So here we are, the tail end of 2012. While I’m sure you’re just starting to get your drink on, we here at LeBrain’s Blog are tirelessly bringing you the rock even into the wee final hours. This is the time, traditionally, when we look at the past year!
We used to do Top Five of the Year lists at the record store, when we used to have our newsletter. Unfortunately I don’t have copies of any of those newsletters, not a one, which is a real shame since I poured my heart and soul into them as much as anybody else at the store. It would have been fun to look back 15 years and see what my top five of 1997 was. I do know for certain two albums that were on it: Accident of Birth by Bruce Dickinson, and The Colour and the Shape by Foo Fighters! The rest have been lost to the dusts of time.
Hey, if any of you guys are still speaking to me and have copies of the newsletter, lemme know eh? ;)
Back to the present for a moment:
What can I say about 2012? Before I even thought about doing my own blog, events were in motion that pushed me in that direction. My good buddy Craig Fee invited me down to 107.5 Dave FM for an entire week — Stump LeBrain Week! I spent a week on the air, with listeners trying to stump me. There were even a couple LeBrain Weeks and an entire month of LeBrainuary, where every single day’s 4 O’clock 4 Play quizzes were mined from my own brain’s knowledge. It was a blast, and left me hungry for more.
I’d always been writing Record Store Tales. The oldest ones were at least a decade old on my hard drive, but I had no idea what to do with them. I’d also been writing reviews — well over 800 of them on file before I launched — that very few people had seen. Craig said to me, “LeBrain, you need to get blogging this stuff. Write something every day. If you build it, they will come.”
So that’s what I did, and I thank you for reading.
Back to the Record Store Tales:
I published Part 1 on March 9 2012, the beginning of the story, called Run to the Hills. It was about the very first time I heard Iron Maiden, a date I’ll never forget. And thus LeBrain’s Blog and Record Store Tales were launched.
Some highlights from the early months that you may have missed if you’re fairly new here:
You know this was gonna happen. Aside from the fact that I’m the biggest Kiss fan around, it’s a fucking great record. Read LeBrain’s review of Monster here.
Runner up: Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson – TAAB2 Thick As A Brick 2.
The art of buying and selling used music mainly hinges on two factors: condition, and re-sell value.
Condition can be subjective. Is it slightly scratched? Heavily scratched? Do those minor marks from wiping the CD count as scratches? Our upper management tried to give us consistent guidelines to follow on condition. The customers didn’t always agree, but we tried to be consistent – not an easy task when you have dozens of buyers!
Value, on the other hand, could get very subjective. For example, let’s say the year is 1996. You went out and bought yourself a brand-spankin’ new copy of Live Through This, by Hole. You paid $23.99 for it at your local store. You played it a couple of times and didn’t like it, and they won’t take it back without the receipt. So, you come to see me with a mint condition copy, only played twice. You’re hoping for good money. You paid $23.99, maybe you’d like to cut your losses and get $10 back?
Well, it never worked that way. We’d never pay that much for a single regularly priced CD for many reasons:
If you paid $23.99 for Live Through This by Hole, you still paid way too much, even in 1996. You could have got it cheaper elsewhere.
We have to make a profit on it too. Whatever we pay, we’d generally have to double it to make a profit, after the overhead of running a store are considered.
What if we already had a couple copies, that have been sitting here for a month or two? Do I really need a third to sit there?
These are all factors that came into play.
The next thing the customer would often say was this:
“I’m not looking for my money back, just another CD. Can I just trade this to you, one for one?”
Well, again, no. There’s no profit in that either. I’m just swapping your disc for my disc and not making a dime on the transaction. Essentially, I’d be doing you a favour and that’s all. And chances are, you’d want to trade it for something better than Live Through This!
One time, while having this very same discussion, I explained to a customer why I couldn’t pay him $10 for his CD. “Because that’s what we sell it for, I wouldn’t be making any money on it.” He shrugged and said, “That’s your problem, not mine.” No, it’s your problem, since I won’t be paying you $10 for your disc.
Another reason that people expected more money for a disc was rarity. If something was considered rare, yes, we would generally pay more. But who decides if something is rare?
