Thursday, February 25, 2010
Moving Pictures / National Skyline Consider Me Inconsolable: Aerosmith Replace Steven Tyler ... With Steven Tyler
Posted by Adam Gold on Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 3:23 PM
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. I should've known better than to have ever gotten my hopes up, thinking some twist of fate could stop those convalescent cockroaches of rock Aerosmith. If you're a regular Cream reader then you know I'd rather swan-dive into an active volcano than hear a new Aerosmith record or attend one of the artistic sacrifice rituals they call an Aerosmith concert. A few months back I expressed my disdain for the band and speculated about who they would cast to replace singer Steven Tyler in the wake of his sudden departure. Turns out Joe Perry and his sad posse of Social Security check-collectors have settled on Tyler's replacement: Steven fucking Tyler.
Yesterday the band posted the video above on their official YouTube channel. For me, watching it is not too different from the feeling of watching a video of Osama Bin Laden issuing his latest fatwa. According to their press, Aerosmith are back and ready to "embark on the ultimate music event of the new decade" -- the Cocked, Locked and Ready to Rock tour -- which will traverse the U.K. and Europe like a Nazi bombing campaign in World War II.
So, we couldn't even go one year without an active Aerosmith. Feel free to make futile attempts at convincing me there's a God in the comments section.
Comments (32)
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That would've at least been funny though. Now it's just back to business as usual.
Tom Hamilton ... that's the name of the bass player, right? The guy on the left? God, he looks like the Ghost of Awful Rock 'n' Roll Past. Look at his face just before Tyler snaps. It's almost like they're taunting you directly, Gold.
Dudes, where's Brad Whitford? Is he hidden in Tyler's hat, or is he cranking up Whitford-St. Holmes again? What a fucking mystery.
This is sad news. Though I do have fond memories of head banging with friends to "Livin On The Edge" in the 2nd grade. And I'll be damned if "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" wasn't the soundtrack to junior high slow dances that ended with the harsh reality and embarrassment of the post-dance erection. Almost as if Steven Tyler was trying to teach me at an early age how cruel the world is.
But guess what? I used to like Steven Segal movies back then, too. They don't hold up either.
I also had a friend who claimed Aerosmith's Greatest Hits as her favorite album ever. We grew apart.
I look at it this way: so long as Aerosmith keeps touring, each city gets at least one night a year when all the Aerosmith fans are rounded up and removed from the general population.
The only Aerosmith song I've ever liked was "Toys In The Attic" and that falls squarely upon the shoulders of R.E.M.
The unbearable part is that they wouldn't keep going if they weren't still financially viable. So, many thanks to fucking idiots everywhere.
I hate Aerosmith so much. Sweet Emotion was great in Dazed and Confused but other than that one moment they seriously blow. I'm was at Sturgis a few days before Steve fell off the stage there so I had a great visual when I heard what had happened. :)
Usually I would defend them, but this whole episode has been sad and pathetic. Give it up guys, do it for your fans
Gold, really, in the end, what is your problem with Aerosmith? You don't ever spell it out. I know you love all things British from the 70's, since that's what you critic-types are supposed to like. I don't own a single Aerosmith record and have never seen them live, so I don't really qualify as a diehard fan, but they do contain some of the same elements that the bands that YOU like have: solid, groovin' no-frills drumming, catch-y songs, identifiable guitar sounds and licks. Do not U2 and Springsteen and the Clash and Elvis Costello and Tom Petty all share in these qualities, as well?
Is it the the cool music-journo thing to bash Aerosmith? Seeing as how i'm probably a decade older than you guys, i'm not up on what's generally accepted as cool anymore. i know you always claim to be individuals in your thinking at the Cream, but there seems to be a unified front against these guys. Please explain...
Oh come on. If you don't like 'em, don't listen to 'em, but you gotta recognize how uniquely great Sweet Emotion was.
Seems like trashing stuff just to hear your own voice is the only internet amusement that's keeping anyone's interest these days.
