Aerosmith
Permanent Vacation

THE REVIEW

AEROSMITH - PERMANENT VACATION (1987, GEFFEN)

TRACK LIST:

01) HEART’S DONE TIME
02) MAGIC TOUCH
03) RAG DOLL
04) SIMORIAH
05) DUDE (LOOKS LIKE A LADY)
06) ST. JOHN
07) HANGMAN JURY
08) GIRL KEEP COMING APART
09) ANGEL
10) PERMANENT VACATION
11) I’M DOWN
12) THE MOVIE

In 1987 there is a big celebration on the dirty streets and grimy sidewalks of American metropolises: the explosion of Guns N’ Roses, with the unstoppable street-style charge of “Appetite For Destruction” and the aggressive confirmation of Motley Crue with the raw and gritty “Girls, Girls, Girls” brings street rock definitively to the fore, resurrecting seventies ghosts thought to be forever dissolved.

Aerosmith do not stand by and watch, and after the release of a respectable platter like “Done With Mirrors” (produced by Ted Templeman, already with Van Halen and David Lee Roth, and quickly becoming a gold record in the USA), they attack the new generation with a product of the highest quality, which manages to project the formula that had made them great in the previous decade directly onto the reckless scene of the moment. Steven Tyler's inimitable voice bursts with violence into a musical context that fits perfectly with the party-oriented attitude of the Boston combo: “Permanent Vacation”, also thanks to the production of Bruce Fairbairn (listen, if you have the chance, to his work with Poison in the delightful “Flesh & Blood”) flies high in the charts and sells five million copies in the USA alone, bringing Aerosmith back to the attention of a broader audience, in a scene setting more suited to their talent. The dark times are just a memory, and new and exciting scenarios are opening up for the east-coast quintet.

Exalted by internationally significant singles with notable appeal such as the legendary “Rag Doll” and “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” enhanced by a powerful horn section, the album stands out especially for an extraordinary cohesiveness, so much so that “Permanent Vacation” can be identified as the best work released by the 'Smiths since the powerful “Toys In The Attic”. The Tyler/Perry duo returns to the author ballad with the wonderful “Angel”, a successful episode also in terms of songwriting, capable of satisfying the refined palates that have long been fasting and able to expand the fab-five's audience to the horde of girls in love with the slows of Motley Crue, Ratt, and Great White, all groups heavily indebted to the same Boston band. The atmosphere permeating this album is that of times gone by: Joe Perry is incredibly inspired, it would be enough to listen to one of the aforementioned singles or his superb work on “Magic Touch” and the swamp-song “Hangman Jury”, to justify my words. Great is also the work behind the skins of Joey Kramer, portrayed here in one of his most convincing performances ever. Above all this, to give the band that extra gear necessary to snatch the scepter from the new rulers, come like a bolt from the blue the war cries of vocalist Steven Tyler, perfectly at ease transforming a classic composed by John Lennon, the rhythmic “I'm Down”, into a shocking explosive piece.

Far more dynamic and less ingratiating than the subsequent and more sold “Pump” (seven million copies in the USA), this platter shows the rawer and wilder soul of Aerosmith, taking the calendar back to the mid-70s and thus giving us one last unforgettable work before the total conversion to the so-called “sentimental-financial” trend that will increasingly characterize all of the group's subsequent albums (see the mediocre “Nine Lives” or the anonymous “Just Push Play”), filled with insipid ballads and totally devoid of magnetic energy.

“Permanent Vacation” is the clear proof of how one can succeed in producing a classy album, where prose and poetry indulge in amusing confrontations and achieve global success without by necessity descending into a banal commercial operation. In my opinion, the present album represents the last chance for every rocker to hear Aerosmith genuinely playing truly epochal songs, supreme syntheses of a glorious past and a present more lively than ever. Everything that follows, is pure vanity.

(Enrico Rosticci)