Just push play, they're gonna bleep it anyway

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts.

18/03/01 : Just Push Play - Aerosmith


Our third visit with Aerosmith and it's fair to say my expectations are not high.

Well, I wasn't expecting it to start with sitars but most of the rest of it is pretty much as expected - although not as bad as it could have been. They know their way around their instruments and Steve Tyler makes the sounds with his voice that he wants to, even if it's not exactly the sound I enjoy. It's all very much looking backwards, so if you like that 70s US rawk thang then you'll probably like this. My main complaint would be that it doesn't feel very well produced with the levels of the various instruments changing randomly - I can imagine them all constantly arguing that they need to be higher in the mix and the producer just agreeing to shut them up. I also had to laugh at "Just Push Play" including the phrase "walk this way" in the chorus - some definite harking back to past glories there. But, as a whole, it could have been a lot worse - although I do think they should have called it Just Press Play over here.

We're at #7 in the charts with a new entry this week on the start of a six week run, which is certainly one of the shorter runs we've seen this year. The top five this week were Eva Cassidy, Daft Punk (a new entry starting a 36 week run, but it never made the top), Dido, David Gray and Coldplay. That's a heavy hitting top five with nearly 700 weeks in the chart between them now and the next highest new entry was Nelly Furtado (#9).

Wikipedia tells us this is their thirteenth album and the only fact of any interest is that the cover artwork had already been previously used for a compilation album (which didn't feature any Aerosmith songs) and the figure on the album is called a gynoid, although fembot is probably a more common term these days (which I assumed originated in Austin Powers, but was first coined in '59 and was also used in an episode of The Bionic Woman). Critically, the album was received well enough in a "it's better than a load of the shite they've done recently" kinda way - although in '10, Joe Perry said it was his least favourite and "how not to make an Aerosmith record". Commercially, it did pretty well globally, including #4 in Japan (which is strange for a foreign album) and #2 in the US. 

discogs.com surprises me by telling me this is a £1.50 album and also surprises me with a £55 SACD version and a £100 MiniDisc version - MiniDisc albums are surprisingly expensive when they pop up. This wasn't my cup of tea in the slightest, but it could have been far worse and I can see it has its fans.

25/03/01 - No idea who this is aimed at

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

And all at once I owned the earth and sky

Image
A new year to start the New Year - starting my trip back through the 2001 album charts. 30/12/01 : Swing When You're Winning -   Robbie Williams There's a reasonable argument I should reject this album, but it was such a surprising cultural moment that even I don't feel I can, so it means we're starting the year with one that "we" own. This is our fifth visit with Mr Williams - I'm determined not to enjoy it, but I also have to admit I'm not going to hate it nearly as much as I would like to.  You know what? This is perfectly fine. Completely inessential, but he's not doing anyone any harm. For the most part, it's classic Sinatra-or-thereabouts tracks which Robbie does a decent job with on the vocals (along with some slightly peculiar guests) and they've obviously got some decent musicians in to lay down the backing tracks. He rarely does anything wildly original with them but, most importantly, he doesn't ruin them either - I don't...
Read more

I got caught compiling my own news

Image
Continuing my trip up The Guardian's  50 best albums of 2025 . #35 :  SABLE, fABLE - Bon Iver If, as Justin Vernon recently suggested, this is the last ever Bon Iver album, it’s a beautiful redemption arc: a loving send-up of his anxious, myopic sad-sack self blossoms into a radiant appreciation of possibility, sensuality, risk. Everything Is Peaceful Love has one of the year’s best refrains: “Damn if I’m not climbing up a tree right now!”, giddy with thrill and absolutely no idea of what to do when you get up there other than enjoy the view. And while there are gorgeously passionate songs here, it’s the ones about gracefully letting go of an unviable love that really underscore the admirable humility in Vernon’s bowing out. I always feel like I should enjoy Bon Iver albums more than I do - they feel like they have the ingredients I need but come across a bit detached and miserablist for me to actually want to revisit them - but The Guardian suggests there may be hope for this...
Read more

But you hold your love like a weapon in your hand

Image
Continuing my trip up The Guardian's  50 best albums of 2025 . #14 : pr ivate music - Deftones This was the US alt-metallers’ first album back after serendipitously getting a huge new following via TikTok, particularly for their sweeter, shoegazier material. But rather than court that audience by cynically remaking Sextape 11 times over, they instead created a balletic cyborg of a record. The riffs could put a dent in concrete masonry, but the groove-metal rhythms are light-footed and, as ever, vocalist Chino Moreno sets out even wider tonal possibilities. It’s as if waves of pain and relief pass across his spirit as he goes from dry croaks to thunderous denouncements to blissful clean singing. The thirteenth album I've previously heard from the list because I met it as a new entry and I'm afraid I won't be relistening to this one because it was (and I quote) " too noisy for my sensitive ears". This debuted at #2 (kept off the top by Wolf Alice) and managed ...
Read more