I remember a guy holding up a copy of Big Game by White Lion, saying, “This CD is worth over $50!” Well, maybe somebody was asking $50 for it somewhere, and maybe somebody was willing to pay that. So yes, to those two people, it’s worth $50. But if you look, you could definitely find it for under $10, guaranteed. Even in 1996. All you had to do is hunt a little. I did, and I got my copy for under $8. It’s a title that was not in demand.
Some things that WERE considered rare:
The Traveling Wilburys – Volume I. We asked $50 for that one. It was out of print for many years. Out of print Bob Dylan is worth a lot more than out of print White Lion!
Metallica – Garage Days Re-Revisited. Also out of print. We asked $50 for that one too, until it was reissued as a part of Garage Inc. Reissues would usually kill the value of an our of print disc.
Some things that were NOT considered rare:
A lot of old soundtracks. Soundtracks were a tricky thing. You might be the only person in town that gives a crap about the Operation Dumbo Drop soundtrack for example. Maybe it’s out of print, and maybe you collect soundtracks, but maybe I already have a copy priced at $5 that has been sitting there half a decade!
We tried to be as fair as possible, but it’s not always easy to see when I’m giving you $4 for a CD that you paid $24 for. You can’t please all the people all the time. Still, it was better than a garage sale!
Next in line of my reviews from Record Store Excursion 2012! Check out the video below if you missed it. This one bought at Sonic Boom Music at Bloor and Bathurst.
MIKE AND AARON GO TO TORONTO
FOO FIGHTERS – Live In Rio 2001 (2012 IMC Music Ltd.)
This is sort of an oddball release, fully 11 years after the concert itself, on some weird label called Immortal. This is probably taken from the Rock In Rio 2001 broadcast. Bootlegs from that show are pretty common. I have a Guns N’ Roses bootleg from the same concerts. I believe they were on pay-per-view.
I’ve heard some people complain that Dave Grohl screams too much live, and he certainly does scream a lot in this show. If you’re not into it, I get it. It doesn’t bother me personally. His vocals are a bit shaky, as it sounds like he’s doing a lot of jumping around.
Sound quality is decent. I look at these as really well made bootlegs. Don’t expect anything that sounds like a flawless modern live album. It’s perfectly listenable though. You can hear all the instruments clearly enough (although bass is a bit muddy) and Dave’s vocal/screaming is up front and loud.
The setlist is jam packed full of early Foo classics. 13 songs, plus a little bit of “Happy Birthday” as the following day (Jan 14th 2001) was Dave’s birthday!
Amusingly, Dave dedicates “Monkey Wrench” to Guns N’ Roses who were playing the following day. Dave says he’s never really seen Guns N’ Roses before. Well, isn’t that Kurt’s fault, Dave? You could have opened for them on the 1992 tour with Metallica!
There’s one weird flaw with the CD. At the beginning at track 14, “Everlong” (not even listed on the CD), the wrong song begins. Instead, it’s “Stacked Actors” which is also track 6. This goes on for over two minutes, and finally it fades into a truncated “Everlong”. I have no explanation.
This one goes out to Rich from KamerTunesBlog, a great, informed site that you should check out.
I got the other two Sectors for Christmas, but this is an older review.
RUSH – Sector 2 (2011 box set, 5 CD + 1 DVD)
Damn you Rush. Damn you!
If it wasn’t for the fact that I liked their past 5.1 mixes so much, I wouldn’t have bought each of these albums again in this box set. And the fact that only one album (A Farewell To Kings) has been mixed in 5.1 really grinds my gears. Because you know more is coming. 2112, recently released as a part of Sector 1, in normal stereo, is now coming again in 5.1. It’s obvious Rush are going to continue to issue 5.1 mixes of their albums, in seemingly random order, which will probably make these box sets completely redundant in the future.
Rich Chycki did the 5.1 mix once again, and once again, it’s a pleasure to listen to. In particular I found “Cygnus X-1” to really benefit from the treatment. The swirly opening section made me feel as if I too was aboard the Rocinante, wheeling through the galaxies. The album sounds three dimensional, clear, shimmery. I’m very happy with the 5.1 mix.
Farewell is included on a standard stereo remastered CD, and also in stereo on the DVD. I have read online that there are flaws with the stereo mix of this DVD but I’ve never played it. I’m not that much of an audiophile that I would really care to, when I already have a CD.
