a narrative about who and what Aerosmith was, then fitting the music to that and selling it to people. It may seem overly cute and cuddly, but it's still really outsider stuff, (Steven was a huge disciple of the Kinks, after all,) especially if we're to judge from the way Steven orgasmically screams the title phrase. Bon Jovi and Motley Crue were not doing this. (At least not admitting to it.)

So let's unpack the construction of this song, the tune that was designed and picked to cement the intended comeback. Permanent Vacation is everything Done With Mirrors wasn't. That was a sober, almost joyless affair, and this one is loud and splashy and powered by hooks. The opening to "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" is one of the most distinctive hooks for any rock single for that era, using a staccato sample in either speaker to call and respond, and do something that was kind of verboten in 1980s rock: to put groove ahead of technique or power. And that was the chief weapon in Aerosmith's armory, that sense of groove, of soul and beat honed in the 60's. That solo that Joe Perry unleashes at 2:20 is fleet-fingered and intuitive and twangy, and really far removed from anything in rock in the 1980's, aside from being turned up to 11.

Helping the song along are those horns, which producer Bruce Fairbairn infused into the three albums he produced for these guys, and while they overwhelm a lot of the album tracks, are usually pretty deftly deployed in the hits. And that's what this is: a designated hit. It has a title phrase that can jsut be screamed over and over again in a variety of ways, building and building. In the end it doesn't matter that it's, lyrically, a really fucking weird song to come out of the box with, it's fun.

*I know the song was inspired by the gender-bending bands of the era, with their makeup and huge hair, but being "inspired by" something and being "about" something are two different matters.

Permanent Vacation (1987)

I get why it was controversial. During their heyday, Aerosmith was pretty reliable for its internal songwriting: all their best songs bore the names "Tyler," "Perry," and sometimes "Whitford," "Hamilton" or "Kramer." And then in 1987, in the wake of their successful collaboration with Run-DMC, names began to crop up in the credits like "Child," and "Vallance:" People who were responsible for making acts like Bryan Adams and Bon Jovi such enduring, middle-of-the-road commodities. But it's hard to blame them: the band had already squandered its first flush of comeback momentum with a good album that just didn't fit in, didn't catch the zeitgeist. That misfire suits the Aerosmith narrative well, that last stab at true independence and defiance, but without this album there wouldn't be much of an Aerosmith narrative. I wouldn't be talking about Aerosmith's career trajectory any more than I talk about Alice Cooper's. (Hey, "Poison" was a pretty good song, right?)

So yes, they committed the cardinal rock sin: they sacrificed authenticity in the name of chasing a hit. Hard to argue the result, which apart from a few flat, transparently MOR numbers, is still a blast to listen to. Besides, after some of their post-Rocks albums, one starts to get the sense that "following their instinct" wasn't always working for this band: they needed the assistance to filter out the crap and pa for the gold.

They can't compete with the young lust of the pop metal crowd, like Motley Crue or Poison, nor the bite of Guns n' Roses, but they grow into their clean-and-sober elder statesman role pretty well. Steven Tyler successfully transmutes his out-of-this-world psyche, the one truly inimitable quality of this band (for better or worse) into something with pop appeal and blows away imitators and pretenders, keeping the band away from the middle. The rest of the gang, too, knuckles down to show off their musicianship whenever they can, with a sense of interplay that few 80s rock bands really got. Yeah, it's a bit too glossy, but while some have argued it hasn't aged well, I would argue it has a certain charm that has made it feel less like a product of its time than a product out of time. "Permanent Vacation" is a good title for this record, as Aerosmith leaves behind a lot of its baggage and creates a piece with real light, easy appeal, which you can still bang your head to.

Buy this album now: iTunes Canada // iTunes USA