Toys In The Attic

This is the one where Aerosmith figured out what they were. Their third record, thirty-seven minutes, not a wasted one. Toys In The Attic opens it at a sprint. Sweet Emotion opens the second side and lodges in your head for good, that bass line and the talk box working before the song even kicks in.

Walk This Way is here too, a full eleven years before Run-DMC handed it back and made them famous all over again. Big Ten Inch Record is a filthy old blues cover about exactly what you think, and they play it dead straight, which is what makes it land.

You See Me Crying closes it with strings and Tyler oversinging on purpose, and somehow it works. Nine songs, no side-two sag, no filler. Joe Perry’s riffs doing most of the talking. Aerosmith before the drugs won and before the comeback ballads, caught right in the middle, all engine.