The other CD’s included in the set, aside from A Farewell To Kings, are:
Hemispheres
Permanent Waves
Moving Pictures
Exit…Stage Left
…all of which I have now bought more than once. In Moving Pictures‘ case, three times now, since they just issued that as a deluxe edition with a 5.1 surround blu-ray last year! (Reviewed here.) Bastards.
I’m not going to review each individual album in this set. That comprehensive task would require separate blog entries of their own. They’re all great, of course. Some (Moving Pictures) more so than others (Hemispheres) in my own personal opinion. And of course, within this box set you will get such classics as “Closer To The Heart”, “The Trees”, “The Spirit of Radio”, “Freewill”, “YYZ”, “Limelight”, and “Vital Signs”. In addition there are plenty of brilliant album tracks like “La Villa Strangiato” and “Natural Science”.
The box itself is attractive enough, and if you’re sucked into buying all three, then they all fit together on your shelf as one handsome library. But you already own some of these albums, if not all, don’t you? The bait is that 5.1 mix of Farewell. And it pisses me off that Rush would treat their fans in that way. Why not just remaster and re-release these albums on their own and in a box set?
The individual album packaging is nice enough too, mini record sleeve reproductions, with a nice booklet with lyrics and liner notes for the whole shebang, all taken from the albums. As far as the booklet goes, there’s no exclusive essays or other content that is new to me.
And as for the new remastering? I can’t tell the difference between this and the 1997 remasters. I can’t. Sorry. I’m sure an audiophile would call me an idiot for saying so.
I probably won’t buy Sectors 1 and 3, not unless the prices drop dramatically. I was able to re-gift my original Rush remasters off to other people, which is one way of dealing with the duplicates, but I’m not going to be getting rid of my deluxe Moving Pictures, since it has the blu-ray and a David Fricke essay. So I’ve got two copies of that, and people who collect 5.1 mixes and have Sector 1 will end up with two copies of 2112. Nice eh?
Welcome back. This is part 41 of my series of Iron Maiden reviews! As mentioned when we talked about The Essential Iron Maiden, we are now in the compilation years. I won’t spend as much time on these hits discs as I did studio albums.
IRON MAIDEN – Somewhere Back In Time (2008)
Once again, Maiden have geared a hits disc to the newbies who have never bought anything by the band before. The overall concept was cool. As they did on the Eddie Rips Up the World tour, Maiden chose to take a look somewhere back in time, and only play songs from a certain era. This time, the band brought back the Powerslave imagery, and chose only to play songs up to Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (and cheating by also playing “Fear of the Dark”.
I personally felt this was a very smart move, since many fans (whiners) had complained that on the A Matter of Life and Death tour, the band had played that entire album. You want oldies? Well now you got them so stop yer whinin’.
To promote the tour, Maiden issued this Somewhere Back In Time disc. All songs feature Bruce Dickinson on lead vocals, so that means live versions where the old Di’Anno material is concerned. Like it or not, you can at least understand Maiden trying to promote the singer that the newbies were going to be seeing live.
I loved the touch of kicking off the album with “Churchill’s Speech” as I don’t think they have ever devised a better way to open a Maiden concert. Then, into the Live After Death version of “Aces High”. It seemed an odd choice for opening a hits album. From there, you’re into a non-stop onslaught of Maiden classics. “Two Minutes”, “The Trooper”, “Wasted Years”, even “Children of the Damned” and “Phantom of the Opera”! I can’t find too much fault with the overall track selection, or sequence. Those who dislike live versions are getting four: three Di’Anno songs, plus “Aces High”.
Sure, you could argue for certain inclusions. “Where Eagles Dare” or “Heaven Can Wait”, perhaps? “The Clairvoyant” is also missing. These are nitpicks.
The album also comes with full lyrics, descriptive liner notes, and even a cool poster with new artwork on it. The poster I have is for the Canadian tour — don’t know if other countries got their own posters, or none at all? It’s hard to fit the poster back into the jewel case once opened.
Good value for new Maiden fans, old fans only need to own if they’re looking for “the complete collection”. But even for new fans, this is really only a starter. Eventually you should really get the albums.
I have 31 discs of music to listen to now. And a whole lotta other goodies. Here we go!