@john h.
http://blogs.nashvillescene.com/nashvillecream/2009/08/falling_off_stage_oh_the_humil.php
This post above explains my disdain for Aerosmith. And no, U2, Springsteen, The Clash, Elvis Costello and Tom Petty do not share anything in common with Aerosmith artistically. That shouldn't even need to be explained. The artists you mentioned were innovators and great songwriters who had something idiosyncratic to bring to the table. Aerosmith are, and have pretty much always been a bunch of posers.
Sure they had a few decent songs and records in the '70s, but the band has a near 40-year history, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
They try and pass themselves off as a legendary rock band, but have used professional pop songwriters to pen hits for them instead of doing something they would find artistically stimulating, like make a blues record. And when they went and did that, it was even more embarrassing then having a song called "Falling Love is Hard on the Knees."
Their whole career is a matrix of manufactured credibility, think of them as the Enron of rock bands. Basically, a group of managers and other people smarter than a bunch of dopey rockstars, intercepted the band when they were a group of culturally out-of-step junkies, cleaned them up and re-branded them America's Rolling Stones. This happened parallel to the rise of hair-metal. Hair-metal was the perfect landscape in which to make a band like Aerosmith look like legends, when in fact, even in their heyday, they were never more than Stone Temple Pilots of the '70s.
In addition to all that, they're annoying as fuck and mind-numbingly stupid. Take for example this lyric: If you can judge a wise man / By the color of his skin
Then / mister you're a better man that I. So let me get this straight, they're basically saying that the mentality of a racist bigot displays a cogitative capacity that supercedes their own. It's already been established that man in question is wise. So, how exactly is the act of judging him by the color of his skin a display of virtue? I'm gonna stop thinking about that before my head explodes.
That brings up another thing though, in '90s they thought they thought they were social commentators. It wasn't because they actually had something to say, it was because they knew that, in the '90s, you were supposed to look like you cared about something. All they cared about was maintaining the illusion that they were a real rock band and tightening their stranglehold on MTV.
I'd probably rather watch my own parents fuck then have to sit through two-hours of Steven Tyler scat-singing and clowning around onstage like the jack-ass he is. It's just embarrassing. Beyond the intellectual arguments, and evidence of how and why I think they're agents of Satan posing as a rock 'n' roll band, I just can't get how someone could listen to a song like "Angel" or "Cryin'" and not feel like a complete tool. It creates a painful dissonance in my head to believe that bikers who could kick my ass actually think those songs rock. But then again, there are people out there who get off on eating shit, so....
Also, as a band they're totally mediocre. Joey Kramer is the drumming equivalent of a Ben Stein lecture and Joe Perry is the most overrated lead guitar player in rock. Just listen to the tuneless and timeless -- not that kind of timeless -- meandering solo on "Dream on" if you need an example.
Hastily written, this isn't exactly my best riff, but I hope I've at least made myself clear.
Also, will people shut the fuck up about "Sweet Emotion" already? If golden-era Aerosmith is really so great, then why can't people name examples beyond the same three songs: "Dream On," "Sweet Emotion" and "Walk This Way"? Seriously, these songs are not good enough to redeem anything they've done in the last 25 years.
I really like "Draw the Line", "Mama Kin", "Sick as a Dog", and "Toys." They had a good 5 year run there about 30 years ago.
As bad as you think they are, their music tends to stick in one's head long after the song is over. Which, to me, is the hallmark of a good pop song, regardless of how good it actually is. I can sing back the solo to "Dream On," yeah, from having heard it a few hundred times, but it still has a logic to it that works.
Lest you forget, Tom Petty was a Byrd's rip-off, The Clash was a Ramones rip-off, and Elvis Costello has had career-long identity crisis. Talk about someone cashing in on couple of DECENT songs. His stuff with Emmylou Harris is pretty hard to stomach. Met him once, though, and he was a nice guy.
Kind of a baseless claim to call any of these people groundbreaking. I generally turn the station on any of these folks, except for the Clash, who i think in many ways are over-rated and in other ways (dig that rhythm section) under-rated.
