Aerosmith

From Steve Tyler's first shriek to Joe Perry's muted, hard funk guitars, "Back In the Saddle" is one of the band's weirdest but best numbers. They keep up the eccentric pace with the sleazy robot of "Last Child" (how'd they do that anyway? Even Bowie can't make robots sleazy), proving that Rocks is one of those albums where you can feel a band hitting their stride.

Whether or not Rocks is hot depends on your vantage point. If your hard-rock tastes were
honed in the Sixties, as this band's obviously were, Aerosmith is a polished echo of
Yardbirds' guitar rock liberally spiced with the Stones' sexual swagger. If you're a teen of
the Seventies, they are likely to be the flashiest hard-rock band you've ever seen. While
the band has achieved phenomenal commercial success, their fourth album fails... More >

Dave Hickey compares the teen crossover of the year to a Buick Roadmaster, and he's right--they've retooled Led Zeppelin till the English warhorse is all glitz and flow, beating the sh*t out of Boston and Ted Nugent and Blue Oyster Cult in the process. Wish there were a lyric sheet--I'd like to know what that bit about J. Paul Getty's ear is about--but (as Hickey says) the secret is the music, complex song structures that don't sacrifice the basic 4/4 and I-IV-V. A warning, though: Zep's fourth represented a songmaking peak, before the band began to outgrow itself, and the same may prove true for this lesser group, so get it while you can. (Grade - A-)