JR notes, 2001: Ah, hindsight! In this review, what I referred to as their “mega-comeback” has now become a long and savvy drink at the fountain of youth. Aerosmith continues to stay hip in the eyes of “Buzz Clip” culture by landing key soundtrack spots as they hover in a state of suspended adolescence – which ain’t bad for a group of men who are going to turn 60 before much more time passes. These guys are the cool party chaperones that you wish you could have had at your own school dance. Although I still think Aerosmith’s best songwriting days are behind them, I’ve got to give some of the newer songs on Big Ones a bit more credit for their staying power. I was wrong: “Amazing” isn’t the only song that a twenty year old couldn’t have written. There are several songs on Big Ones that bear the signs of accumulated wisdom, and in particular it’s time to fully acknowledge “What it Takes,” a classic swig of heartbreak that has become a permanent part of what pretentious critics refer to as the “pop lexicon.”

Aerosmith's Big Ones Reconsidered

The fifteen tracks on Big Ones (1994) chart this astonishing mega-comeback, which began with 1987's triple platinum Permanent Vacation. Since Permanent Vacation, Aerosmith has made the Top Forty eleven times, and over the course of just three albums (Vacation, Pump, and Get a Grip), they've racked up 11 million in record sales in the U.S. alone. The thirteen hits and two new tracks on Big Ones document an era when the final frontier - critical praise - was finally conquered, with a couple of Grammys thrown in for good measure.

Unfortunately, the flashy videos and heady awards have obscured the real truth: the best Aerosmith records are at least fifteen years old. The new songs, are, for the most part, disposable. Lavishly overproduced by the heavy hands of Bruce Fairbairn, the so-called "grittiness" that Tyler is so proud of is buried under the bombast. To find real grit, you must go back as far as Aerosmith's 1980 Greatest Hits package, a ten song assemblage of some of the finest hard rock ever recorded.

When the weight of history settles down on the band (someday they WILL stop recording), only three Aerosmith songs are going to matter: "Dream On," "Walk This Way," and "Sweet Emotion." Proof of this contention is readily available - simply attend a live show. "Dream On" was one of the first songs the band ever recorded, and is still their most important, with surprisingly ambitious orchestration and lyrics. "Sweet Emotion" and "Walk This Way" are of a bluesier cloth, the best representatives of a whole host of songs superior to those found on Big Ones. Full of sleaze, booze, and swagger, these hard-funk anthems provide ample evidence of that uneasy link between excess and creative genius.

The old Aerosmith were certainly sexist, or were they just pure sex? A matter of debate, but if the lyrics were cartoonish, they rolled off Tyler's tongue with a raunchy ease that cannot be recreated, even by him. With the past clearly in mind, we can now assault the present collection. First, eliminate the two new songs, "Walk on Water" and "Blind Man," which are not yet proven and don't deserve to be included (a 90s marketing tactic which MUST be stopped). Then, remove the unconvincing drinks from the fountain of youth: "Love in an Elevator," "Rag Doll" and "Living on the Edge." Take out "Angel" for being such an unforgivable load of power sap, "Cryin'" for coming too close on the heels of "What it Takes," "Deuces Are Wild" for its hard-or-soft identity crisis, and "Eat The Rich" for its total lack of irony and we're down to six songs of merit.

The remaining six are worthwhile precisely because they don't attempt to imitate the old. "Dude Looks Like A Lady," the first of the comeback hits, is still the most convincingly funky of them all, with the horn section a welcome addition to the mix. "Janie's Got a Gun" is a nice try at seeing things from a woman's point of view, and "Amazing" is the one song whose lyrics could not have been written by twenty year olds. "The Other Side" is a very convincing, fresh rocker from a new mold, "Crazy" has some kind of harmless charm, and, perhaps the best of the bunch, "What It Takes" is the spirited post-breakup song everyone needed to hear, perhaps the most mature take on relationships the band has ever managed to convey.

Seven solid songs certainly justify a CD, and Aerosmith deserves every cent of its hard-won success. But good music does not a legend make - brilliant music does - and no matter what the ship of fools might say, that legend was made in the 70s. If Aerosmith manages to find a way to rock and take a harder look at themselves at the same time, they may yet build on that legend.

-JR-