Aerosmith - Night in the Ruts - 1979 (buy it)
Night in the Ruts (Right in the Nuts, get it? Huh? Actually I didn't until just now.....damn, I hate being stupid.) starts off with a big, lick heavy blues breaker that sounds dangerously similar at times to Draw The Line. "No Surprize" gets things rolling and gave me hope. Hope that maybe the energy, the sweaty, take no prisoners attitude of Rocks and Toys in the Attic would be back.
And it does.
For three songs.
Chiquita and the cover Remember (Walkin in the Sand) drive this thing and then...and then......
"Cheese Cake".
Oh, dear me.
Let's talk about the music before we get to the content.
A blatantly faux-sleaze/blues piece at best. Not impossible to listen to, just difficult. But then you get to that chorus. "Got my fingers in the pie" No. No, no, no. Porn rock. If Warrant can be castigated for "Cherry Pie" then Aerosmith needs to be taken to task for this one. I'm no prude. I loves me some porn. Classic, gonzo, 120 second blasts (he he he, he said "blasts") on XTube. Great. But this isn't porn. It's giggling 15 year olds behind the auditorium, sneaking cigarettes, shoving their fingers in your face and telling you to "Smell." because he just made out with the school slut.
It's bad. Bad bad bad.
The album doesn't really recover after that. It settles into a pretty slo-blooze vibe and I guess that I should appreciate that on say, "Reefer Headed Woman", (Another cover) but I'm so exhausted by that point that I don't know how I'm supposed to react.
Night in the Ruts just isn't fun. The closing rock ballad, obligatory by now, "Mia" can't save this thing. It just goes down in a blaze of "has-been".
Grade C-
A Side: No Surprize
BlindSide: Chiquita & Remember
Downside: Cheese Cake.
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