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White trash kids from suburban Massachusetts, Aerosmith ripped open the '70s rock scene with loud, violent and lurid tunes built on a foundation of riffs lifted directly from the blues in the time-honored tradition of musical colonialists like Led Zeppelin and the Stones. Joe Perry's long-haired riffs perfectly complemented lead singer Steve Tyler's sleazoid Jaggerisms in songs that ran the gamut from Girl Group covers ("Walkin' in the Sand") to angry-robot Bowie funk ("Last Child"). There was a time when paperboys knew the kids to look out for were the ones riding BMX bikes, smoking cigarettes (and who knew what else), and listening to the abrasive, overtly sexual music of Aerosmith. A well-documented descent into drugs threatened to end their careers, but they returned clean, sober and completely digitized in the mid-1980s and achieved a semi-astonishing level of success. Although their new material relies more than ever on the power-ballad and over-produced blooze to get the point across, if you listen close you can still hear Joe Perry's snake-like, boogie monster guitar tearin' it up underneath all the special effects. |