Aerosmith – Selftitled (1973)

From classicrockreview.com

Aerosmith emerged as a blues rock alternative in a music sea of glam rock and prog rock of the early 1970s. Their impressive 1973 debut album doesn’t contain anything particularly innovative musically, but still manages to forge some unforgettable moments. The album is also the band’s most authentically bluesy release (something they’d try to replicate three decades later with the 2004 cover album Honkin’ On Bobo) and some of these extended blues numbers were the longest songs the band would ever release. Band leader and lead vocalist Steven Tyler wrote the bulk of the original material and uses a bit of an exaggerated “blues” voice, something he would soon abandon.

Tyler began performing as a drummer in his native New Hampshire as early as 1964. In nearby Massachusetts, guitarist Joe Perry and bassist Tom Hamilton formed a free-form and blues group called the Jam Band (commonly known as “Joe Perry’s Jam Band”). Eventually the performers were united in 1970 in Boston by drummer Joey Kramer, a Berkley student who had gotten to know all the above musicians. With Kramer on drums, Tyler moved to “frontman” and the new band chose a name inspired by Harry Nilsson’s album Aerial Ballet. Another Berkley student, Brad Whitford joined as rhythm guitarist in 1971, completing the classic quartet which makes up the band to this day.

By the time their debut album was released, the band had been playing constantly for nearly three years, helping to forge a confident boogie-blues and riff-based hard rock sound. Producer Adrian Barber captured this sound in a raw yet professional manner, avoiding the typical stumbles and haziness that normally comes with a debut.

Aerosmith’s recording career begins with an excellent example of their early sound. “Make It” is a mixture of fuzzy but clean riffs and some distant whining guitars above a solid rhythm with about medium quality recording. “Somebody” a pure, riff-driven rocker follows. It appears the band was going for the accessible radio hit (which probably would have worked for the later, more polished Aerosmith) but it never did quite catch on and just lays there for the enjoyment of us future music lovers. This song has an interesting middle section, which slowly develops but works towards a whiny, bluesy guitar mimicked in sync by Tyler’s ad-libbed voice.

The original recording of “Dream On” is unique, surreal, and timeless song, which can often be overlooked as the classic signature song that it is. This may be due to the fact that it has been way overplayed on rock radio and, let’s face it, the band kind of butchers it live. The song is unique on this album, driven by piano, mellotron, and high pitched vocals by Tyler, and ringing guitar notes by Perry. It was the band’s first single, but only reached #59 in 1973. It did much better during a second release in 1976, reaching the Top Ten after Aerosmith had broken through to the main stream.

The first side closes with “One Way Street”, the perfect fusion of blues and rock which represents the heart of the album. Whitford takes over lead guitar on this one, which is a multi-part jam with some finer details touched up by Hamilton’s bass and Tyler’s harmonica. “Mama Kin” is the second song on the album which remained a signature throughout their career. It starts with a long intro section of Perry’s steady but strong riff and works in much stop/start action by the rest of the musicians. Guest David Woodford provides saxophone to the mix and Perry adds some backing vocals.

The rest of side two contains solid yet relatively unknown tracks. “Write Me a Letter” was recorded with a real live feel to it, sounding like it was done in a club. The guitars are crisp and Kramer’s drumming is especially sharp and dynamic, rising above the rest of the band. “Movin’ Out” was co-written by Perry and is another strong blues with a real Celtic undertone to it. The album completes with “Walkin’ the Dog”, the only cover song on the album, written by Rufus Thomas. It may also be the most Zeppelin-esque of any song on the album, very upbeat and entertaining and a strong way to finish the album.

By all commercial metrics, Aerosmith was a flop upon its release and, like its top single, was issued new life only after the band broke through with success on their mid 70s albums. However, musically this album stood the test of time and decades later sounds fresh and entertaining.

Aerosmith 1st Album (1973)

From starling.riet.ru

Back in 1973, the band’s debut album often induced comparisons with the Rolling Stones. Oh sure, the influence is right there from beginning to end, but as far as I can see, the only really exclusive motive – and the most obvious one – was that Aerosmith ended the album with a cover of ‘Walking The Dog’, thus repeating the same move that the Stones had employed for their debut nine years ago.

Whether it was intentional and symbolic (Aerosmith announcing themselves as the new incarnation of the “withered” Stones who’d just released their last ‘epochal’ album) or just a weird coincidence, is left overboard. The fact is, the album as a whole does pretty little to justify the “claim” if there ever was one.

What we basically have here is eight hard rock pieces, highly derivative (goes without saying – not that anybody would hold this against any debut album) and, frankly speaking, not too exciting. Of course, these guys made a good job of capturing the American youth spirit of the Seventies, but hey, let’s face it, that spirit, when captured properly and correctly, without any extra purification or exaggeration, actually sucked. In addition, the tone of the record is at least ten times as monotonous as that of the Stones’ debut album – just your standard hard rock sludge driven in mid-tempo by two guitarists that don’t as of yet seem to understand what a proper riff should sound like and a hoarse screamin’ guy that never had any real “rock’n’roll mystique” in his strong, but annoying voice.