First up – books. Peter Criss’ Makeup To Breakup, and the latest from Ripley’s Believe It or Not and Guiness’ Book of World Records. I’ve leafed through Peter’s book — all he seems to do is bitch about Paul and Gene. Review will come.
Next, Queen. A total of 8 discs of awesome remastered Queen to listen to: The Miracle, Jazz, A Night at the Opera, and Live Killers!
Next up, Rush. 6 discs in each of these two Sector box sets, including 2 DVD’s in 5.1 surround, plus 2 discs of 2112. Awesome. (I already have Sector 2 and have a review of that coming in the next few days.)
And the rest: The 4 disc Cult Love Omnibus Edition. Thin Lizzy’s Life Live (2 discs), Jon Lord’s Concerto for Group and Orchestra, and the new Rage Against The Machine XX edition (2 discs plus a DVD).
But that’s not all. Check out this Kiss lunchbox, these movies and vintage G1 Transformers 1988 “Bugly” action figure.
Lastly my folks got me this neat Joby camera tripod. This is going to come in handy when I make my next Transformers stop motion animated movie. I did a brief 15 second screen test — check that out too!
Hope your Christmas was filled with happiness, love, joy, and rock!
Good day, eh? This will be the last post before Christmas! LeBrain’s Blog will be taking a rare break for Christmas. We’ll be back soon, so don’t worry eh?
I would like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and happy holiday whether you celebrate it or not, but most importantly a safe holiday. Be careful on those roads.
And now for Christmas, I leave you with a very special review. Enjoy!
BOB & DOUG McKENZIE – Great White North (1981)
Cooooo, loo coo coo, coo coo coo coo!
Merry Christmas, eh? All Canadians (aka, “Hosers” for my international readers) celebrate Christmas every year with the classic tune, “Twelve Days of Christmas” by our national treasures, Bob & Doug McKenzie. A sample lyric?
On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:
5 GOLDEN TOQUES!,
4 pounds of back bacon,
3 french toast,
2 turtlenecks,
and a beer, in a tree.
Twisted Sister, eat your hearts out. This is the best version (ever!) of this Christmas classic. All Hosers should know the words off by heart, just as well as they know “Oh Canada”.
This Christmas classic can be found on Bob & Doug’s album, Great White North. A spin-off from their successful SCTV segment, Kanadian Korner, it wasn’t long before somebody at Anthem records thought the boys should make an album, eh? Basically half an hour of rambling about back bacon, smokes, donuts and beer, it’s not much of an album. Bummer. It doesn’t sound like it was scripted. It’s hard to stay tuned in for the entire length, although it did somehow go to #1 in Canada. Much of the album is taken up by welcoming to the listener to different segments, and the boys fighting over what in fact they should be talking about.
One of the funnier segments is regarding “Elron McKenzie” and his church. The sermon that day was about not killing bugs. The sermon was a big success, even though people had to drive through 8 feet of snow, eh.
Disappointing was “Black Hole” which features a backwards message. Using the magic of Audacity, I did play the segment backwards. I was hoping for something a little more mindblowing, like a recipe for the perfect donut or back bacon sandwich, but no such luck.
All of this is offset not only by the Christmas tune, but perhaps one of the greatest songs in Canadian history: “Take Off”.
“Take Off” features lead vocals by Geddy Lee, of Canada’s Rush. Geddy did the single for the princely sum of ten bucks. This song is not only a must for all Hosers, but all Rush fans worldwide. The incredible lead vocal may blow your speakers. As Geddy himself says on the track, “I’m a professional, eh?”
Cassettes Part IV – LeBrain’s Tapes (What Remains)
I used to have a lot of tapes. So many, that T-Rev converted my closet doors to shelving, just to store my numerous cassettes! It was quite a feat of engineering on his part.
If you’ve read the otherthreeparts of this series on cassettes, then you’ve already seen some of the awesome artwork that T-Rev used to come up with for his tapes. Doing those articles got me nostalgic, but very few of my own tapes remained. A year or two before I met Mrs. LeBrain, I briefly dated this one girl who was getting into hair metal. I had succeeded in replacing most of my tapes on CD (although still incomplete; I need a copy of Live Fast, Die Fast by Wolfsbane, and Phenomenon 1). All my tapes were redundant, and I gave her boxes and boxes full of them.
