Aerosmith
Draw The Line 60
There is a fine line between good bands and great bands. The good ones have a few great lead tracks but the "other material" that is not played on FM radio leaves a great deal to be desired. The great bands put out quality on all tracks both commercial and not. Aerosmith falls into the good category especially on this disc. The highly played tracks Draw The Line, I Wanna Know Why, and Get It Up are great tunes filled with fantastic riffs and gritty vocals. Kings And Queens is an interesting change of pace and the bands cover version of Milk Cow Blues is reasonable. However, the rest doesn't add too much except for some noisy guitar and screechy vocals. OK if you see it on vinyl for a few bucks but otherwise I would pass.
Greatest Hits 77-
You get a nice summary of the early years with this compilation. What I do not like is the edited version of Sweet Emotion. The full length intro sets an interesting mood and the edit choice here is a poor one. Check out Toys In The Attic for the full version, which I hope to review at a later date. Its a bit odd for the record to close with two covers but otherwise this collection is more than adequate.
Big Ones 84-
This is an excellent summary of the more modern sounding Aerosmith. You still get many awesome guitar riffs but the arrangements are more defined. Where the band still rocks very hard there are some nice blues touches and a couple of good ballads as well. Definitely a buy especially for the casual fan.
Nine Lives 73-
This most recent collection almost puts the band out of that good category and into the great one. There are actually some "other" good songs besides the radio dominant songs. Taste Of India and Full Circle neatly combines hard rock with the eclectic sound of the dulcimer. In general many of the songs are well written with snappy lyrics and catchy hooks. However, what keeps this original recording from the crossing the threshold into greatness is well over an hour long. This would be a nice record at 40-45 minutes but that extra twenty minutes causes me to lose attention as diversity has run its course.
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