Top 5 Aerosmith Videos
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 12:01AM
Of course, Joe's been on a publicity tour for his new CD and he isn't wasting time, talking about the band needing a break and insinuating that Steven hasn't been very grateful of his fans. Any longtime Aero fan knows about the volatile and rare relationship between Perry and Tyler: they need time apart. I'm hoping a nice vacation will give the entire band the ability to recharge to their batteries and come back stronger than ever.
In the mean time, let's count down the 5 best Aerosmith videos of all time...chosen by me of course!
Number 5 - "Dream On"
Aerosmith
Michigan Man | MySpace Video
Number 4 - "Amazing"
Number 3 - "Walk this Way (with Run DMC)"
Number 2 - "Cryin'"
Number 1 - "Love in an Elevator"
So, what do you think of my list? Which videos would you change? What order would you choose?
Reader Comments (8)
Okay maybe "Crazy" because I still after all these years like seeing Alicia Silverstone.
Great vids! Particularly your pic of "Dream On" Live with the orchestra conducted by Michael Kamen. I think this was from the MTV Music Awards sometime in the mid nineties. I'm with Fitz generally and remember watching this live on the show and thinkin', "Why the hell doesn't Aerosmith make "records" like this anymore?". I think this was when there was a heckuva lot of Grunge and Rap totally dominating MTV and this just absolutely dusted everything on the show. If I recall correctly, this also opened the show, which made it even more breathtaking. No announcer. No host. No super graphics. Just come in from the commercial pod right before the beginning of the show starts...straight into this song. Mindblowing. So, anyway, I'm with Fitz, though I like two songs since they sold out, however, they should have been produced with more b*lls...
And they are:
1) "Shut Up And Dance". If this had just been a little more crunched up in the guitar department it would rokk our soxx off!
2) "Jaded". C'mon Fitz, you know this is catchy. If only they had stripped this down and rocked it out a little more, we would have had another classic on our hands and would have thought they were back! Probably would have gone to Number 1, too! I saw 'em do a much more rocked out version of this live. Tyler held out the mike for my now ex-girlfriend and her sister (yeah, they are/were hot) to sing back ups on this when we saw 'em live at Jones Beach in '07 on Long Island, point blank. The chicks were stunned so I sang 'em and when he sent the mike back down a second time, he put it directly in front of me and I delivered again! Of course, by "back ups", I mean the word "Jaded!", but I do believe I sang it on key (hahaha!!!) in front of 20,000+ people thanks to the kind Mr. Tyler, absolutely one of my R'n'R heroes (seen Aerosmith 5 times and all the shows were from "A Night In The Ruts" all the way back to "Toys", including the highlight of their career, if you ask little ol' me, off the "Rocks" tour. Anyway, singin' the word "Jaded" for Tyler was a true Rock'n'Roll moment for me and worth every dollar I overpaid the ticket broker. Oh, and Motley Crue opened the show and Tommy gave me a swig of Jager (which I hate), but what the hell, if I got Tommy offering me a drink, I'll take it! Super nice guy, he talked to us (okay, really the chicks) for like 5 minutes right after their last set and encore, just crouched down at the edge of the stage and havin' a drink with us. Cool. Then Aerosmith came on (this was one of the first shows after Tyler had recovered from his throat surgery) and just blew the sky off (it's outdoors right on the ocean) the place! The only drawback was Hamilton wasn't there to be a part of it. He was sick. Forget who subbed but he totally nailed all of it like he had been playin' with 'em for years.
Okay, Al. Touche! Here's my top 5 Aerosmith Videos (Fitz, I'm doin' ya proud here, bud)...but my take is a little different from Al cuz it's all live and pre-80's (xcept for the "Lucky Strike Extra" at the end of the list, which could really be at the end of Al's list, if she would want it added, of course, since it's a video in the truest sense of the word and not just a live clip)...
All of 'em are on YouTube and I woulda created links (if that's even possible) but I'm so old school (as Al will attest) that it's amazing I'm even able to type on here...Just key 'em in on YouTube in the search box like I've got 'em listed and they should come right up...
1) "Aerosmith Chip Away The Stone Live 77". This just flat out rocks! Wonder where the hell this is from. I think it's Cal Jam 2, but I'm not sure. Maybe one of you true rockers knows.
2) "Aerosmith Train Kept A Rollin' Live 74". You want Glam? You got Glam! This is totally Glamourific! It's a cut from Burt Sugarman's Midnight Special. A show I used to watch every Saturday night like so many of you remarked how you used to listen to Casey Kasem. Also, I'll never forget listening to Kasem as a kid when stuff like Johnny Winter "Frankenstein" and "Hocus Pocus" by Focus were in his top 5! What the hell happened to radio?! Let alone Rock and Roll?!
3) "Aerosmith Draw The Line Live 77 Houston". Killer! Always loved how they go punk toward the end on this song. I really think that part of the song was a nod to the whole punk scene, particularly Johnny Rotten. But, hey, I digress. This song and this performance just plain ROCK like no other!
4) "Aerosmith Back In The Saddle 77 Live". Tyler just absolutely screams his lungs out on this. I'm surprised one didn't pop out on stage! Unreal!
5) "Aerosmith Sick As A Dog 77 Live". Easily one of my top 10 fave Aerosmith songs. Trivia (in case you didn't know). Hamilton came up with the riff. Also, this is where the Title of the Album (their best, in my humble - ha! - opinion) from which it came originates...The lyric, "You'll be the last to see my ROCKS..."