God knows where those tapes are now. I doubt she took them back home to Thunder Bay when it was all over, they probably ended up in a landfill. No big loss really, the only shame of it is that, like T-Rev, I used to make a lot of my own custom artwork.
Mrs. LeBrain and I were visiting her mom yesterday, and I found some of my old Beatles tapes that I had made, at her place! Her dad drove a delivery van with nothing but a tape deck inside. He was more than happy to receive my old Beatles tapes, and he loved them. And there they were, still at the house, complete with my computer generated J-cards. Nothing elaborate, although I did paste the cover for Abbey Road onto that tape.
This inspired me to dig through some boxes here, and see if I had any of my own tapes left. Surely there must be something here, with some of my own custom cover art! There was just a handful left, stuff that I wouldn’t have parted with at the time, and lo and behold, there was my old artwork. These sure brought back memories!
Back in the early record store days, cassette was my primary medium. They were portable, you could leave them in the car and not worry about them getting banged up, so I recorded everything onto cassette. It wasn’t until I had left the record store in 2006 that I got my first car with a CD deck. Before then, I had one of those adapter kits to play a discman in the car, but it sounded shite. I was glad to find the following treasures tucked away in a box!
Ahh, Spinal Tap. A Spinal Tap Reunion was recorded from a 1992 TV special. Unavailable on DVD today, as far as I know. That’s a shame.
I bought Grande Rock by The Hellacopters on vinyl, to get that bonus track “Angel Dust”. Or, more accurately, one of my record store compatriots got it for me at Orange Monkey Music in Waterloo. I dutifully recorded it to cassette without making elaborate packaging, but I did put some effort into the cassette spine.
You Fat Bastards by Faith No More was the full show that was released on CD in truncated form on the Live at the Brixton Academy CD. This was from a VHS release.
Guns N’ Roses did a couple cool TV specials. I recorded Live at the Ritz off T-Rev, who stuck on some demos for bonus tracks. The cover was made by adapting an old Appetite For Destruction J-card. I think this turned out pretty cool. Invade Paris! was a TV special from 1992.
These two Maiden tapes were from VHS releases. It’s a shame that Raising Hell was never released on a CD. Here’s hoping the band will put that out on a future box set. It was Bruce’s “final” show. I just edited out the crap sections with “magician” Simon Drake. Maiden England is also taken from VHS, but this is the full show. The CD release omitted two songs: “Can I Play With Madness”, and “Hallowed Be Thy Name”. My cassette didn’t! I thought my J-card for Maiden England turned out pretty cool, using an old Seventh Son cover as its basis.
Unfortunately, this is all that remains of my old cassette art. I did some much more elaborate things, which Thunder Bay Girl probably tossed out. One was for Savatage’s Dead Winter Dead. When I recorded that one to cassette, I actually painted the gargoyle onto a J-card. Wish I kept that one. Rush’s Test For Echo may have been the most elaborate one I’ve done. Using some old cardboard and a full-page ad for the album, I created my own digipack for that cassette. It would be nice to still have. Ahh well.
It seems funny, in today’s age of mp3 files and players, that a format as crappy as cassette was anyone’s main format. But there you go. Before I could play CD’s in the car, they were the best way to bring music with me. I’ve always believed a music collection was for showing off as much as listening to, plus I enjoyed making the artwork. I’m glad some still survives today!
This one arrived too late to slide into the schedule when I posted my own review of A Matter of Life and Death. Better late than never! Here’s the infamous Meat with his take on the album. A more seasoned take, perhaps. Enjoy!
That’s the Meat Man on the left, in case you didn’t know.
He’s a pretty big Iron Maiden fan…
IRON MAIDEN – A Matter of Life and Death (2006)
The Reincarnation of Iron Maiden
To semi-quote a good friend of mine, “I have seen Iron Maiden live…I have seen Iron Maiden live…a lot”
November 30, 1984 –Maple Leaf Gardens- World Slavery Tour (Twisted Sister opening)
July 20, 1999 – Massey Hall – Ed Hunter Tour
May 5, 2003 – Molson Amphitheater – Give Em’ ‘Ed Til I’m Dead Tour (Motorhead and Dio opening)
August 3, 2005 – Air Canada Center – Eddie Rips Up the World Tour
October 16, 2006 – Air Canada Center – A Matter of Life and Death Tour
March 16, 2008 – Air Canada Center – Somewhere Back in Time World Tour
July 13, 2012 – Molson Amphitheater – Maiden England World Tour
I was 15 when I first saw Iron Maiden live. I remember standing outside Sam the Record Man downtown Kitchener to get the tickets. Took one of those party busses up to Toronto for the show. When I saw Maiden this last July, it was hard to believe that the first time I saw them was 28 years earlier. While there are specific memories from each and every one of those shows, the aforementioned A Matter of Life and Death Tour holds a special place in my concert-loving heart.
