— Mark Shaw, along with his dog cat Rover
Rock and roll, it has long been established, is a young person's game. (Though it clearly isn't anymore) When Elvis Presley slimmed down, dyed his hair and squeezed himself into a leather jumpsuit for his famed 1968 comeback he was thirty-four years old, an impossibly advanced age for someone to be singing "That's All Right" and "Heartburn Heartbreak Hotel". Yet, twenty years later, it was relatively young to be in one's mid-thirties. Among the most successful and/or critically acclaimed albums of 1989 were Bob Dylan's Oh Mercy, Paul McCartney's Flowers in the Dirt, Roy Orbison's Mystery Girl and The Rolling Stones' Steel Wheels. Singer-songwriter Bonnie Raitt at forty had her long overdue breakthrough with the aptly named Nick of Time. Tom Petty moved out of the shadows of his idols and reached a whole new level of popularity with the bestselling Full Moon Fever. Even David Bowie (working a band called Tin Machine) and Queen were still active, even if they hadn't done their most stellar work that year. In this sort of atmosphere, it isn't too surprising that Aerosmith would be bigger than ever while advancing into their forties.
Once a blatant Rolling Stones rip off (Steven Tyler and Joe Perry were the poor men's Mick Jagger and Keith Richards respectively), Aerosmith had been active since the early-seventies. They had early hits in the US with "Sweet Emotion" and the original "Walk This Way" but their fortunes declined as they entered the eighties and it was only when the latter was famously covered by hip hop group Run-DMC that they experienced a revival. Tyler and Perry guested on the rap-rock "Walk This Way" and it gave all concerned a Top 10 hit around the world. Aerosmith were back — indeed, they likely benefited more from the collaboration than Run-DMC ever would.
It's likely that this hugely important single was only a part of the story in their renaissance. While rock had always been intended for younger groups, there was a new found openness towards older acts, particularly in the realm of glam metal. Heart and Whitesnake were both made of up members who had seen their twenties come and go several years earlier and both groups had American number one hits in 1987. Not coincidentally, Aerosmith released their comeback album Permanent Vacation that very year. Both Tyler's screams and Perry's riffs were dialed up to maximum volume. First single "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" played up to metal machismo while subtly undermining it. Their hardcore classic rock fanbase took to it and so did the younger headbangers. Aerosmith were so metal that they even had a logo that could have doubled as a tattoo.
Nevertheless, interest in them in the UK had been minimal. Run-DMC's "Walk This Way" had been a smash but nothing else that Tyler and Perry had been behind managed to catch on. (While "Dude" almost reached the Top 40, follow-up "Angel", which had been their biggest chart hit in the States to date, was a total flop) There was no reason to expect any different from "Love in an Elevator" (or "Eleven and Elevator" as I initially thought it was) which makes its Top 20 performance all the more remarkable. While it may have fluked a hit, it's possible that it unknowingly rode the coattails of Alice Cooper's "Poison", a surprise Top 5 smash a month earlier. One hard rocking American hit could've help push another to a spot that it otherwise wouldn't have had a hope of attaining.
Mark Shaw of Then Jerico reviewed the singles in this issue. Being a rock star more in his own mind than in practice, it's probable that he saw his own aspirations in Aerosmith. A jobbing rock band that had hit it big while doing very much their own thing is something that once appealed to generations of young musicians. The fact that they never lost their humour is also something to be admired in them (even by me and I am by no means a fan). And as much as their music doesn't do much for me, they were always entertainers on a par with their idols The Rolling Stones. Real heavy metal was always about earnest things like the music and the women and wine but Aerosmith were first rate performers who took as much pleasure out of making fun of rock 'n' roll as they did out of trying to carve out their own legacy as rock gods. And perhaps that's how rock bands should go about aging gracefully: by aging with as little dignity and good sense as possible.
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Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Tears for Fears: "Sowing the Seeds of Love"
Roland Orzbal had been so impressed by XTC's attempt to ape the sound of "I Am the Walrus" that he tried it out himself with "Sowing the Seeds of Love". It wouldn't be long before the term Beatlesque would be code for 'boring, three-chord rock' so this slice of Pepperland magic makes for a welcome listen. Shaw loves the bulk of it but isn't overly fond of the song's midsection but the whole five-and-a-half-minutes is brilliant to these ears. A definite should've been Single of the Fortnight — and I imagine it would've been had it been up to your average Smash Hits scribe. A great song but it's sad in retrospect that they were just about done. Then again, The Beatles were never the same after Sgt Pepper so why should it be any different for their protegees of the eighties?
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