One of my least favorite big-time bands ever. Much of this is due to their longevity, since they have by now spent well over half of their career playing bullshit, and the fact that I was something like ten years old during their 'heyday' and did not listen to that shit at that point. By the time I actually paid attention to rock at all, they were well into their full-on tacky stage, which hasn't let up yet.

Like Led Zeppelin, I am not sure why they are so influential.

xero wrote:

toomanyhelicopters wrote:Contributing to the production of Liv Tyler
...
Launching RUN DMC

This is madness. Aerosmith, the band, had nothing to do with the production of Liv Tyler, and even if one wanted to argue that they somehow did, I fail to see its relevance to an assessment of their musical efforts. And Run-DMC were already well underway when they got a big crossover boost from that one song.

#1 : The band Aerosmith is not being judged Crap or Not Crap solely on their music. This is not the way Crap/ Not Crap works, at least not how I understand it to work. The BAND is being judged on its totality, not just its music. For example, if a band existed that made the best music in the history of music, and it was the most amazing shit and we all loved it, but they were all Nazis and unrepented advocates of rape, then it would be easy to vote them CRAP. Even with their amazing music. You see?

The band Aerosmith most certainly lead to the production of Liv Tyler. She was conceived by a groupie chick who mutually sought to get the hump on with Steven Tyler. Right? Because he was the singer of this awesome band, right? No? I thought that's how I heard it on the teevee anyway.

#2 : RUN DMC and rap music in general certainly existed before the RUN DMC/ Aerosmith collaboration. But from what I heard all of the involved parties saying (RUN DMC, Aerosmith, Rick Rubin) on a VH1 program about the history of rap music, it was this collaboration that launched the success of RUN DMC and re-launched a semi-dead Aerosmith. And also catapulted rap music out of the hood and into the suburbs, which is probably a big part of how it became a multi-billion dollar force of culture. You can argue that this itself is CRAP (*I* could argue that) but I'm more interested in the specific bigtime launch of RUN DMC, because I think that was one of the more significant events in the past 30 years of music. Significant in a very good way.

toomanyhelicopters wrote:Because he was the singer of this awesome band, right?

I thought it was because he was and is such an incredibly handsome and intelligent and tasteful man. Oh wait.

Ease up, child. Just playin'.

I don't even care for the seventies stuff that much. Their best stuff gets a NC with a WF of 99. Overall, Crap, no WF.

Hey, remember "Revolution X"?!

But this reminds me of a funny conversation I had.
(italicized portions translated from Japanese)

Yuka: How do you say 'looks like' in English, like something looks like something?
LvP: Looks like? You would say "looks like".
Y: So, 'Kyoto Tower looks like a candle'?... Kyoto Tower...
L: Kyoto Tower looks like a candle.
Y: Kyoto Tower ... looks like ... a candle.
L: Yes
Y: Looks like.
L: Yes
(pause, then comprehension)
Y: Oh, like "Dude Looks Like a Lady"!!

I then had to try to explain the concept of 'dude', which is not as easy as it sounds.

As someone who grew up in the midwest in the 1970's (yes, I'm an old fucker), I can tell you that Aerosmith were several notches up from the vast majority of their competitors of the time, and for my money GET YOUR WINGS, TOYS IN THE ATTIC and ROCKS are still kick-ass hard rock albums with great riffs and a sense of humor. And yeah, their current stuff is a long, LONG step down from those glory days, but they still crank out an OK song once in a blue moon, and believe it or not, Joe Perry's recent solo album was really fine stuff (once you get past the fact the man has no business singing -- I mean, Joe makes Ron Sexsmith sound like David Yow). And while I haven't seen 'em in years, some friends I trust who have tell me they still work an arena pretty good when they're of a mind. Just get rid of Desmond Child and Bob Rock and they might make another good album one of these days. Not Crap, waffle factor of three.

Listen. They have way too much good stuff in their early years to be crap...albums that are good all the way through. I can't believe Aerosmith received a heavy CRAP vote and Tom Petty didn't. Of course...that band is a sad affair now...can't bands ever just stop?

Only a tire-biter would vote crap on Aerosmith. The stuff they put out in the '70s makes it OK for them to put out albums of the band farting in perpetuity going forward.

If you disagree, I will have you mangled by my herd of hellhounds.

I will hunt you down and destroy you. I have checked out all of your MySpace pages, and none of you are fit to lick their boots.

I am making it a current solarseek mission of mine to download shitloads of early 70s Aerosmith and rectify that gaping hole in my music collection.

"Sweet Emotion" is the fuckin' jam, folks. So are "Mama Kin" and "Toys in the Attic" and shitloads of other songs that i'm going to rediscover soon.

I've read recent concert reviews that have implied that the band basically has been sticking to their classic 70s material and stuff off their recent blues covers album. If that's true, i'm kinda impressed.

Also, i, unlike many of you, have no problem whatsoever with Permanent Vacation or Pump. In fact, drawing one pickup truck on top of another once enabled me to totally smoke the other team during an "all play" round of Pictionary. The other team actually tried to draw a photo of some dude pumping water. Ha!

NOT CRAP WF Dianne Warren

I knew someone else would understand. Kudos.

Much like the RHCP, if Aerosmith was just let loose and somehow didn't give a fig about hit songs and Superbowl, something decent could probably come out of these guys. I remember seeing that making of Pump video when I was in high school . It shows clips of them jamming in rehearsal and it's just straight up rock very well done. Perry is flying. They clearly chose to be crap.