You really come off as an insufferable a$$, when you act like the be all/end all of music criticism.
Not acting like a be all/end all, just espousing my opinions...it's my job hoss.
Anyhow, if you think The Clash are a Ramones rip-off then you're really in the ether. That's like saying John Lennon was just an Elvis rip-off. The Clash built on what The Ramones did. Please, point me to the Ramones song that sounds like "Rock the Casbah."
Artists like The Clash, Costello and Petty wear their influences on their sleeve, true, but they also re-cast those influences in their own image. There's a difference between that and just pandering to whatever the current trend in schlocky stadium rock is.
Seriously though, if you don't think The Clash broke any ground, then you need to go back to rock school. Did you know you can download a lot of music for free now? Time to catch up.
Can always count on "Bawston Sean" to pipe up in the most a$$hole of ways. Is that his function on this blog...to be the unquestioning cheerleader for whatever the blogger spews?
Of course, those bands grew beyond their influences, just as Aerosmith did (whom, I might remind you, I don't care much for).
To snarkily compare Sandinista to Rocket to Russia doesn't deny the fact that "White Riot" does compare to some Ramones songs. Hell, every British punk rock band has cited the Sex Pistols and the Ramones as the reason they started playing in the first place, but that's old news.
And to Gold: this statement "There's a difference between that and just pandering to whatever the current trend in schlocky stadium rock is." Are you sure that's true?
Haven't U2 pretty much been doing that since they became big? How did Aerosmith pander to whatever the current trend in schlocky stadium rock is? The may have started some of the the trends, but they haven't pandered.
That's just talking out of your a$$, man.
I think you guys must just hope that your readership 1) is hung-over, 2)lacks critical faculties, or 3) is just plain stupid. Anyway...
@gold Come on, man. U2 has been putting out poppy schlock for the past 20 years almost. They really are Ireland's Aerosmith.
Really? For the past 20 years? Two words: Achtung Baby. Cut your numbers in half. While I agree the this decades records are pretty bad, and dare I say Shlocky, at least a record like 1997's "Pop" is pretty weird and interesting. When U2 are by the numbers, they're by the numbers U2. When Aerosmith are by the number, they're by the numbers "generic rock band du jour." U2 had a much longer winning streak than Aerosmith, they were far more original and idiosyncratic and far more influencial to boot.
Also, @John. FAIL! U2 didn't pander to stadium rock trends, they set them. Zoo TV redefined the genre, and that happened 15 years into their career.
And "Zooropa" came out in 1993 followed by "Pop" in 1997. Whether you like those records or not, it's hard to deny that they're experimental and challenging. They're aren't schlocky stadium rock. In the last decade U2 have resorted to resting on their laurels, but throughout the '90s -- even when they failed -- they were trying to challenge themselves and their audience, which is why their music evolved for 20 years. Aerosmith never did that, they're the most creatively chicken-shit band ever.
so much blah, blah, blah. Why don't you guys either find the next great thing, or become it. You really seem to have far too much time on your hands. What's the readership for this argument?
I love this conversation. Great stuff. Aerosmith defenders - you're fighting an uphill battle here. It's hard to say they're not unoriginal, same sounding, corporate blandness. Alicia Silverstone did more for their notoriety than they've achieved artistically themselves in the last 20 years. I like Dream On at Sweet Emotion, but everything they've done since their "revival" sounds like a slightly different take on the schlock ballad "Angel". Seeing them publicly air out the lame drama between Joe & Steven has made them look like a bunch of old ladies fighting over the last laxative. And sorry Joe Perry - but republican rock stars are among the least trustworthy humans on earth. That distinction puts means he's on Ted Nugent, Kid Rock, or - I know he's country, but, John Rich-level douche material.
It cracks me up that there are people out there dumb enough to argue with Gold about musical taste. Any grown man that has that big of a hard on for dudes called "Bono", "The Boss", and "The Edge" have completely given up their right to argue about who is good and who is not. Hahahahjasdfkjhajhahahjksdhajkha
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