Having seen Maiden four times previous, I was obviously excited for another great show, but was also expecting another “greatest hits” tour with a dabble of new material. What I and the other 15,799 concertgoers got was something else. I have seen a shit load of concerts. But never have I seen a band come on stage and literally play their new album to a sold out crowd… from track 1 to the end. I didn’t really even know the album that well going into the show. But it was one of my favorite concert experiences ever. I can imagine that rehearsals for this tour were quite extensive. It’s one thing for them to get together and polish up “The Prisoner” or “Clairvoyant”. It’s another thing to rehearse all your new material and get it ready for touring. And this album especially…for these reasons…
The shortest track on the album is 5:08 (“The Pilgrim”)
This may be the band’s most progressive album, song-structure wise.
With all due respect to Dance of Death and Brave New World, I believe Iron Maiden had not released something this relevant since 1988’s Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. A Matter of Life and Death sees Maiden finding a seamless way to connect hooks within unpredictable progressive grooves. This band has always been linked with Thin Lizzy in several ways, but never more than this album. There are moments where you start to actually appreciate Thin Lizzy more by listening to it, which I suspect may have been a conscious or sub-conscious goal in the creation of this album.
There is not a weak track on this album. There are several A++ songs. The opening track, “Different World” is as such and is and was a great song to start off a show. “For the Greater Good of God”, the longest track on the album, sees Maiden showing heavy chops while somehow staying bluesy. “The Longest Day” might be the most progressive Iron Maiden track of all time. Also my favorite track on the album, “Brighter Than a Thousand Suns”, hypnotically kicks ass with melody. Hey, that pretty much defines the band itself doesn’t it?
A Matter of Life and Death is indeed “Brighter Than a Thousand Suns”; one of the most important albums in the Maiden canon.
It’s always great to have a contrasting point of view when it comes to a new release. So, my buddy Tommy Morais, one of the top-rated reviewers on the Canadian Amazon site, is back to give us his two cents. Tommy got the standard edition of the new ‘Smith, while I got the deluxe. Neither of us had read the others’ review when we did this.
I’ll go first. Here’s my take on the deluxe:
AEROSMITH – Music From Another Dimension! (Deluxe Edition)
When an album is a decade or so in the making (hello, Axl!), it is only certain to create one thing: expectation. And it’s difficult to approach the new Aero-platter without expectation, seeing as the pre-release hype was absolutely gonzo. “Sounds like our old stuff! Sounds like Rocks!” Etc. etc. etc.
The truth of the matter is, on Music From Another Dimension! there are elements that sound like classic Aerosmith. Mostly, it’s in Joe Perry’s riffs. Otherwise, this album is firmly in Get A Grip territory, minus Bruce Fairbairn’s trademark flourish.
The opening track, the dumb-titled “Luv XXX” contains one of those vintage 70’s sounding Joe Perry riffs, as does the next song “Oh Yeah”. Both are really decent songs, with “Oh Yeah” getting points for cool female backing vocals. Perhaps if “Oh Yeah” had been on Pump rather than this album, it would have been a hit single.
“Beautiful” is the first song that I strongly dislike. Not only does it have a dull chorus, but Tyler thought it would be a good idea to spend the verses rapping. Not exactly a return to Rocks, is it Steven? There is seldom anything as embarrassing as a rock band attempting genre-hopping into rap, unless that’s already your modus operandi, like Rage Against the Machine for example. Rush pulled it off once (“Roll the Bones”) but Aerosmith come off as desperate.
The first ballad, “Tell Me”, is up next. An acoustic ballad along the lines of a song like “What It Takes”, this is an acceptable song, but it lacks a decent chorus. Nothing outstanding. I enjoy Tom Hamilton’s rolling bassline underneath.
