The Cavern
Rock & Words
AEROSMITH (Album, 1973)
Artist: Aerosmith (D+)
Recording Date: October 1972
Release Date: January 5, 1973, USA
Record Label: Columbia
Producer: Adrian Barber
Rating: 8
Era: Hard Rock (1968-???)
Subgenre: Hard Rock
Best Song: Dream On y Mama Kin
Tracklist: 1) Make It; 2) Somebody; 3) Dream On; 4) One Way Street; 5) Mama Kin; 6) Write Me A Letter; 7) Movin' Out; 8) Walkin' The Dog.
Who would have thought that these scruffy kids on a cheap album cover would become one of the heavyweights of hard rock? Long hair, unbuttoned shirts, and that tough-guy attitude on their faces, trying to impress anyone who would listen. I suppose not many were drawn to it because of that picture, especially with the blue sky and little clouds surrounding them, but more than a few must have been pleasantly surprised when they first put the record on. It's a very simple album, with a sound that borders on raw, very basic production, and that youthful, fresh glow that makes some debuts so great. You can almost hear the beer bottles clinking in the background, and you know they're having fun. It's definitely not their masterpiece, but even though the band still needs to refine some elements of their sound, there are some pros that we'll never hear again, like Steven Tyler not yet becoming an over-the-top vocalist who saturates the songs with screams. Here, Plant sounds measured, still respectful of his vocals, and reminds me of a more subdued Plant on the early Led Zeppelin albums. It's also the album with the strongest blues foundation in the entire Boston band's catalog (err… except for the blues covers album, of course), with notable influences from the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds. And finally, you can already feel a kind of magic, a great synergy within the group that comes from playing together for some time. The album doesn't have a huge production, something that would change when they began their collaboration with Jack Douglas on Get Your Wings. But who needs bright sounds when you have "Dream On" and "Mamma Kin" on the record? The key word is attitude, and this album overflows with it, in the best possible way. Years later, ego would completely crush this true, authentic Aerosmith attitude…
In 1964, in New Hampshire, at just 16 years old, Steven Tyler formed his first band, The Strangeurs, which would later become Chain Reaction. He played drums, sang backing vocals, and occasionally had some lead vocals. Shortly after, Joe Perry and Tom Hamilton formed The Jam Band and moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 1969. There they met drummer Joey Krammer, who was studying music at Berklee at the time, and he dropped out to join The Jam Band. In 1970, they shared the stage with Chain Reaction. Krammer already knew Steven Tyler and felt he was underutilized as a drummer. He thought Tyler's style would be a better fit for the hard rock blues he played with Perry and Hamilton. They made the offer, and Tyler agreed to join them on the condition that he would give up the drums entirely to focus on being the frontman. So, the quartet moved into a house where they started rehearsing, getting drunk, and just hanging out. Steven didn't like the band's name, so they began exploring other options, including The Hookers and Spike Jones. Krammer came up with the final name after listening to a Harry Nilsson album called Aerial Ballet. The idea of something aerial appealed to him, but the others weren't convinced because they misheard and thought he was referring to a Sinclair Lewis book that high school students were required to read at the time, Arrowsmith. The drummer had to clarify: “A-E-R-O… Aerosmith.” And that's how the band's name was born.
Shortly after, they recruited Ray Tabano, Steven's childhood friend, as a second guitarist. The band played their first gig on November 6, 1970, at a Boston high school. Ray didn't quite fit in, and in 1971 they replaced him with Brad Whitford. The two guitarists complemented each other very well, with Perry on lead guitar and Whitford on rhythm, but they had no problem switching roles during passages or entire songs, creating a very powerful rhythm section that began to give them some notoriety in the city. In 1972, they signed with David Krebs and Steve Lieber as managers, and they took advantage of a series of concerts in New York to invite people from Columbia and Atlantic Records to hear them at Max's Kansas City club. Aerosmith weren't scheduled to play that day, but since it was the only date Clive Davis, then president of Columbia, had available to see them, they ended up paying the club owner to let them play. It was worth it, because they ended up signing with Columbia Records for $125,000 and began preparing their debut album.
Columbia assigned Adrian Barber as producer, and they went into Intermedia Studios in Massachusetts. The production turned out to be quite barren, and the band would later complain that Barber barely gave any input on the results. Added to this was the fact that it was their first studio experience and they were quite nervous, so the result didn't leave them very satisfied. They sounded VERY different from how they sounded live, and the biggest difference was Steven's voice, which was required to sound more like a blues singer than his natural style. I'm not sure if he had already developed his typical screamed style by then, but it certainly sounds far removed from how we know him… and frankly, I don't think it's so bad! Perry would harshly criticize Barber in his autobiography, acknowledging that they sounded too flat, but that he didn't want to give his opinion since he was a novice when it came to recording. And Tom Hamilton, for his part, says he barely remembers the recordings because everything happened so fast. Compared to the albums that would follow, this debut sounds very basic, but I insist that this isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's short, with just eight tracks spanning about 35 minutes, and one of them is a cover. But there's really no bad filler, and they already clearly lay the foundations of what will become their sound (sharp guitars, riffs, very dynamic drums, and Tyler's brilliant phrasing), still to be perfected.
