Tag: Draw the Line

My Sunday Song – “Kings And Queens” by Aerosmith

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For My Sunday Song #302, we are talking about the song “Kings And Queens” from the bands 1977 album ‘Draw the Line’. The song was released on February 21, 1978 and it only made it to #70 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was written by most of the band including Steven Tyler, Joey Kramer, Tom Hamilton and Brad Whitford. It was not written with Joe Perry and one of the rare times that was the case, but drugs will do that. However, producer Jack Douglas managed to get a writing credit as well as he did a lot on this album as someone had to keep pushing the band forward.

Lyrically it seems more like a Zeppelin or even early Genesis as they delve in to sorcery knights and swords and stuff. It has this whole Medieval Knights of the Round Table vibe. It is also a rather violent look at the time and does not paint a glamorous picture. Tyler has stated that it is about all those that died during the period of the Holy Wars. With that being said, there is no rosy picture to paint. It should be dark and eerie and they captured that feel nicely both lyrically and sonically.

Side 2 of the album kicks off with one of the band’s best song called “Kings and Queens”. The song feels epic, grand and far beyond anything else they have ever done. The bass is extremely heavy, it has a mandolin by Jack Douglas, a banjo by Paul Prestopino, Tyler on piano and the rest of the band all in a world of their own making. Tyler gives what might be one of his greatest vocal performances as this song hits the mark on every aspect. It is so out of left field, yet so magical. Pure perfection!

Give the song a listen and let me know what you think. I think it should’ve gone higher than #70 on the Billboard Charts, but thats just me. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a wonderful and Happy Sunday.

“Kings And Queens”

Long ago in days I’m told
Were ruled by Lords of greed
Maidens fared with gold
They dared to bare their wombs that bleed

Kings and queens and guillotines
Taking lives denied
Starch and parchment laid the laws
When bishops took the ride
Only to deceive

Oh I know I lived this life afore
Somehow know now truths I must be sure
Tossin turnin’ nightmares burnin’ dreams of swords in hand
Sailin’ ships the Viking spits the blood of father’s land
Only to deceive

Living times of knights and mares
Raising swords for maidens fair
Sneer at death fear only loss of pride

Living other centuries
Deja vu or what you please
Follows true to all who do or die

Screams of no reply they died
Screams of no reply and died
Lordy lordy and then then they died
Lordy no then they died

Live and do or die
Long ago were days I told…Lord they died
Kings and queens and guillotines…
Live and no reply they died
Long ago were days I told…
Kings and queens and guillotines…

Written by Steven Tyler, Brad Whitford, Joey Kramer, Tom Hamilton and Jack Douglas

Aerosmith – The Albums Ranked From Worst to First (The Aerosmith Collection Series)

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Aerosmith…one of the greatest American Rock & Roll Bands. From the early 70’s the band has delivered, solid, good time, bluesy rock & roll. With 15 Studio albums, numerous live albums and compilations, they are a beloved American Icon. From the rough and raw days of the early Boston Bar band to the well-polished Stadium filled rock & roll band, they are as American apple pie.

Now the band has had issues, but for a majority of the career it has been Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, Tom Hamilton and Joey Kramer. Yes, some members went away for awhile, but the magic was always these five original guys. Alone, they are not the same…together they are magic. To celebrate this band, I went through all the albums in my collection (which was around 28 posts) and now we are going to rank their studio albums from Worst to First. So sit back, relax and get ready to be rocked like only Aerosmith can do it.

THE WORST – ‘MUSIC FROM ANOTHER DIMENSION (2012):

This album is so bloated with 16 tracks and at around 68 minutes and that is before the 3 bonus tracks on the 2nd disc which we will get to soon.  First off, yes, the packaging is better than the album.  The album does nothing for me but reinforce how tired I am of anything of Aerosmith’s past ‘Done With Mirrors’.  This series has reenforced that for me…big time.  Although I could pull out ‘Honkin’ on Bobo’.  The album is too much of everything and not enough of Aerosmith if that makes sense.  If this ends up being the last studio album, it is a shame. My Overall Score is 2.0 out of 5.0 Stars.  I didn’t enjoy this one and it didn’t get better with each listen. Sorry.

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Aerosmith – ‘Rockin’ The Joint’ (2005) – Album Review (The Aerosmith Collection Series)

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Back in 2002, the band was towards the end of their Just Push Play Tour and the band played a real intimate show at The Joint at The Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, NV. The band played more deep cuts then normal and recorded the show. The album was finally released over three years later on October 25, 2005 and went to #24 on the Billboard Charts. The band was the still the original guys with Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, Tom Hamilton and Joey Kramer…and there was an additional player for this show and that was Russ Irwin on keyboards. The album was produced by Steven and Marti Frederiksen.