Then comes “Out Go the Lights”, which captures the Aerofunk of old. It has some funky harmonica and the return of the girls on backing vocals. Joey Kramer’s unmistakable drums sound absolutely massive. I think this one must be one of the oldest tunes on the album. It shares one section with “My Girl” from Pump, indicating a probable genesis back in 1989. It also shares a melody with the next song, the overrated single “Legendary Child”. “Legendary Child” is overproduced with too many layers of vocals, but Tom’s bass just kicks you in the nuts. It’s strange to hear one melody used more than once on an album, but that is perhaps because of the patchwork nature of the recording, and the fact that Aerosmith dug back into the archives for unfinished songs.
Let’s just skip “What Could Have Been Love”, which is basically the same as any Aero-ballad since Get A Grip. Instead, go straight to “Street Jesus”, an monolithic slab of riffery. This one could have been on Rocks or Toys. The whiplash-inducing tempo will leave you out of breath!
But why, oh why Aerosmith, did you bookend that awesome song with another typical Aero-ballad? And this one a duet with Carrie Underwood? So contrived. I really can’t see Brad Whitford, Joey Kramer and Tom Hamilton (who co-wrote the song) sitting around at home going, “You know, we really need to get a country singer on our album.” Nothing against Carrie Underwood, I would have jumped at the chance to record with Aerosmith too.
“Lover Alot” is another single, and even though it’s uptempo, it suffers from lack of melody and really dumb repetitive lyrics. Tyler’s normally a very clever lyricist. This is just below him.
Ah don’t you know that she loves you a lot
Why don’t you know, don’t you know what you got
I even know that she loves you a lot
Why don’t you know that she loves you a lot
Ah don’t you know that she loves you a lot
Why don’t you know, don’t you know what you got
I even know that she loves you a lot
Why don’t you know, don’t you know, don’t you?
Seriously.
“We All Fall Down” is the fourth ballad, but a decent one. I can hear some serious emotion coming out of this one. Like “Amazing” from Get A Grip, this one has something special to it that speaks to me, be it the melancholy melody or the lyrics, I don’t know.
Joe Perry’s first lead vocal of the album, “Freedom Fighter”, is a surprisingly strong tune. I really like this one. Granted, it has the vibe of something that could have been on Joe’s last solo album, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s a great song even if Joe ain’t the greatest of singers.
“Closer” isn’t really a ballad, more of a blues, featuring some smokin’ Joe guitar. It’s good to have some Aero-blues on a well balanced album, although I think the melody leaves a bit to be desired. This goes straight into the organ intro of “Something”, which is another bluesy number, and Joe’s second lead vocal. Better than “Closer”, this one really hits the spot.
“Another Last Goodbye” is the fifth ballad. It’s a basic Steve piano ballad, and I don’t mind this one either. It sounds sincere and has a live vibe. This is what a song like “I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing” should have been.
That ends the album proper, but the deluxe edition has a cool bonus disc. A really cool bonus disc, well worth buying.
“Up on the Mountain” is a great little number featuring Tom on lead vocals with Steven backing him. Then Joe gets a third lead vocal on the incredible “Oasis in the Night”. Lots of lap steel here. This sounds like something that Joe might play on his front porch on a hot summer night. Just a cool tune. Finally, “Sunny Side of Love” is a melodic Aerosmith tune that probably should have been on the album proper, replacing some of the weaker songs.
Aside from Carrie Underwood, there are a slew of guest appearances that you can’t even hear — Johnny Depp, Julian Lennon, and so on. Who cares? Nobody buys an Aerosmith album because Johnny Depp is on it.
There’s a DVD too with live stuff on it. Typical live Aerosmith, it’s nice to have something recent, this is just an added bonus. Nothing really “must-have” here.
I think Music From Another Dimension!‘s biggest weakness is its length. 15 songs (+3) could easily have been trimmed to 10 (or 13). When you trim the fat though, it’s a solid…
4/5 stars
And now, without further delay, here’s Tommy!