Their style would certainly get perfected later on, but for the most part, all the bad trademarks are already here as well. Yes, even including Aerosmith’s rotten approach to “power ballads”: I know everyone and their grandma will take me to court for that one, but I still find ‘Dream On’ pretty much abysmal, the ultimate in bad taste (okay, pen-ultimate, considering what was to follow twenty years later), its only interesting quality being the stately ascending riff (the one where Tyler shouts ‘dream on, dream on, dream on’) that the band ripped-off of Big Brother And The Holding Company’s ‘I Need A Man To Love’. Otherwise, it’s just a lot of overemoted screaming, bland guitar chords and a bleak, undistinguishable (but jangly!) melody that’s not at all compensated by the song’s overbloated pretentions; in brief, everything that defines the wretched genre of ‘power ballad’.

It may so be, though, that I’m just psychologically unprepared to grant Tyler any possible right to exercising ‘spiritual catharsis’. I could take it even off the hands of some greasy-sleazy rockers, provided they demonstrate a bit of ‘stylishness’ and psychological depth throughout their career (and yes, Mick Jagger definitely qualifies in that respect). But a guy like Steve Tyler is so firmly associated in my mind with the basic, undiluted, unrefined concept of “I’m only here to get me some” that falling for any kind of lyricism emanating from the ‘gentleman’ and his bandmates is absolutely out of the question.

“So”, asks the nitpicking inquisitive reader, “maybe if the Rolling Stones sang ‘Dream On’, you’d like it, Mr Self-Contradictory Reviewer?’ Hmm. No idea. Would have to hear it, I guess. Let me ask you a counter-question, Mr Nitpicking Inquisitive Reader: which one would you rather take on a desert island? ‘Dream On’ or ‘Shine A Light’? Whichever answer you prefer, the crucial thing is the subtle – and at the same time endless – distance between the two. (Actually, it seems more reasonable to think of ‘Dream On’ as Aerosmith’s “reply” to ‘Stairway To Heaven’ – both songs share the same kind of mystique, have similar build-ups and serve similar purposes, but this doesn’t change things much. There’s giants and midgets in every branch of business).

Okay, we’re back in business. The best material on Aerosmith’s debut album is all on the first side, together with the worst (‘Dream On’): both ‘Make It’ and ‘Somebody’ are fairly catchy and decent rockers, with nice vocal hooks and eminent danceable/headbanging potential, and the latter is even interesting in its instrumentation – I like the weeping solo that goes along with Tyler’s doo-doo-doos. But it also features the seven-minute long ‘One Way Street’ to which I have very mixed feelings. It starts out as another pretty attractive, harmonica-driven rocker, with lots of self-assurance, steady beats, and “cool staying power”, whatever that means.

But it goes on and on and on, with a lengthy guitar solo that doesn’t do anything interesting, not to mention original, and the simplistic melody really gets tedious towards the third minute or so. If we should continue the silly Stones comparison and say this is the band’s take on ‘Goin’ Home’, it’s a very poorly thought-out take: where Jagger was able to hook the listener with his never ending, mighty inventive vocal improvisation, and Keith Richards would always throw in an unpredictable guitar line now, Aerosmith just plunder on through the same predictable power chords and the same shouts and screams. Although it’s somewhat interesting to examine the contents of Steve’s trachea at the end of each verse.

But then the second side is just plain dull. ‘Walking The Dog’ adds nothing to the Stones’ version… okay, so it sure sounds different, with a more metallic touch, but Tyler ruins the song with his screechy vocals, and I sure miss the cool whistling. And the other three rockers? Okay, so it’s good party music, for sure, but hardly anything more; after the more or less acceptable vocal hooks on the first side, these songs just don’t do anything for me.

‘Mama Kin’ is an inferior version of ‘Make It’; ‘Write Me A Letter’ plods along in stupid mid-tempo again, but doesn’t even have the harmonica punch of ‘One Way Street’; and ‘Movin’ Out’ shows that the boys better not mess around with generic blues… In short, there’s nothing to separate Aerosmith from zillions of long-haired young punks roaming neighbourhood bars in hopes of getting a record contract, and it’s little wonder that the record flopped; it actually took them some careful career-building to make the public aware of the hit potential of ‘Dream On’ which they ran up the charts in 1976, if I’m not mistaken.
The only saving grace here is that the lyrics are… not awful. At least, not as awful as you’d expect from a mid-Seventies heavy metal band. Sure ain’t no Kiss.

Just the standard ‘girl don’t mess around with me’ themes, rendered so as not to offend the good taste of those who prefer ‘parking lots’ to ‘vaginas’, or even a little bit of harmless social critique around the way, never too prominent and even with a couple wonderful lines lying around, if there’s anybody to pick ’em up, of course. But who the hell listens to mid-Seventies heavy metal bands for the lyrics, anyway? Certainly not Lou Reed fans.