Every album Aerosmith issued in the 1980s rose to at least gold-selling status, with 1989’s explosively popular Pump streaking to seven-times platinum sales. But that doesn’t make the decade a golden era.
Described by critic Greg Prato as “the sound of Aerosmith at their most ‘out of it,'” 1982’s Rock in a Hard Place, was made without Joe Perry, and featured Brad Whitford only as a featured sideman. As the decade wore on, the band brought in Ted Templeman and then Bruce Fairbairn to produce, igniting sweeping changes in its sound.
Perry and Whitford returned for 1985’s Done With Mirrors, but not the verve and danger of the band’s classic 1970s sides. Both 1987’s Permanent Vacation and 1989’s Pump possessed a pop-influenced gloss that sold well in mainstream quarters, but disappointed much of Aerosmith’s core constituency even more deeply. Get A Grip, released in 1993, only continued the trend.
Aerosmith has more recently returned to the studio, but this time with Jack Douglas, producer on those classic-era recordings like Rocks. This new project is the first for Aerosmith since 2004, and the first original studio recording since 2001. They’ve since announced an 18-date summer tour.
Don’t expect Joe Perry to be checking out Aerosmith’s older recordings — and, perhaps to no one’s surprise, in particular not the ones from the 1980s.
“Usually, I let go of it. Especially in the Eighties and Nineties – they were like product, almost,” Perry tells Rolling Stone. “(There were) so many people involved, I felt like you lose ownership of the record. But I remember listening back to the tracks in the Seventies a lot, just for the fun of it. And this record, for some reason, I found myself doing that.”
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