AEROSMITH – Music From Another Dimension! (standard edition)
It’s been eleven years since the last Aerosmith studio album, 2001’s Just Push Play (and there’s also been the 2004 covers album Honkin’ On Bobo) which was really a product of its time with the band collaborating with producers that gave them a clean modern pop sound. This time around they brought back producer Jack Douglas who worked on some of the band’s best albums in the 1970’s. With the inner problems in the band and the near breakup, Steven Tyler doing American Idol fans were beginning to wonder if there was any recording going. It took a long time but Aerosmith’s 15th studio album, Music From Another Dimension is here. Initially the band said it would be a throwback to Toys in the Attics (1975) and Rocks (1976) and there are glimpses of that, but there’s also glimpses of the 80’s and 90’s Aerosmith too and a LOT of ballads. It’s as if all eras of the band are blended in one album and that’s their sound in 2012. I got to hand it to them, for a band of men in their 60’s there’s some pretty rocking material here, and I find that the band does vocal harmonies quite a lot this time around and it’s working rather well (actually they sound like they wouldn’t be out of place on a Def Leppard album). There’s some good but to me it’s an overall underwhelming Aerosmith album.
The ups with MFAD are the strong rock tracks. In fact the album starts off rather with a string of three solid rock songs. “LUV XXX” starts out with a spoken intro before kicking it into high gear, I wish the entire album was like this, it’s genuinely one of the best Aerosmith songs that’s been done since the 1970’s. It has that vibe from Toys/Rocks era and it’s fantastic. “Beautiful” is commercial Aerosmith at its best, it’s catchy, the vocal harmonies are excellent and the songs is very likeable as a whole. “ Legendary Child“ is a Grip a Grip era song that never saw the light of day. I was intrigued at first and when I listened to it I thought to myself “this could work”, and it does it rocks and it’s catchy enough I really like this one. “Can’t Stop Loving You” with Carrie Underwood is puzzling, having her on an Aerosmith album is obviously not going too well with some of the fans and it’s just not that good of a duet. “This Could Have Been Love” was chosen as the single and no surprise, it’s a ballad. I actually like this one, even if it’s a 1990’s Aero ballad rehash sounding or cheesy or sappy, I can acknowledge all of this but it still works for what is. “Street Jesus” has more of a classic rock edge to it, with even some jamming parts and the result is a longer, more vintage sounding track that works fairly well, it’s one of those the hardcore fans will enjoy the most. The Joe Perry sung track “Freedom Fighter” is one of the best songs on this album for me, it’s got a good Perry riff and even thought his voice isn’t particularly great the song manages to rocks.”Another Last Goodbye” is a fitting ballad to end the album with but it’s overshadowed by the fact that there are too many other ballads to truly stand out.
The first half of the album, I have generally good things to say about and it sounds promising and it makes you think that yes, maybe Aerosmith has some of the old rock sound we love back and it’s going to be an entire album like this. Then there’s the second side, filled with ballads and it really breaks the album’s flow. A big part of the problem is that the album suffers from the too much ballads syndrome that was present on albums like Get A Grip, and they sound mostly like 1990’s Aerosmith ballads. Six/seven (depending on who you ask) ballads on an album is just too much, and I like ballads but these are for the most part just sappy and rehashed songs that they’ve already done, except not as good or passionate. There’s just no overlooking that many ballads is overkill. The worst part is a duet with Carrie Underwood, no offense but what’s she doing on an Aerosmith album? Especially one which was reported as “back to their roots”. I found some of the lyrics here to be the band’s most juvenile yet, which is rather humorous coming from men in their sixties. Then again the album has 15 tracks, maybe a little too much and if they removed some of the ballads and Diane Warren songs (still using outside writers it seems) it would have come across as a tighter effort, it comes across as a modern version of Get A Grip (some good rock songs, plenty of ballads and it has over 14 songs and an outtake from that album as well) . Most of those ballads sound like they’re trying to be part II of “Amazing”, “Crying” or “Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing”. 15 songs may just be a little too much, if they cut some of it down it would have made for a shorter, tighter more Rock album, that’s my take on it.
Like many fans, it’s hard for me to hide my disappointment. Still better than Just Push Play that’s for sure, but I expected more from the hype Aerosmith had around this release. There are things to like but some that . I listened to it a few times by now and I can honestly say my rating is a 2 ‘ out of 5. Some of the Rock tracks are reminiscent of classic Aerosmith and energy charged tunes but overall it comes off as an album that didn’t know what direction it wanted to take. There have been some great releases by Classic bands this year, but sadly Aerosmith’s is not one of them I’m afraid.
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