Album of the Day — January 22
Album of the Day — January 22
Aerosmith — Get Your Wings — 1974
Aerosmith — Get Your Wings — 1974
22.January.2021
Aerosmith
Get Your Wings
1974
I’ve settled my beef with Aerosmith. It’s not the band's fault their lead singer, Steven Tyler, is such a nut job.
For the release of their second album, Get Your Wings, Tyler’s case of LSS (Lead Singer Syndrome — see David Lee Roth) had yet to surface fully.
However, it began percolating on Get Your Wings. If only because this album is such a giant leap forward from their debut album (even if that record did contain the perennial and insufferable “Dream On”). Get Your Wings was the album that set them on their way to being rock stars.
Get Your Wings would also be the album that began their collaboration with Jack Douglas, who would go on to produce the band through their creative peak in the 70s:
Get Your Wings
Toys in the Attic
Rocks
Draw the Line.
Arguably, Aerosmith was never this good again.
Get Your Wings didn’t just see Tyler’s toxic LSS begin to percolate, but it also saw the band finding their own musical voice. Guitarist Joe Perry unleashes a bevy of riffs on par with his contemporaries Jimmy Paige and Keith Richards.
Lyrically, Steven Tyler begins his foray into the double entendre and sleaze. “S.O.S. (Too Bad)” is a perfect example. As is the second track, “Lord of the Thighs.”
Allegedly, “Thighs” was the last song written for the album. What makes this song so interesting is not only Joey Kramer’s drum intro, which foreshadows “Walk This Way,” but the lyrics, which belie their darkness. The inspiration came from the characters they saw around the studio where Get Your Wings was recorded— Record Plant Studios in NYC. Located at the time on Eighth Avenue, which in 1973 was the flesh trading floor in NYC.
“Lord of the Thighs” is the first real indication that Tyler, as a lyricist, was more clever than he is often given credit for …and that he has more depth.
Well, well, Lordie my God,
What do we got here?
She’s flashin’ ‘cross the floor,
Make it perfectly clear
You’re the bait, and you’re the hook, someone ‘bound to take a look
I’m your man, child Lord of the thighs
Love him or hate him, Steven Tyler was very good with wordplay.
Critics at the time mostly liked the album. Even Robert Christgau considered Aerosmith “loud and cunning enough to provide a real treat” for the people who liked such music …but still referred to them as a “dumb band.”
Retrospective reviewers like AllMusic’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine said the band “shed much of their influences and developed their own trademark sound, and it’s where they turned into songwriters.”
The shame of “Rock so hard you’ll shit your pants” Classic Rock Radio is that they play almost nothing from the mid-70s peak era of Aerosmith. You hear “Dream On” incessantly, “Walk this Way” frequently, “Toys in the Attic” rarely, and once in a blue moon, “Same Old Song and Dance” or “Train Kept A-Rollin'” off Get Your Wings.
Classic Rock Radio’s focus is on the band's songs from their wildly popular and sober resurgence in the 80s and 90s.
But if you’re curious to hear why Aerosmith matters and just how good they can be, listen to Get Your Wings.