I think it's safe to say that this is the first bad Aerosmith album. It's the band's first release of the 80s, but it can't be helped that the instrumentation just sounds bland for the most part, and Tyler's vocal chords were not working to his advantage at all. A lot of songs here just don't click, most notably 'Lightning strikes', which seems to adopt a BOC-esque structure, and the couplet that is the absolutely pointless 'Prelude to Joanie' and it's much better albeit generally so-so successor 'Joanie's butterfly', which is two minutes too long. There are a few nice songs to be found here though. 'Jailbait', although not the best opener to an Aerosmith album, does kick into gear eventually, and the title track makes for fun listening with its constant harmonica/saxohpone interludes entwined with perry's excitable guitar work. At least the band would go on to make better albums (Call them 'sell-outs', if you will) after this.

Written by musicalkaratekid on 03.09.2013 at 19:48

I think it's safe to say that this is the first bad Aerosmith album. It's the band's first release of the 80s, but it can't be helped that the instrumentation just sounds bland for the most part, and Tyler's vocal chords were not working to his advantage at all. A lot of songs here just don't click, most notably 'Lightning strikes', which seems to adopt a BOC-esque structure, and the couplet that is the absolutely pointless 'Prelude to Joanie' and it's much better albeit generally so-so successor 'Joanie's butterfly', which is two minutes too long. There are a few nice songs to be found here though. 'Jailbait', although not the best opener to an Aerosmith album, does kick into gear eventually, and the title track makes for fun listening with its constant harmonica/saxohpone interludes entwined with perry's excitable guitar work. At least the band would go on to make better albums (Call them 'sell-outs', if you will) after this.

Joe Perry wasn't in the band for this record.and it shows big time. Jimmy Crespo took Perry's place from 1979-1984.