The album kicks off with “Make It”, which opens their extensive discography with the fitting line, “Good evening people, welcome to the show, got something here I want you all to know.” A galloping drum intro, a powerful and sharp riff with power chords, settles in to give way to the verses. The chorus, “Make it! Don’t break it,” is catchy, with ascending guitar tones (contrasting with the main riff), brimming with attitude, and in which Steven is presumably encouraging us to follow our dreams and not give up, partly reflecting on the band's struggles at the time, playing three clubs a night just to make ends meet. At 1:45, after the bridge, Perry delivers a somewhat disorganized and jarring solo, punctuated by the song's dynamics. At 2:20, they seem to pause, but Krammer returns with a driving drumbeat for a strong comeback. Steven wrote the song on a trip from New Hampshire to Boston. He wondered what the best lyrics would be to sing to an audience if Aerosmith were opening for… the Rolling Stones! Well, they were already thinking big! The song is simply good, energetic, and gives us a taste of what's to come.
We continue with “Somebody”, with a crisp and playful riff. This track is more carefree than the previous one, a Blues Rocker in which Steven describes the characteristics of the perfect woman he's looking for, not physically, but intellectually. Based on the blues, with a raspy riff and then an ascending scale, it exudes good vibes. The band is already showing great cohesion with the breaks and bursts that keep the song alive and prevent it from becoming tiresome, despite having few variations. The chorus is catchy, a bit faster, and with necessary key changes. Doesn't it vaguely remind you of AC/DC's style on their early Australian albums? Well, that idea fades around 1:50 when Perry's solo kicks in, initially reminiscent of the Yardbirds, before Steven enters for a formidable passage where he mirrors the guitar for a while.
Then comes the album's highlight, the magnificent ballad "Dream On". It's ironic that it's perhaps Aerosmith's most emblematic song and the one that least represents their sound. It's the song where Tyler sounds least like himself, with a cleaner voice and not trying to sound like a soul singer. It begins with that beautiful guitar scale, with a synthesizer in the background. They've never hidden the fact that it was "their version of Stairway," starting with those slow ascenders, meticulously building tension, and lyrics that attempt to be profound and philosophical.
“Every time I look in the mirror
All these lines on my face getting clearer
The past is gone
It went by like dusk to dawn”
Then we're launched into the bridge with driving drumbeats and increasingly distorted guitars, playing descending scales: "Yeah, I know nobody knows, where it comes and where it goes..." At the end, the intensity drops again, and Perry unleashes a fantastic little riff at just the right moment, before Tyler returns with the next verses. Steven continues to control the intensity with his vocals, launching the song into another brief, full-throttle climax. Then comes an instrumental bridge where Bradford and Perry alternate with beautiful, high-pitched riffs, accompanied by a tinkling piano in the background. Out of nowhere, they return to the bridge, and this time they explode into the powerful chorus, where Steven repeats the title, alternating with Perry's licks until reaching that almost impossible note at 3:30, giving the impression that the song ends there (in fact, it fades out in the radio edit), but they return for another cataclysmic run-through, ending with the guitar fading into two tones like a siren after a gong. Yes, it's overplayed and has trillions of haters (the then 23-year-old Joe Perry was one of them), but given that Aerosmith is a band associated with power ballads, it must be admitted that this is their best. While an attempt to create their own "Stairway," it doesn't feel like plagiarism; it has the freshness and ambition of a young band, atmosphere, an incredible performance from Steven (which he has never quite reached again), decent lyrics, those formidable crescendos and explosions, and above all, great emotional power. Steven wrote the song, trying to recall a piano scale his father used to play for him when he was three. Originally written for piano, the two guitars attempt to replicate the arrangements Steven played with each hand. The song was released as the album's lead single, with "Make It" as the B-side, and radio stations immediately began playing it constantly. It reached a respectable number 59 on the charts and number 5 in their hometown of Boston. Not bad for a debuting band…
By the time I’m performing corrections for the translation of this review in June 2026, I still think this is their best song.
