Aerosmith - Get a Grip

I decided that I wanted to start with a slow underhand pitch right over the plate. While I enjoy Aerosmith, this album has been sitting on my shelf for years without being listened to and it was time to give it another spin.

I've always had a problem with going to the eye doctor. The thought of putting anything in my eyes including eye drops would cause me to shiver. Unfortunately when you have a -8.0 and -7.0 prescription, you cannot avoid getting glasses. Even though the trip usually resulted with tears in my eyes, there was one redeeming aspect, the trip to Marc's Fun Time Pizza Palace. This was the ultimate video game arcade. It was a converted Chuck E. Cheese, that had two floors of games. The first floor had all the latest games, pinball machines, the theater with the slowly deteriorating Chuck E. Cheese characters where you could eat your pizza, the prize table and skee ball. The basement consisted of all the aging games that were usually a quarter to play and the ball pit. While my attention was usually drawn to X-Men and TMNT, any game with a machine gun controller was worth a look. As I approached, all I could hear blaring music coming from the game. The same song just kept repeating ad nauseum, drilling deeper and deeper into my brain. While I didn't know it at the time, that song was Eat the Rich.

I didn't understand my interest in the game at the time, all I knew was that it had a machine gun that shot CDs, a blaring soundtrack, a cool looking music group and a woman dressed up in leather screaming orders to you. In retrospect, the woman in leather was probably the biggest selling point, just my adolescent brain hadn't figured out why I was drawn to that image. I usually wouldn't make it past the first level, but I was fascinated. I eventually bought the game for Playstation and had those songs even further ingrained in my subconscious. Within the year I owned the album.

Listening to the album now, a few songs still stand out as classic Aerosmith. Eat the Rich opens with the Steven Tyler's great spoken word intro and a sample from Walk this Way and plows into the opening song. Get a Grip and Fever continue this energy and kept my interest peaked. Livin' on the Edge brings me back to listening to Weird Al's Livin' In the Fridge, but that is a story for another review. If I wasn't determined to listen to all this albums complete, I would have skipped the next two songs. Flesh and Walk on Down were a test of my patiences and I really was not a fan of Joe Perry's vocals on the latter. The album contains a ridiculous amount of songs that eventually became singles, 7 of the 14 were released as singles in some fashion and I even new the song Line Up from the Ace Ventura soundtrack.

Now it's time to make the final decision, does the album stay or move on to a new owner.

Songs I Loved: Eat the Rich, Get a Grip, Cryin'

Songs I Never Want to Hear Again: Flesh, Walk on Down, Gotta Love It

Decision: Goodbye Get a Grip. While there are songs I enjoy, the majority of them also appear on Young Lust: The Aerosmith Anthology which I also own. The only song that will leave the collection that I may want to hear again someday is Get a Grip, but ultimately it's a song I can live without.

I chose this album because I thought it was going to be an easy choice to sack, but going back I realize that it was a decent album with a fun sound. I'm worried that if I'm having a difficult time with this one, by the time I get to day 365, I will really be struggling.