The set list for the show was an astounding 26 songs and out of those there were some great deep cuts they hadn’t played in a long while, but the bad thing was the whole show wasn’t released. The album release only had 11 songs and you would get 2 more if you had the Japanese Edition or the Target Edition as well. That is a crying shame and a massive defect with this release. I am not sure I understand why they didn’t release the whole show. Big mistake.

My copy of the album is the Dual Disc version with the CD on one side and a DVD on the other. The DVD side is only the Enhanced PCM Stereo audio of the album on DVD, but not the actual show. It also has 4 Special Live Video Performances and some Exclusive Behind-The-Scenes Footage. There are two exclusive bonus tracks on the DVD that are the bonus tracks on the Target Exclusive Edition of the CD. The case of the CD is shaped a little different than the normal CD. There is a little button on the front that you push to open the disc. It is a cool version to have in the collection.

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Aerosmith – ‘Pandora’s Box’ (1991) – Album Review (The Aerosmith Collection Series)

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Columbia Records was taking full advantage of the band’s new found popularity on Geffen Records. Even though they lost the band to another label, they still could release Aerosmith material for everything they had rights to and that was quite a bit. They kicked off with two live releases ‘Classics Live!’ and ‘Classics Live! II’ as well as compilation called ‘Gems’. The cool things about those releases is there were no repeats from old live albums or greatest hits collection. It made it enticing for collectors. And this was no different. Released on November 19, 1991, this was a 3 CD compilation full of the bands greatest hits (while under Columbia) with a ton of previously unreleased material. That alone makes this worth getting. There are 31 previously released cuts and 21 unreleased consisting of live, alternative mixes and pure rarities.

I am lucky enough to have the long box version and it really is a box. It contains a book plus 3 CDs all in jewel cases with artwork. If you picked up a later version, the long box was replaced with a cardboard sleeve and the book was shrunk down to CD case size. The set I have is the one you want…in my opinion at least. The box set did real well going to #45 on the Billboard Charts and it was eventually certified Platinum on August 16, 1996. If I’m not mistaken, since the set includes 3 CDs, they only had to sell 333,334 copies to reach the 1 million sold platinum status. Someday, I might go song by song, but for now I am sticking to an overview of each disc and what I like about it each one. So let us get to it.

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Aerosmith – ‘Classics Live! II’ (1987) – Album Review (The Aerosmith Collection Series)

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As we mentioned in the prior post on ‘Classics Live!’, the band Aerosmith had reunited with Brad Whitford and Joe Perry and went out on tour to celebrate the reunion. That tour was the Back in the Saddle Tour. The band had been on Columbia Records, but jumped ship and signed with Geffen Records in hopes of getting back in the good graces of the buying public. They planned out and released their comeback album ‘Done With Mirrors’ with little fanfare at least that was until they were on the Run DMC cover of their song “Walk This Way”. That combination of Hip Hop and Rock joining together and being celebrated so much on MTV brought them back in to the limelight.

This new found fame was great for Columbia Records because the bands new deal with Geffen still allowed Columbia to release material they owned of the band, which was a lot. Columbia took full advantage of this opportunity and the first release was a live compilation called ‘Classics Live!’ in April 1986. This time around in June 1987, a little over a year later, Columbia released ‘Classics Live! II’.

This time around the album is mostly one show which was the New Year’s Eve show at Orpheum Theatre, Boston, Massachusetts, December 31, 1984. It had all five original members back in action. There are two additional songs from other shows, but like the other songs, it is the full gang back together. Nice thing is there are no repeats songs from ‘Classics Live!’ and four of the song titles were not on ‘Live! Bootleg’. There are just 8 songs like before so it isn’t a full show. It is purely a money grab by Columbia, but as a collector, I don’t care. I’ll take it. Plus, it would be 11 years before we get another live album from the band which we will get to eventually.

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Aerosmith – ‘Greatest Hits’ (1980) – Album Review (The Aerosmith Collection Series)

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Aerosmith was a mess by this point in time. The drug use was out of control and during a show in Portland, Maine, Steven Tyler collapsed on stage. Even if that didn’t make matters worse, Steven was later in a really bad motorcycle accident that left him hospitalized for two months. It was a scary time and they needed a break. One way to do that was for the record label to release a greatest hits compilation which they did and on November 11, 1980, the ‘Greatest Hits’ compilation was released.

The album didn’t do that well as it only charted at #43. However, over the years it grew in popularity and has wound up being one of their biggest selling albums of all times with sales well over 11 million which would certify it as Diamond. Hell, I’ve bought it twice at least.

The track list was short at only 10 songs, but they are 10 great Aerosmith classics. While some songs are straight from the albums they were on, others have been edited. The album also included the Beatles cover of “Come Together” off the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Soundtrack. Now, they have reissued the album with a bunch more tracks, but we are sticking with the original track listing. Now, my version is the CD version of it for some reason as I could’ve sworn I had a vinyl of this, but apparently not.

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