Best of the "Forgotten" Aerosmith Albums -- a POLL to Determine the Will of the People

I vote Draw the Line, and will rep that NITR is unfairly hated on ("Chiquita", "Reefer Headed Woman", man come the fuck on!)

I like Draw and Night quite a bit. Probably take Draw, though.

xpost

"Critical Mass" is a whale of a tune...

I have to vote Done With Mirrors because I got busted shoplifting it at K-Mart when I was 13. I'd hate to have gone through that experience for nothing.

Johnny Fever is from the "wrong side of the tracks"

Done With Mirrors is terrific, and certainly better than PV.

all of these are better than Permanent Vacation - I'd rank them Draw the Line, Done With Mirrors, Night in the Ruts, Rock in a Hard Place. Draw the Line is a really interested wages-of-sin kinda record to me - what a mess, but a pretty compelling mess.

"Kings and Queens" is one of my fav Aerosmith tunes

^^^ remember my older sister listening to that a ton in 1978, great song

M@tt posted a review of one of these albums, can't remember which though...

I would post a youtube of "lightning strikes" to make the argument for rock in a hard place but yeah that alb kinda sucks

that album nocens iocus they recorded entirely in latin was pretty weird

I know when to "draw the line" hahaha

I got a free album promo for "Draw the line", a 7" single w/ "bright light fright" as b-side, at my first Reading Festival. Thought that was good. Oh yeah, and I did see them play as well. Wasn't massively taken by them, but I did like the single.

something about draw the line era aerosmith reminds me of the atmosphere on the highway when you're driving toward a state that sells fireworks from one that doesn't

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K6kuhOmNQM

Night In The Ruts has their Shangri La's cover, right? Remember (Walking In The Sand). I like that, makes me think of Aerosmith as the populist, less artsy NY Dolls.

Hmm, never thought of the NY dolls as arty...

Voted "other". Just for fun. And, well.... because this period was kinda... "lost"... you know...

oh you went for the 'nitwit' option ...

:)

the received wisdom on these records is such bullshit

draw the line because it just barely works and the tension between the working and not-working parts is similar to staring down a long awesome scary tunnel

in fact there is a constant battle between rocks, draw the line and get your wings for the position of "my favorite aerosmith album" and i am kind of glad that none of them will win, they'll just hit each other forever with themselves

Hey, did you guys know that if you switch the N and the R in Night In The Ruts, it's Right In The Nuts? (snicker)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Draw the Line is a big step above the rest. It is the last album before the original band split.

so why exactly is Night in the Ruts hated so? Even AMG gave it like 1.5 stars but I've always liked it.

draw the line. it'll almost certainly sweep this.

Done With Mirrors was pretty good, it's a real Aerosmith album unlike the overproduced tripe that followed.

God Pump sold a gazillion copies and it is just a turd.

I still don't get how Aerosmith lost that lawsuit for "The Other Side" for allegedly ripping off Standing on the Shadows of Love. Like the melodies are similar but the other song is in a minor key for fuck's sake.

God Pump sold a gazillion copies and it is just a turd.

truth fucking bomb

Tyler sure likes to refer to the devil a lot on that album....

PV is the turd, not Pump.

they are a pair of turds in a post-Night in the Ruts bowl

I guess a neanderthal thread would be incomplete without poo analogies

Lol wtf they weren't my comments!

Everything after Night has been horrible. They never should have given up drugs.

Agree about the drugs, but Done With Mirrors is not horrible (and, right, Pump -- the only time they scored in Pazz & Jop iirc -- is pretty lame but Permanent Vacation was a lot worse.)

Some notes I wrote about Mirrors last year (a few months later, I contributed a whole long chapter on the album to an Aerosmith coffee-table book; did a chapter on Rocks too):

Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2010

And a few days earlier, some notes about Rock In Hard Place:

Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2010

Of those two, I definitely liked Mirrors more. Don't actually own copies of Ruts or Draw The Line now, for some dumb reason, but the latter gets my vote here regardless.

