Listening Post: Aerosmith - Nine Lives

Aerosmith – Nine Lives – 1997

So, it's been more than a year since I was doing the Listening Post for the Toxic Twins from Boston. I actually listened to this record once, but it was playing in the background while I was out in the backyard playing with Zoe and I wasn't really paying attention.
And I also have no real recollection of the band's catalog anymore so I can't really place it in any great context.
I can only rate it on it's own merits.
If Nine Lives was a soundtrack for some Hollywood big screen epic it makes perfect sense. It's a giant sounding record. Power ballads (“Hole in My Soul”, “Full Circle”- a song that sounds like the big hits “Cryin', et al, and which, while I can't quite recommend it, I kind of love), sprawling world music sound (“Taste of India”), rock monsters (“Nine Lives”, “Something's Gotta Give”) and radio friendly huge blues (Ain't that a Bitch).
All of them Rock-by-the-numbers formula songs. By this time, Aerosmith has it down. They are hiring the right producers, co-writers, buying the right tracks, selling to the people who will buy their stuff. I am imaging it's the same group that buy Bon Jovi records. In fact, an Aero-Jovi tour would probably make a gazillion dollars, except that Jon Bongiovi doesn't need Aerosmith the way Tyler and Co. might need him.
The drug fueled, hallucinepic, “The Farm” with it's Wizard of Oz re-enactments is a noble experiment, but it's just not very good or engaging. On the other hand, the speed-punk “Crash” is, for me, a much better song. It's not trying to be anything other than what it is. And it's the most alive the band has sounded in a while.
The single, “Pink”, is a grotesque as far as I'm concerned. Still obsessed with adolescent interests, it just grates and it's probably the first time I would include a hit single as a DownSide.
Nine Lives tries to keep the Pump – Get a Grip formula alive. And it doesn't fail. It's just that, once you've heard those records, you've heard those records and that's sort of enough. It's a comfortable sound, if not completely interchangeable. I prefer those others over this one, though. It's a solid, if lonnnnng record.

Grade: B-
A-Side: Nine Lives, Hole in My Soul,
BlindSide: Taste of India, Crash
DownSide: Ain't That a Bitch