Aerosmith's Greatest Hits (1980)

This was probably one of the first albums I owned as well, but I'm looking at the tracklist, and due to either saturation (Sweet Emotion, Walk This Way) or the fact that I wouldn't listen to any of the rest on purpose, I'm at a loss. I may vote "Same Old Song & Dance" because I have a soft spot for the album it comes from (Get Your Wings), but really, this is the lamest "classic" rock band of the 70s, even with the (very superior) Alice Cooper band "ghost-playing" a lot of these tunes because Perry couldn't cut it

wait do you have a source for that claim? never heard it before, and can't name one ACB record with playing anywhere near as tight as Get Yr Wings through Rocks

Yeah, was wondering about that too.

Ezrin and Hunter play a little on Get Your Wings, I guess?

'Sweet Emotion'

Wimmels trolling

I've never heard of any member of Alice Cooper guesting on an Aerosmith record.

I'll look for sources. iirc it was Jack Wagner who brought in Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner to play Perry's parts (maybe Whitford's too?). I know "Train Kept A Rollin'" was definitely one of them, it was in Wagner's obituary

I think the lore is he played the solo on "Train," which is a little ways from "ghost playing"

Here's one. There are others. Anyway, this was a common practice. iirc it was Wagner doing a lot of Kiss' heavy lifting, too

http://www.guitarplayer.com/artists/1013/the-mystery-of-aerosmiths-train-kept-a-rollin-solos/51031

http://www.seaoftranquility.org/article.php?sid=1605

SoT: One session talked about often is your work on Aerosmith's Get Your Wings.

DW: "Train Kept a Rollin" and there's a couple of others on there as well. On "Train" it was me and Steve (Hunter).

SoT: Do you think you were called into that session because at the time you had more experience as a player than both Joe Perry and Brad Whitford?

DW: I think that's exactly it. Joe hadn't yet developed into the player he is today. He's up in the big leagues now but back in those days the stuff was more simplistic. Obviously for some reason he wasn't there to do it and I never really questioned it. At the time I was living at The Plaza Hotel in NYC just waiting for the phone to ring. It was either Ezrin or Jack Douglas who would call me up and ask me to come over. For that session Jack called me up at like ten o'clock in the evening and I went in and did it and that was it.

Not shitting on Joe Perry btw. Perry's totally serviceable for the material, but, cmon, in a world in which Billy Gibbons and Angus Young (to name just two of his peers) exist Perry is so clearly a glorified Richie Sambora

any of 2-7 could be a contender for me

Me too. I think I'm gonna vote "Back in the Saddle" just so it's not a total "Sweet"/"Walk" sweep.

Is this like when Bernard Purdie played all of Ringo's drum parts

Xp

No

Dick Wagner was never an official member of Alice Cooper (the band), but he was a favoured session guitarist of Ezrin's and Jack Richardson's, who ended up playing on some Alice Cooper (the band) stuff when Glen Buxton was too much of a mess to pull his weight in the studio. He was on quite a few Ezrin or Richardson productions. Wagner would have a much larger role on Cooper stuff when Alice went solo - Welcome To My Nightmare and DaDa particularly.

Not shitting on Joe Perry btw. Perry's totally serviceable for the material, but, cmon, in a world in which Billy Gibbons and Angus Young (to name just two of his peers) exist Perry is so clearly a glorified Richie Sambora

this is fair honestly although I consider the songwriting on the first five Aerosmith records at least on par with (say) the songwriting on the first 5 ZZ/ACDC records, and Tyler as a vocalist in those days the equal of any of his rock peers

I'm in the fuckin tank for early Aerosmith it must be said

Gems is the real Aerosmith greatest hits record

See, I sorta agree with that. "Lord Of The Thighs," "Mama Kin," and (my favorite) "Chip Away The Stone," great tunes. Add "Spaced" and that's all I need

Not to mention "lick and a promise", which is the best Aerosmith song ever

"kings and queens" is amazing but yeah i was overstating my case, still deciding between it and the rocks tracks

I always used to wonder what the fuck the fuss was all about regarding Aerosmith. I always had them pegged as a weak version of Bon Jovi, all crap Desmond Child ballads and stadium soft rock.

That is, until I heard the '70s stuff and was blown away by albums like Toys In The Attic and Rocks. The sad thing is, Aerosmith didn't really start making much of a splash here in the UK until their best days were long behind 'em.

On Rocks and Toys, you can almost taste the coke on your gums

Back in the Saddle, with Last Child running a close second. As you can tell, Rocks is easily my favourite Aerosmith album.

That is, until I heard the '70s stuff and was blown away by albums like Toys In The Attic and Rocks. The sad thing is, Aerosmith didn't really start making much of a splash here in the UK until their best days were long behind 'em.

