a review of Aerosmith's debut

Be a blues-rock band first, and get that right

 
Aerosmith peaked commercially from the late 1980s through the 90s. "Get a Grip," released March 1993, is the band's best-selling album. Joe Perry’s thresher of a guitar and Steven Tyler's highly animated vocals mix with huge pop hits like "Cryin'" and "Crazy." It was Aerosmith's eleventh studio album.

My favorite Aerosmith record, the 1973 self-titled debut, sounds nothing like it.

The music's punch comes not from showmanship—Tyler's yawps and Perry's lavish guitar—but from the sound of good bluesmen vibing.

Compared to other early 70s hard rock bands, the album's dusty production—especially the low gain on Joe Perry's guitar—softens the blow a bit. In his memoir, Perry says, "… because I lacked the studio chops to prescribe a remedy, I kept quiet. It pained me, though, that my guitar was not cutting through."

But compared to Aerosmith's later work, the album sounds raw, and I like it.

Maybe what I like most is Tyler's straight-ahead vocals. They shine more for his timing than his affectations.

I grew up with classic rock radio and heard Aerosmith's hits and how the band's sound changed over the decades. You have the raw, early classics like "Dream On," "Sweet Emotion," and "Walk This Way." Then comes bigger production on hits like "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)," "Angel," "Rag Doll," "Love in an Elevator," and "Janie's Got a Gun." And, finally, the full-on pop hits like "Amazing," "Livin' on the Edge," "Cryin'," and "Crazy."

I always liked the early songs best, so to get past the hits, I went back and listened to Aerosmith's first four albums. The debut is easily my favorite.

Here's "Make It," the first song on the first album.

 

an album review: "Ravenous" by Waste a Saint

Sing out loud with Waste a Saint

Waste a Saint’s new album starts with an amplifier hum.

The sound of a humming amp is a prelude to a rock show.

Waste a Saint delivers one.

The new album, "Ravenous," rolls out melodic stoner rock lifted by hooks, practiced musicianship, and a highly present vocal that fills hearts. The sound recalls Paranoid-era Sabbath, early Queens of the Stone Age, and the 90s band Spiders.

The amplifier buzz leads opening track “Schizofriendia” to buzz-crunched metal and builds to the chorus’s belted-out lyric: “Eyes in the mirror watching you closely / It’s becoming clearer—no need to be lonely.” The vocal renews the worn path of songs about isolation, about feeling crazy for talking to yourself like you’re someone else.

My first favorite song is “Sore Spot.” The passion flares in the verse with muted guitars and unmuted vocal—“I know you see me see you avoid me, trying to get away and pretend to not know / But I’ll stare into your eyes so you can look away / I’ll call your name until the end so you can hear.” Then the growling guitars gush through a three-chord chorus.

“Dryads” is my second favorite. The production splits guitar parts into left and right channels, and a dissonant note keeps wrestling with the melody. I love the arrangement. The persistent bass expands while the drums swing. The chorus is tight: the guitars take deliberate, confident steps while Bogey Stefansdottir’s voice comes at you.

Waste a Saint plays with consistency, like an older band. "Ravenous," released March 2024, follows the 2022 debut, "Hypercarnivore," which was also released on All Good Clean Records.

Note: After I write about some album like this, I never listen to it again. But “Dryads” might stick in my collection.

"You and Me"

Notes:
I tell you, baby, you're just enough for me.

The Muppet Show with Alice Cooper

Part 1:

 

Part 2:

 

Part 3:

Adult contemporary

Recently the New York Magazine article "Indie Grown-Ups: Are Wilco and Feist our adult contemporary music?" turned a critical eye on a few prominent indie rock artists, describing, for example, Feist's recent album as merely "gusty singsong melodies about finding clarity by the oceanside delivered over cozy acoustic arrangement". The author's larger point was this:

These acts, intentionally or not, have won; they’ve taken a lower-sales, lower-budget version of the type of trip Sting once took, from a post-punk upstart to an adult staple.

Later he indicts labels for having aided and abetted this trend, grooming innocuous sounds from the likes of Feist, Wilco, Radiohead, and Bon Iver to create a new generation's equivalent of adult contemporary.

Although written in response to a different New York Magazine article, The AV Club piece "What makes music boring?" reinterprets this critique by distilling and elaborating on the "cozy" quality described above, this time using the language of boredom:

In a sense, all music is boring. The same, however, can’t be said about “boring” music. “Boring” is its own genre. It is a code word that instantly conjures artists with clearly definable attributes. “Boring” music is slow to mid-tempo, mellow, melodic, pretty in a melancholy way, catchy, poppy, and rooted in traditional forms. It is popular (or popular-ish). It is tasteful, well-played, and meticulously produced. (Or it might sound like it was recorded in somebody’s bedroom under the influence of weed and Sega Genesis.) It is “easy to like”—or more specifically, “easy for white people to like” (“white people” being a sub-group of white people singled out by other white people). It is critically acclaimed (perhaps the most critically acclaimed music there is), and yet music critics relish taking “boring” musical artists down a peg more than any other kind of artist.

This critique to me seems easy to argue, which is to say I don't disagree. But it just isn't particularly insightful. Both articles essentially make this analogy:

• Adult Contemporary is to pop music genres as Feist is to indie music.

This analogy extends easily:

• Adult Contemporary is to pop music genres as Poison is to glam metal/hard rock.

It can even extend to other discussions:

• Adult Contemporary is to pop music genres as scones are to sweets.

And the articles aren't more controversial because they take on indie music--indie music has no exclusive claim to coolness. My comment on glam metal and scones means more. It took more imagination.