MattA75's Full Review: Pump [Remaster] by Aerosmith
There are very few rock and roll bands on this earth that can claim to have been through as much as Aerosmith. With the possible exception of Motley Crue, no band did the drugs, alcohol and girls the way the bad boys of Boston did. Hell, when the two most famous members of your group, singer Steven Tyler and lead guitarist Joe Perry, are nicknamed "The Toxic Twins," I guess that's really all you need to know.
After all their tribulations and what was, for all intents and purposes, a breakup of the lineup that made Aerosmith so great in the 70s, the band got back together in their most famous form in the mid 80s, releasing a terrible comeback album titled Done With Mirrors, an album with, at best, two good songs on it.
In 1987 they released Permanent Vacation, an album that garnered the band multiplatinum sales once again thanks to no less than four hit singles. So needless to say, when 1989's Pump hit store shelves, the pressure was on the band to produce a follow up that was worthy. They not only produced a masterful follow up, they produced what is in my eyes the best Aerosmith album since Rocks or Toys in the Attic.
This album also produced four rather large hit singles. Love in an Elevator is classic Aerosmith with a bit of an updated sound. This is a terrific rock and roll song, double entendres are all over it and the whole song just reeks of hot and heavy sex.
Meanwhile, The Other Side utilizes horns to beef up it's sound, a tactic the band has used a few times in the last 15 years or so, usually with great success. I really like the R&B feel this song gives off, makes me want to get up and shake my a*s.
With Janie's Got a Gun, the band did something that sounded nothing like any previous Aerosmith song and succeeded amazingly with it. It's a dark song about child molestation and abuse, and if nothing else, it proves my long held theory that Steven Tyler doesn't need outside help to write not only a hit song, but a GREAT song as well.
The last single was What It Takes, a song that Tyler did have help on, and with great success I must add. While ballads have in a way, become the band's bread and butter over the last decade or so, I love this song more than almost any other Aerosmith ballad, pre or post drug treatment. I like how simple it is, and I love the reference to the second song on the disc, F.I.N.E..
Speaking of that song, it along with the opening Young Lust are a pair of powerful reminders of the type of bluesy rock and roll songs that the band used to write at the height of their creative apex in the 70s.
With the creative apex of the 70s was of course, the drug use, which Tyler addresses in Monkey on my Back, a rollicking rock and roll song with plenty of nice licks from Perry.
Not to be lost in all this is the solid work of bassist Tom Hamilton (who co-wrote Janie's), drummer Joey Kramer, and guitarist Brad Whitford, the 3 of which seem to keep things together while Perry and Tyler are out front doing what they need to do.
Pump is still an album I pull out regularly to listen to. It hasn't aged at all really, it sounds just as good now as when it was released. It should be one of the cornerstones of any rock music fan's Aerosmith collection. While the albums that followed Pump have been hit or miss with me, I will always give a new Aerosmith record a chance.
The band is currently working on a "blues" record, and there are rumors they will be touring with KISS this summer.
This was part of the "Aerosmith Write Off," hosted by the fandamntabulous Aerocat. For a full list of participants and links to their reviews, please visit:
http://aerowriteoff.bravepages.com/index.html
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