― Working night & day, I tried to stay awake... (Turrican), Sunday, December 11, 2016 3:00 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, if they'd broken up after Rocks I'd hold them in much higher esteem, and I imagine many others would, too. IMO they still don't even make the top 50 all time best hard rock bands but some of those early tunes (most of which have already been mentioned here) are undeniably awesome

" a weak version of Bon Jovi"
Dude this is the illest dig ever

Sweet Emotion is the easy choice and today I'm feeling easy like a sunday morning.

I think they're great through Draw the Line, which is a mess, but had it & Live Bootleg been the end, there'd be more Draw the Line partisans than there are. (As it is, I seem to remember Dave Q repping for it; it's basically a proto-Royal Trux.) It is ugly to say "it was over once the drugs wore off" but in the case of Aerosmith it's really kinda true. "Rag Doll," vocally, still has echoes of the Tyler who once battled valiantly through the dope haze to make his takes happen, but once he's self-aware, he's a completely different performer. I struggle with this opinion...but as an ex-doper it feels true to me?? idk authenticity fallacy etc but those albums through DTL have something NOTHING after them has.

when I say "great" I mean "all-time" btw which is why I've devoted so much thought to this q. If they'd quit after Rocks there'd be whole symposia about how great they were.

As it is, aren't a few of these some of the most-played songs on US rock radio?

Yeah, if they'd broken up after Rocks I'd hold them in much higher esteem

― Wimmels, Sunday, December 11, 2016 3:08 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

xp

xp yes, but that's different. nobody does EMP pieces about them, they have pretty much zero critical cachet afaik??? but had they quit early, they'd be Big Star/Alice Cooper Band territory imo

xxp yes Wimmels I was cosigning you there! though I think "Live Bootleg" is also canon, they were still crucial then

I even enjoy Permanent Vacation/Pump-era stuff tbh.

I can't say I've ever heard Live Bootleg!

I think, from Done With Mirrors onwards, there is (to varying degrees) a sense that they're preoccupied with making the right career moves, that they're frightened to fuck it all up again. There's a sense of being more calculated. Why else would they suddenly work with Desmond Child, Jim Valance, Glen Ballard etc. when, as shown by their early albums, they didn't really need to? The productions became typically shiny and slick on their records, too.

I'd say Done With Mirrors is the last record they made in their crumbling mode: no song doctors. It's a back to basics move that failed commercially but is still the best thing they recorded in ten years.

Three mile smile tho

Done With Mirrors iirc is the first clean album - the title being a double entredre ("done sniffing coke off of mirrors," sorry to Joansplain). But yeah Turrican otm, there's a feeling pre DWM that they're just running on instinct -- there aren't many bands like them, those that are like them are still different in pretty significant ways, the whole field of album-radio-rock is pretty young, they're in their own orbit. After disco (??? guessing here), they're kind of in-this-boxable: even if they're not generic, they now belong to a class ("70s radio rock bands"). Within this niche they carve out a space, but prior to this categorization, they were kind of wild & hard-to-pin-down

I dunno. I wasn't around during that time but how did critics treat Aerosmith pre-DWM? I honestly have no idea, but I'd assume they'd be written off as a second rate Stones or something (and one of many)

the band don't give a fuck

Christgau liked'em: http://robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=aerosmith

lol

A warning, though: Zep's fourth represented a songmaking peak, before the band began to outgrow itself, and the same may prove true for this lesser group, so get it while you can.

Brad Whitford also wrote the music couple of their heavy tunes like Round and Round and Nobody's Fault along with he minor progressions for Kings and Queens and Seasons of Wither along with playing a good portion of the lead guitar.

Aerosmith is one big band that really about every member had a key part in writing one of their big songs.

I think the big thing on their comeback records is that they were largely stitched together in that big artifical huge production style like Mutt Lange used with Def Leppard. You set up some Fairlight/drum machine and build it up from the bottom and overdub everything and place samples etc. Those records are way closer in how they were made to a Seal record than 70s Aerosmith. Obviously that formula worked, but to me it took all the life out of their music.

Say what you want about the production and major releases; the cognoscenti know their best work can be found in their demos and on stage: Best title for an actual Aerosmith bootleg

I love that story about how, when 'Sick as a Dog' was recorded, Joe Perry initially played bass, but torwards the end of the song, Perry took off a bass to strap on a guitar and Tyler picked up the bass and they continued to the end... and that's the take!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Despite the overplay, I had to go with "Walk This Way" in the end. Just so perfectly crafted.