If "Dream On" is based on "Stairway," "One Way Street" draws its inspiration from "Midnight Rambler." The album's bluesiest track, it features an intro of languid, jazzy, and dreamy guitars, before launching into a formidable tempo at :25 (note Hamilton's bass arrangement that propels and accelerates the song), with Steven's harmonica playing at full throttle. Tyler sings with a lot of attitude, in a menacing tone that goes hand in hand with the constantly tense instrumentation. The bridge is very good, with time signature changes, and Steven finishes almost a cappella with “And I gotta go the other way,” sounding as soulful as can be. The rest is a repetition of the sequence with some variations. I like that harmonica break at 2:15 where Steven shouts “You know what I’m talkin’ about, baby” like he’s Slim Harpo. Well, he’s not the best harmonica player in the world, but he holds his own. The band returns for the following verses with that derailed phrasing, and the song keeps stretching out. At 3:30, we have Perry’s solo, not dazzling, but well-crafted for this blues. Perhaps the song should have ended around the 4-minute mark, but they drag it out with a jam that isn’t always interesting. Joe lacks the mastery to make such long solos sound good, and the band itself doesn't add any new resources, except for more and more screams from Steven in an extensive improvisation that lasts until minute 7, making this one of their longest songs during the 70s.
“Mama Kin” would be the other hit from the album, and one of the songs that has been a staple of their live shows ever since. It’s a fun rocker, a kind of faster-paced “Make It,” with horns very much in the style of the Rolling Stones at the time. It kicks off with that fantastic riff (which Perry himself admits he ripped off from a Blodwyn Pig song), which the band plays around with for a minute, changing the intensity, adding horns, guitar solos (this time more inspired)... It’s only after the minute mark that Steven comes in with his phrasing, and the band enters that dynamic of stops and starts. Joe put the riff together on a guitar he found in a junkyard, to which he could only add four strings because it was so worn out. The figure is basically repeated throughout the song, except for the accelerations in the bridges. The song stretches to 4:30, and works because of the energy the band brings, although it doesn’t really have too many variations. It would become one of the classics that appears on almost every compilation album, and Guns N' Roses would record their own version, acknowledging Aerosmith's influence on them.
"Write Me a Letter" is another blues-rocker, complete with harmonica. Originally titled "Bite Me," they rehearsed it for about six months, but weren't convinced by it and eventually abandoned it. One day, Joey created a can-can-like rhythm, and Perry asked him to continue. He added the riff from "Bite Me," and this song was born. It begins with a chaotic drumbeat, which then settles into a driving rhythm, joined by the guitar and bass with a fun riff. Steven comes in, and the song evolves into a somewhat generic blues. Even the harmonica break at 1:35 sounds a bit lackluster. Again, the influence of the Yardbirds is evident in the background, but while not a bad song, it doesn't quite reach the level of the others.
“Movin' Out” is the album's hidden gem, starting with Steve almost a cappella, reminding me of some early Queen tracks. They sound dark and menacing again, without sounding forced. Krammer keeps the beat with the bass drum, building tension that explodes at the one-minute mark with Tyler's scream and the whole band kicking in. The guitars combine in tremendous arpeggios, and actually create a delightful interplay throughout the entire song, featuring Perry Whitford's first double lead. It's also the first Tyler-Perry composition, and when they play it live, they present it as Aerosmith's first true composition. It creates a claustrophobic feeling (in a good way) with its mid-tempo groove, and the power chords around the two-minute mark are spectacular, setting the stage for Joe's solo. He's no Page, but he delivers the best guitar work on the album during this passage, sounding both experimental and incendiary. Then Steven returns with the verses and they play with variations of the riff, turning the song on and off until it ends at minute 5. This is what I mean when I say they don't have much variety; Perry creates tons of well-crafted riffs, but he has difficulty putting more than 2 in each song, and that makes them somewhat tedious.
The album closes with Rufus Thomas's "Walkin' the Dog", which the Rolling Stones also covered on their debut album 10 years earlier. They take care not to do an identical version, but rather to give it their own touch, which I think is quite successful. They create an intro with power chords and flute-like sounds in the background, until at the 0:30 mark they launch into that ragged, faster, and sharper riff, with a much more accelerated, descending-scale ending. Musically, it sounds better, more aggressive, although it's worth noting that 10 years earlier the Stones played it as heavy as the R&B of the time allowed. On the other hand, vocally, Steven sounds uncomfortable and strained, while Jagger's performance is perfectly suited to him. All in all, it's a good cover, a spectacular closer, and a nice nod to the Stones.
Aerosmith spread their wings with a strong debut. It's not groundbreaking or dazzling, but it's an album that held its own against the swarm of American hard rock bands that were languishing in mediocrity on the charts at the time.
While it wasn't a smash hit, it sold well and received good reviews, which motivated the band to embark on a nationwide tour. When they finally achieved glory in 1975 with Toys in the Attic, Columbia re-released "Dream On," which reached the top 6, finally attaining the mythical aura that surrounds it to this day. The album was also re-released, with a slightly altered cover, featuring the wings logo and the tagline "Featuring Dream On," returning to the charts.
I maintain that it's not perfect, but although it has repetitive moments, it's a solid album, with good riffs, the right attitude, and the band still finding its footing in the studio. Once they embarked on the enormous tour, in which they gained more experience and encountered increasingly wider audiences, nothing could stop them.
Aero on...
Por Corvan
18/Nov/2017
