Aerosmith - Aerosmith (1973)

What astounds me is that Aerosmith could create such a stale album and yet somehow cull "Dream On" from the same polluted pool of mediocrity. Granted, they would go on to become one of America's greatest pioneering bands of that lifeless rock sound that currently permeates FM radio and is championed by fucking idiots. Yes, and if you take offense to that, you're a fucking idiot. Most likely you know every Zeppelin, Eagles and Eric Clapton song that is played on the radio by heart -- the last hobo of which your idolatry should have you immediately extracted from the gene pool -- yet you couldn't distinguish a barre chord from the fucking Batmobile and you incessantly violate human decency by asking me to keep playing "Stairway" as if my ear was a fucking coin slot. Either that, or you'll try to convince me that Limp Bizkit really did write "Behind Blue Eyes." So here's to you assholes who help to engender the continued mediocrity in music by not delving into the bands that matter, by being spoon-fed rock pabulum via whatever the fuck you know how to turn on and by being altogether boring company at barbecues. Here's to your glorious Aerosmith, a bluesy wankfest of an album honed to perfection by Mssr. Joseph Perry, elder statesmen of the ho-hum. Here's to Steven Tyler, who showed the world that it could handle more than one big-lipped cock-rocking sex symbol. And here's to "One Way Street," a shit riff built on a tired blues scale; to "Make It" for not sustaining my attention for more than thirty seconds; to "Somebody" and "Write Me" and all those other songs not named "Dream On" and "Mama Kin" that sound exactly the same. 1973, if you do your research, was positively screaming with brilliant albums. How this one stuck around is beyond me. A D is being really nice, but "Dream On" truly is wonderful.

The Rolling Stones - Goat's Head Soup (1973)

I've trashed the Beatles -- unapologetically -- for the furiously awful offal that is Rubber Soul and have decided I am musically obligated to administer like if not equal treatment to the Stones as well -- because, well, Goat's Head Soup very well deserves it. See, a good portion of what we perceive in life consists of the dialectic interplay between a thesis and antithesis. For me, most examples of this proffered nonsense are confused readily with dichotomies, pure opposites, polarities, etc. -- Good and Evil, Being and Nothingness (any Sartre fans?); and, most importantly for this review, Beatles and Stones. Except, in terms of fulfilling their end of the deal, the Beatles and Stones, for all intents and purposes, are poor purveyors of such musical foodstuffs and therefore I tend to treat them in terms of Hegelian aufhebung, or sublation -- which is to say, if you follow such philosophy, I offer The Who as a better alternative instead. Follow me? If not, it's all good; you aren't coming here for the coffee. Or are you?

Ok, the album. It's almost purely fucking awful. Aside from the splendid "Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker) and its tasty riff, I can't wrap myself around this one. For all the acclaim "Angie" receives, I don't get it -- it's decent; nothing very spectacular, though. I certainly don't crave listening to it. "Dancing With Mr. D" is awful. "100 Years Ago" is awful. "Coming Down Again" is awful. And these begin the album. "Can You Hear The Music?" No. I can't. This album feels similar in feeling for me with Houses Of The Holy, which I also trashed -- and it's where we hear faint glimmers of former glory but its mostly torpor and excess that are present all that is left is a blurrily traced outline of what existed formerly. This album sucks. D

The Beatles - Rubber Soul (1965)

While there are those who may think me harmlessly puerile, perhaps I cross the line here when I say that the Fab Four weren't so Fab, darling, and that visiting Strawberry Fields every year is not going to bring him back, nor your youth. Such otherworldly adoration befits a person with inherently misplaced priorities -- when was the last time you visited a loved one with such frequency? Yet you sing happy tunes in mournful fashion because a man sat in a bed and protested, claimed grandeur greater than Christianity and you were one of those who believed him. Granted, I dig John Lennon, but not that much. Well, I'll move on to this review, since it is obvious that I'm more in the mood to knife you than attempt to piddle with your rubber soul.

Rubber Soul is an astonishingly bad album. Much like everything else these fabulous fabs created, this album is a certain admixture of hype, cheerfulness and populism amidst a swarthy lyrical backdrop -- which is to say, it's like many of their early records: a mushy filthy stinky bog with an occasional pearl. "In My Life" is that pearl, and very little else is of consequence. For sure, these guys have a grand collection of incredible tunes; if only they had opted to consolidate such greatness over two or three albums instead of the numberless albums, international editions, compilations, singles, etc. that we have long suffered through only to have these same recycled waxatheticals unscrupulously plucked and placed on repackaged anthologies and taken from our wallets thence. When I think of music which is designed to, in a sense, represent the pain and ugliness of humanity, I listen to Penderecki's "Threnody For The Victims Of Hiroshima," not Rubber Soul -- even though the latter provides me with ample pain and ugliness. Ouch, I've got bug splatter everywhere. Stop, Bryan. Stop. Um, I like "I'm Looking Through You" and "Nowhere Man" too. So there. D