Aerosmith – Aerosmith (1973)

Many people mainly know Aerosmith from the 80's and 90's when their popularity was skyrocketing, but the band has actually been making albums from the first half of the 70's. And even for a long term band like this, the debut album was probably the best album they ever made. I really liked the band at the hight of their popularity in the early 90's. That's also when I bought this first album of them from a department store in Tampere with my grandmother. At the time I wasn't much of a fan of the album because it sounded so different from the Aerosmith I was accustomed to. Now, however, I really think this album is the best one of their career. Steven Tyler's vocals are a lot clearer than in the later parts of the band's career. Maybe he hadn't drinker, smoked and used as many drugs yet at that time.



The album includes one of the band's greatest hits of all time, Dream On. I still think it's the best song they ever wrote. It became hit when it was re-released, and even more later on there was a music video of a live version that I used to watch all the time on MTV. The sound is completely different though. In the original, it is great how clear and beautiful Tyler's vocals are. If the band would've made more music like this, maybe I would still listen to them.

Aerosmith was one of my favourite bands around the time when I was ten years old. Now that I listen to those albums, they sound a bit tacky and I'm not really that impressed by that music anymore. But when I listen to this early stuff, I actually hear a very ambitious young band with huge potential. At the same time, one of my other favourite bands was Guns n' Roses. I was surprise to find out that the song Mama Kin that I had only heard on GnR Lies album, was actually originally an Aerosmith song. Later on I also learned that the classic Gibson guitar that Slash played on many music videos was originally Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry's guitar that his wife had sold after a fight.

There are some strong blues influences on this album. Especially the song One Way Street reminds me of another band that had just split up because of the death of their lead singer, The Doors. I have a feeling that back in the 70's Aerosmith wasn't that big of a deal yet, but in the late 80's they became one of the biggest bands in the world. By listening to their albums, I would say it should've been another way around.

The album cover is quite hideous. If I didn't know that Powerpoint didn't exist back then, I would think that this album cover would've been made with Powerpoint. Also, the band hasn't yet developed their trademark band logo. I used to draw these band logos as a kid and I always remember the Aerosmith logo being the hardest to draw. But I was very pleased with myself when I succeeded in drawing their logo.

I don't really listen to Aerosmith at all these days, but if I do, I only ever listen to their 70's stuff. Later on in the 90's they became outright awful with their song to the movie Armageddon. I think that was when I stopped listening to the band. At the beginning of their career Aerosmith was a great rock band though and as a historical thing, their first few albums will live on.

Listen to the album on Spotify.