"dream on" gives me that same 'gimme shelter'/'all along the watchtower' vibe of darkness creeping on the horizon, hippie dreams dying, etc

voted "Kings and Queens" even if it does cut out a small portion of the album version. always been one of my favorite Aerosmith songs.

in the end I voted "Last Child" for the coda. peak Tyler on the delivery.

oh man absolutely, the coda IS that song, afaic

Love the way he rasps "last!!" or "lights!" or whatever it is in the beginning too

Take me back to a south Tallahassee
Down cross the bridge to my sweet sassafrassy
Can't stand up on my feet in the city
Got to get back to the real nitty-gritty

Yes sir, no sir
Don't come close to my
Home sweet home
Can't catch no dose
Of my hot tail poon-tang sweatheart
Sweathog ready to make a silk purse
From a J Paul Getty and his ear
With a face in a beer
Home sweet home

Get out in the field,
Put the mule in the stable
Ma, she's a cookin'
Put the eats on the table
Hate's in the city and my love's in the meadow
Hand's on the plow and my feet's in the ghetto

Stand up, sit down
Don't do nothin'
Ain't no good when bossman's stuffin' it
Down their throats with paper notes
And their babies cry while Cindys lie at my feet
When you're rockin' the street
Home sweet home

There's another sassafrass reference in Love in an Elevator

the zeal with which he bites of "eats" is so deep

"Last Child" and "Back in the Saddle" were close.

Rocks is such a great album - those vocal harmonies on that "Home Sweet Home" - they're sort of snaking around in their influences but confident enough to wield them like colors in a palette

"Last Child" is the ever-loving shit. Even without Perry's top shelf performance, the song is just an amazing construction. That is tour de force!

yoooo

HOW TO CHOOSE

this year i saw pearl jam cover "draw the line" w special guest tom hamilton

also i live half a block from the Aerosmith Apartment

last child is so good

DREAM ON.

Best mangled request I ever got at the classic rock station was for "Dream On" by Gary Weaver.

hahahaha

what did you end up playing?

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack
Critics use cliches like larnyx shredding a lot but honestly every time I hear that song I'm sorry of amazed Tyler ever sang again

I'm not 100% the fan that others itt are, but I'm still pretty much with Joan's assertion that the band would have had Big Star- or New York Dolls-levels of crit regard had they called it quits after they got clean

Agree. I guess they thought paying off their mortgages was a little more important.

I bet a young Aerosmith woulda ate the Dolls lunch if they opened up for them

Big Star just seems like....a whole different thing and not really comparable to the other two

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

The correct answer is "Back in the Saddle," come on now

Especially if you're going by the versions/edits actually featured on "Greatest Hits" - "Sweet Emotion" loses its entire coda.

“Sweet” is great but it’s diminishing returns as the song goes on and the coda is garbage.

This is a rare case where a ten-song Greatest Hits could actually be a really great overview despite the brevity, but personally I never liked "Kings and Queen," and "Remember (Walking in the Sand)" was a poor choice of a single for Night in the Ruts. I would've preferred the studio version of the non-LP "Chip Away the Stone" and "No Surprize" over those two.

Sounds like you want Gems
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gems_(Aerosmith_album)

I know that compilation! Honestly, it's a waste - anyone who likes the band should have Rocks and Toys in the Attic, and that's most of Gems right there. It also sounds like they remixed "Chip Away the Stone" and unfortunately since the compilation came out in 1988, they remixed it to sound like 1988. Pandora's Box has a better vintage-sounding mix, though that box set in general feels like overkill.

not liking Kings and Queens, madness!

the main reason "Remember (Walking in the Sand)" was chosen is because all of the songs on the album were singles, and all but "Same Old Song and Dance" charted (but that snuck in as it was their first single from Get Your Wings. nothing else was a single from Night in the Ruts except for "Remember", and they probably didn't want to release live songs, and only the live "Chip Away the Stone" charted.

of course this was before bands largely interpreted Greatest Hits to mean "our best songs chosen by what we play the most live and other criteria that have nothing to do with charts"

I can think of a lot of adjectives to describe Gems but wasteful would be near the bottom

worst Aerosmith Greatest hits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tough_Love:_Best_of_the_Ballads

not only plays fast and loose with the definition of ballad, and also, despite there being several quality ballads from the 70s, only "Dream On" makes the cut from that era.

xps I think the question was why "Remember (Walking in the Sand)" was originally chosen as the single to be released in conjunction with Night in the Ruts instead of a different track from that LP (or time period).

I'd imagine it was due to the label being pissed off at the lackluster sales for Draw the Line, demanding another hit, and then hearing the album and going "fuck, I don't HEAR a hit - other than the cover of a 60s hit that might be a sure bet for its nostalgia".

kinda pissed about how NITR gets shit on, it's top quality! I would disagree with there being no obvious hits, but the NITR-hate comes from pretty far and wide, and I often wonder how much the negative press leading up to its release plus Joe Perry leading had to do with that.

"Chiquita" is one of my favorites.

Also, I'd forgotten that post-Draw the Line they had a big hit with their "Come Together" cover, so the '60s had already worked once

xxxp They should've included Adam Sandler's 'Cryin' Crazy Amazing Crazy' as a joke.