Dave Hickey compares the teen crossover of the year to a Buick Roadmaster, and he's right -- they've retooled Led Zeppelin till the English warhorse is all glitz and flow, beating the shit out of Boston and Ted Nugent and Blue Oyster Cult in the process. Wish there were a lyric sheet -- I'd like to know what that bit about J. Paul Getty's ear is about -- but (as Hickey says) the secret is the music, complex song structures and that don't sacrifice the basic 4/4 and I-IV-V. A warning, though: Zep's fourth represented a songwriting peak, before the band began to outgrow itself, and the same may prove true for this lesser group, so get it while you can. A- -- R. ChristgauWhether or not Rocks is hot depends on your vantage point. If your hard-rock tastes were honed in the Sixties, as this band's obviously were, Aerosmith is a polished echo of Yardbirds' guitar rock liberally spiced with the Stones' sexual swagger. If you're a teen of the Seventies, they are likely to be the flashiest hard-rock band you've ever seen. While the band has achieved phenomenal commercial success, their fourth album fails to prove that they can grow and innovate as their models did.
The most winning aspect of Rocks is that ace metal prducer Jack Douglas and the band (listed as coproducers for the first time) have returned to the ear-boxing sound that made their second album, Get Your Wings, their best. The guitar riffs and Steven Tyler's catlike voice fairly jump out of the speakers. This initially hides the fact that the best performances here -- "Lick and a Promise," "Sick as a Dog" and "Rats in the Cellar" -- are essentially remakes of the highlights of the relatively flat Toys in the Attic. The songs have all the band's trademarks and while they can be accused of neither profundity nor originality, Aerosmith's stylized hard-rock image and sound pack a high-energy punch most other heavy metal bands lack.
Steven Tyler is the band's obvious focal point, a distinction earned primarily by his adaptation of the sexual stance that missed the young Jack Flash. On the rockers, his delivery is polished and commanding and sufficiently enthusiastic to disguise the general innnocuousness of the lyrics. On the riff-dominated songs, though, such as "Last Child" or "Back in the Saddle," he is prone to shrieks that don't bear repetition. Unlike Jagger, his vocal performance cannot save otherwise mediocre material.
The material is Rocks' major flaw, mostly pale remakes of their earlier hits, notably "Dream On," a first-album ballad that helped make the complete Aerosmith catalog gold. Aerosmith may have their hard-rock wings, but they won't truly fly until their inventiveness catches up to their fast-maturing professionalism. – John Milward, RS
Another band RS had little love for during their mid-70s heyday, and then reappraised after they had sold millions of records. (Actually, it would probably be more accurate to say that Aerosmith were a group that RS reviled in the '70s almost as a consequence of their success, and later put on a pedestal for the very same reason.) Wayne Robbins provided this predictable critique in the 1983 guide: "Lead vocalist Steven Tyler, with his puffy, pouty lips and salacious eyes, had the manner of his lookalike, Mick Jagger, but none of his command of song or movement."
I would imagine Aerosmith seemed pretty laughable - almost like a cartoon version of the Stones - when they first appeared in 1973. But their timing couldn't have been better: Aerosmith's rise perfectly coincided with the Stones' decline. In recent years, the Stones actually seem to be imitating Aerosmith, and not the other way around: the descending chorus on A Bigger Bang's "Let Me Down Slow," for example, sounds almost identical to Rocks' "Lick and a Promise."
Rocks was #176 on RS's 500 greatest albums list; Toys in the Attics was #228. – schmidtt, Rolling Stone's 500 Worst Reviews of All Time
Flushed with the success of Toys In The Attic, Aerosmith wasted no time or momentum in returning to the studio to cut what for many is their magnum opus. Rocks, recorded partly at their Wherehouse rehearsal space and at the Record Plant in New York, was fueled by the excesses that would prove to be their near-undoing. But with the help of Jack Douglas, theband managed to focus their talents like never before, creating an aptly titled package of gems.
More cohesive than Toys..., Rocks also features a richer, tougher sound -- the downright dangerous guitar combination of Joe Perry and Brad Whitford is spurred on by the sleazy rhythm section of Tom Hamilton and Joy Kramer, making tracks like "Rats In The Cellar" and "Back In The Saddle" send sparks.
At the center of it all is Steven Tyler's determined, devilish howl -- a vocal style that earned him the moniker "The Demon of Screamin'." On "Get The Lead Out," Tyler requested the support of a singer from the Metropolitan Opera on the refrain (making one wonder what happened to the singer's career after a session that must have shredded a once-fine voice).
The lyrics deal with extremes, whether it is sex ("Back In The Saddle"), drugs ("Combination"), or fame ("A Lick And A Promise") -- there is either too much or too little, typically at the same time. The subject matter is fitting for a band whose predilections scared the most drug-addled musicians in the business, leading them to dub Tyler and Perry the Toxic Twins. -- Tim Sheridan, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
― Algerian Goalkeeper, Wednesday, 27 March 2013 17:15 (eleven years ago) link