I don't know about Permanent Vacation being worse than Pump. St. John, Hangman Jury and even with the cheezy production Rag Doll kind of sound like old Aerosmith tunes. Bad thing was they made a ton of money on Angel they went from using guys that worked with Bryan Adams to sounding like Bryan Adams.

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

love druggy aerosmith, but it's hard to fault any album with "angel" on it

honkin on bobo

just wanted to type those three words

wow everything got a vote

underrated aerosmith albums ilx has rescued from a ruined-by-drugs narrative

results are exactly right - draw the line the clear victor, done with mirrors worthy of some did-you-consider votes, others just not in the same league

I listened to DWM last night. "Shela" is a corker!

Sure wish 'Night in The Ruts' got more love - it's up there with 'Rocks' and 'Toys...' I think ...

dunno that I love it THAT much but the chorus/main riff to Chiquita make me boogie...

listening to Rock in a Hard Place for the first time. "Jailbait" a helluvan opener even if it sounds very diff for them considering the personnel change.

"Lightning Strikes" p solid too, heavier than a bit of their previous albums. guitars have bite.

I'm sure I'm going to hit a salvo of suck soon but a good start.

I kinda like "Bitches Brew", but lord is this a strange album. this is almost proto-hair metal a bit

aw man that "Bolivian Ragamuffin" riff!!!! this rules!

I even like "Cry Me a River", those jazz chords! think Steven didn't really fit the track (Robert Plant or David Coverdale coulda torn it up) but love the chord progressions.

ok what the FUCK is "Joanie's Butterfly"?. def not on board with this shit.

This is a good thread. Interested in hearing draw the line + right in the nuts. To the dollar bin!

DTL easily. tho Ruts tugs me heart strings for "Chiquita".

draw the line is almost as good as rocks

yeah draw the line and night in the ruts are both good albums.

Have you heard the "right in the nuts" alternate mix album? I don't think it exists but it should

I still stand by Done With Mirrors, but I just listened to Night in the Ruts for the very first time a month or two ago and was surprised to find out it's really good. I'd always heard it was terrible, but I think I like it more than Draw the Line and DEFINITELY more than Rock and a Hard Place.

No Surpize is basically draw the line pt. 2

"three mile smile" is sinewy like a Presence outtake

y'know night in the ruts is pretty awesome

feel like it was unfair to have Draw the Line on here, that album still contributed tracks to the original greatest hits

think that's a bit of a stretch as well.

Even Night in the Ruts contributed the Shangri-Las cover to the Greatest Hits.

Listening to all a bunch of their prime '70s stuff recently I was also surprised by how good Night in the Ruts is. I'm sure I prefer it to Draw the Line overall. Apparently Tyler & Perry feel the same (it's Tyler's favorite album!) . I don't know if this is common knowledge but Perry played on only about half of it.

it's def a major part of the wikipedia page

Yeah Perry talks about the whole thing in his memoir, i.e. laying down some guitar tracks then quitting the band but it's a little unclear how much of his playing was used - wikipedia spells that out more

draw the line and kings and queens at least are p much considered aerosmith classics, a bit different than a cover song

https://scontent-dft4-3.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/23559684_2382061875352831_8466646374076427_n.jpg?oh=33deb4c3839fdf1f3248f7e7a0f9558f&oe=5AA85A16

every few years i get the urge to listen to night in the ruts and i am always surprised by how good it turns out to be.

The first Joe Perry Project album 'Let the Music do the Talking' is really good too.

'Dat album cover tho

https://i.discogs.com/TYvT-cDVkc4RxUQW3ACircNXpG9fc6fnIpNnFerBKsY/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:588/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTEzOTA1/ODM1LTE1NjM3NjA3/ODctMTgxMi5qcGVn.jpeg

"Little lower Joe, put the tape real over your junk. You know...phallic man...dig it."

