America’s Greatest Rock & Roll Band

Besides the Rolling Stones, I really like Aerosmith very much. Their glam rock swaggering style was really cool. I didn’t hear much of them untill their collaboration with Run DMC on “Walk This Way”. I was like… wow. What group is that or rather, what have I been listening to all this while. That tune was really smashing, man.

The first Aerosmith album I bought was “Permanent Vacation”. Man, it was great. “Pump” was even better. I personally find “Pump” as one of the greatest rock albums of all time. “Pump” was rock glory at her finest. These guys are bad boys…in fact, they are widely touted as "America's Greatest Rock and Roll Band". No mean feat.

This Boston quintet is made up of singer Steven Tyler, guitarists Joe Perry and Brad Whitford, bassist Tom Hamilton and drummer Joey Kramer. This combination of musical talents have carried them through around three decades where they had swung wildly from hits to hits, glam rock loudness, shotgun blues raunchiness with melodic blues-based riffs and bawdiness.

I guess “Pump” relaunched their careers and in the process, they pulled off one of the most remarkable comebacks in rock history… thereafter, they carried on with the winning formula with power rock ballads and the usual sleazy, raunchy rock numbers with dirty guitar licks thrown in.

“Janie’s got a Gun” is such a rock classic. It is such a great rock ballad and superb song, a great showcase of Tyler’s vocals. He slides, glides, mumbles, wails and screeches like a wild gutter rat resurrected in rock and roll-pantheon heaven. I also fancy their other hits like “Dream On”, “What it Takes”, “Angel”, “Amazing” and ”Jaded”. They are pretty like my enduring hard rock anthems. It is probably conventional wisdom that Aerosmith’s heady metal too had gloriously extrapolated folk and blues.

Don’t we just love the energy that Aerosmith oozes, Tyler’s stage antics and gyration, Perry’s muscular solos, the band’s energetic concert performances and not forgetting those scarves tied to Tyler’s microphone stand. With them, I reached Rock & Roll Nirvana. Many times over.