Lucky Strike Extra:
6) "Aerosmith Janie's Got A Gun". Difficult subject matter but really a helluva song. This video was directed by David Fincher who, as most of you know, went onto direct movies like "Seven", etc. Oh, and that's Leslie Anne Warren playing the mom (no, I didn't get that from Pop Up Video...there's an idea that annoyed the hell outta me. It wasn't so much the Pop Ups of trivia, it was that dang sound effect when the "thought bubbles" popped up that sucked cuz they just absolutley buzz killed ya and the music of the song!. Anyway, I recognized her when this first came out). This clip is a movie unto itself! Incredible! Check out the cop car flashing lights shot through the fence. This guy was/is an absolute genius! Oh, boy, here we go...I was once walking down Houston Street in NYC during the early spring and it suddenly started to pour. I start runnin' (not that fast) up the street to where I was goin' to meet somebody for lunch and I see this chick in a vestibule of a store front smokin' a cigarette. It was Madonna! And she just laughed when she saw my jaw drop. I keep on runnin' and now I notice a guy in another vestibule smokin' a cigarette. It's Christopher Walken! And he starts laughin' at me, too! I guess I looked pretty funny what with the dumb look of awe on my face and my Robert Plantesque hair gettin' drenched. But what the hell? The whole thing was so surreal! Then I see a camera trailer with some guys screaming over the camera and throwing a tarp over it. It was Fincher and they were filming a Madonna video, though you gotta tell me which one, since I forget and I'm not really into her too much. Helluva director though. He loves rain as you'll see in "Janie's Got A Gun", but I don't think he ordered that much the day he was shootin' that Madonna vid. If you've ever lived in New York or even come to visit, you can see random stuff like that whole surreal scene I just described any day of the week, as you can well imagine. Much cooler was havin' a 5 minute conversation with Brian Johnson (yep, that Brian Johnson) when I almost literally ran into him on the sidewalk in front of a hotel at 52nd and 7th, but that's another story, hahaha!!! And, alas, I digress (as usual)...
I hope Tyler gets back to form soon and all is right in Aerosmith and the world again...I heard these guys had been in the studio again over the last year. I think Perry said he wanted to do something like "Rocks" again. Al, you got any scoop on this?
Cheers to all with a swig from Tommy...
"You all ROCK!", as he would say!
From the guys point of view, videos are all about the babes. So you are missing their best video babes from your list.
1. Sweet Emotion - great use of the phone sex girl, with the clever twist at the end where she is really an older, larger stay-at-home mom. Props for using the whole intro to their best song. The band jamming in a pool hall, having a blast.
2. Crazy - Liv Tyler and Alicia Silverstone doing what all girls do [at least in guys imaginations] in and out of school girl outfits.
3. Janie's Got A Gun - one of the most original songs and videos ever made. Perhaps the best cinematically filmed video...of all time. Plus Janie is hot, and a badass.
4. Rag Doll - Awesome New Orleans scenery. I guess the way he goes backdoor to backdoor could be offensive to women, but to college kids, he was our hero.
5. Love In An Elevator - You had me at "Oh, good morning Mr. Tyler...going...down?" Dancing mannequins - icing on the cake. Could do without Steven in see through pants humping the stage though!
This is a great topic - you need a band with a deep catalog to even have this discussion.
You are right, I forgot "Livin' On The Edge". Uh, duh! How the heck could I do that?! It's only the title track of one of Aerosmith's biggest albums. A very rockin' tune, though still my complaint is the production. It just lacks the b*lls the old stuff had.
And "What Kind Of Love Are You On" is pretty good, too! Again, not wild about the production (which I also noted about the post-sellout tunes I like, "Jaded" and "Shut Up And Dance", even though the latter in particular shares a similar sort of defanged, down in the mix treatment of the guitars on "What Kind of Love..").
The more I think about it, I actually believe there is one song that truly stands out from all the stuff which was to come out once they reformed. And that is, "Let The Music Do The Talking" a cover of the Joe Perry Project's initial release which was also the first record he put out after Aerosmith broke up. Too bad the rest of the album that "Let The Music..." is from, "Done With Mirrors" (which was also the record they put out heralding the return of Joe Perry to the Aerosmith fold in '85) doesn't hold a candle to that one great song (also the opening track of the album). The production is totally rock and roll. The guitars are screamin' and so is Tyler. They are just jammin' out on this one!
"Let The Music..." really has the same vibe and feel of the kind of stuff on "Rocks". If only they had made the rest of the songs on "Done With Mirrors" as good. It might have been a huge hit and all those subsequent albums that really kinda suck might have been much better!
Here I go again with all the "Woulda, Shoulda, Coulda" stuff again.
Y'know, I also really like the song "When The Lightning Strikes" off of "Rock Between A Hard Place", which came out not too long after Aerosmith broke up when Jimmy Crespo stepped in for Joe. It also proves that Crespo was no slouch, either.
Still, I'm glad Aerosmith reformed so that we can still hear the original line-up live and hold out faint hope for another "Rocks". Aerosmith should get Rick Rubin to produce an upcoming album for them. That just might be the answer, if Tyler could handle taking direction from Rubin, that is! Dyin' to hear what Rubin does with the new ZZ Top album he's producing that's comin' out soon.
NirVrana: You are right about the chix in the videos. Hey, some of my votes for best video still hold up on that front. Just check out the chix in the audience!
Also, I really dig what you all are doing with your "Cancer Sucks" Campaign. I will be sure to donate and will get my friends who are goin' to see Kix in Charm City to do so as well.
You have really shown there's more to Rock and Roll than just listening, watching, and giving an opinion about it.
Hat's off to you! And to Allyson for making us all aware of this important Charity! It would also be cool to see some PSA's for your cause on VH1 Classic during "Metalmania" or "That Metal Show". Or whenever they show a serious concert or somethin' like old Maiden and AC/DC, etc., or any of MTV's regular programming, for that matter. Also, the Grammies and MTV Music Awards would be great for exposure.
Good luck with it all!
You guys rock and so does everyone else out there in Cyberockville!