Lol
Joe like darth Vader speaking with the imperial senate

i love these Aerosmith albums. not the best, not flawless, but basically what you get when nobody has any expectations any more and you can just make music. and some of it is very good!

Draw the Line the best of them all though

Joe like darth Vader speaking with the imperial senate

MOTTI: Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes -
VADER: That's where you're wrong, my dude. Check it out.

I more or less do without all of these, but the title track to "Draw the Line" is one of my favorites (the original mix, which for some reason is mono - the later stereo remixes are a bit anemic), and the Al Hirschfeld cover is pretty cool.

Also "My Fist Your Face" is a respectable single, a rare bright spot from the lowest stretch of their career.

Draw the Line’s runaway win is proof that it doesn’t belong in this contest

You could call it a breath of fresh air considering where they were going, but some of Done With Mirrors may even be underproduced (and underwritten, which isn't as good). "Shame On You" sounds like they're live in the studio without overdubs, and fades out like they never bothered to come up with an ending. With no real standouts, it seems like a perfectly satisfying record of "deep tracks" for the Aerosmith fan.

Everything after Night has been horrible. They never should have given up drugs.

I stand by what I said 10 years ago.

I've heard conflicting reports about whether they were drug-free by 1985?

"conflicting reports" = "dumb internet gossip"

https://i.imgur.com/dSNkYmf.jpg

Useful mirror

Their drug albums are so superior to their sober albums it’s not even worth discussing.

“Indian summer… Carrie was all over the floor”

Nothing is more louche than that, gtfo with your elevator bullshit

Haha, I always heard that as "candy was all over the floor". Tbf I was 10 or 11 when I first heard it.

https://i.imgur.com/nIslJq7.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/Ngi1rUd.jpg

THEY PRINTED THIS SHIT BACKWARDS

god night in the ruts is so fucking awesome

cheeseCAAAKE

Their drug albums are so superior to their sober albums it’s not even worth discussing.

I don't usually speculate about the inner lives of public figures but I do always wonder about how Tyler feels about the split. because they got SO much more successful after Vacation. like, "don't have to worry about some late-in-life-move," casino-gig-for-life successful. whereas when they were high, the chances were good they were just going to spin out & vanish. but nobody, in the world, can seriously claim that their sober music is a patch on what they did when they were the Toxic Twins. I was in an Alabama recording studio where there was a really elaborate lead-pencil graffiti on the console, really super sweet, and I said, what's this, and they said, oh Steven Tyler did that when he was tracking here about three years ago, and I thought, this dude has a strong creative streak and it hasn't been evident in his music since he saved his own life & settled his finances & those of his offspring forever. and yet. he has to know.

I would have liked to have heard them with a more swinging drummer back in the day. Joey’s fine but. His fills sound like constuction site noise

ok what the FUCK is "Joanie's Butterfly"?. def not on board with this shit.

― Neanderthal, Wednesday, August 17, 2016 6:02 PM (six years ago) bookmarkflaglink

going through the aerosmith catalog for the first time and came up on this song last night. i was shocked they had anything this trippy. but unlike you, i love it.

lol i forgot I posted that and dont' even remember what it sounds like.

listening again now i think i was a bit harsh.

dont think they have anything else that sounds like it

I bought the 2011 Aerosmith coffee table book that chuck mentioned above somewhere (and contributed to), precisely because I don't know much about their albums. Which sets it apart from when I come across those Uncut Ultimate Music Guides for artists in Tesco or Smiths and decide 'why not'. I'm drawn mostly to Rock in a Hard Place and Done with Mirrors atm (I do like it when two infamous successive projects have substantially different makeup, like the Final Cut/Momentary Lapse or indeed Red Dwarf VII/VIII of hard rock or something). Mostly rn I just want to say "Shela" rules.

Listening to Rock in a Hard Place now and it kinda reminds me of some of the less inspired albums from the end of Ted Nugent's initial run, like Weekend Warriors and State of Shock, the ones where it was clear they just pumped out 10 songs to keep the machine on the road.

I can hear some draw the line DNA in Shela