Customer Reviews

Aerosmith - Gold

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

THE BAND: Steven Tyler (vocals, piano, harmonica), Joe Perry (guitars), Brad Whitford (guitars), Tom Hamilton (bass), Joey Kramer (drums & percussion).

THE DISC: (2005) 2 discs containing 34 tracks and approximately 158 minutes of music (78:56 on disc-1, 79:48 on disc-2). Included with the discs is an 18-page booklet containing some great band photos (studio and concert pictures), a 9-page brief history of the band, song titles & credits and what songs came from which albums. Songs on "Gold" range from material written from 1985 through their live album "A Little South Of Sanity" in 1998. Label - Geffen.

ALBUM REPRESENTATION: Done With Mirrors (3), Permanent Vacation (6), Pump (6), Get A Grip (6), Big Ones (2), A Little South Of Sanity (4), B-Sides/Misc (7).

COMMENTS: Like many other reviewers here, I too have to raise the question - how many Aerosmith compilations do we really need? As of 2005, I put Steven Tyler and Joe Perry right up there with Kiss' Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley money hungry mits... simply too many (Greatest Hits, Gems, Box Of Fire, Big Ones, O Yeah!, Pandora's Box, Made In America, Young Lust... and now Gold). Though many a negative review here, I'll take the opposite route and point out the good. First and foremost is all the B-Sides and rarities all in one place... "Ain't Enough" (from "Pump" - Japan only release), the Doors' remake of "Love Me Two Times" (soundtrack of "Air America"), "Head First" ("Eat The Rich" - Germany only release), "Don't Stop" (unreleased B-Side), "Can't Stop Messin' (unreleased B-Side), "Deuces Are Wild (soundtrack of "Beavis & Butt-Head Experience"), as well as the 2 previously unreleased songs from "Big Ones" ("Walk On Water" and "Blind Man"), and acoustic/orchestra versions of "Livin' On The Edge" and "Amazing" respectively. "Gold" runs similar to "Young Lust - The Aerosmith Anthology" (2001), but I'll take this one due to these special hard-to-find tracks. Keep in mind also - this is a GEFFEN release - anything they did with Columbia is not here (which is all their classic 70's material and anything from "Nine Lives" or "Just Push Play")... for contractual reasons. I have all of Aerosmith's studio albums on disc, but never took the plunge on a compilation of theirs... simply because I loved all their albums so thoroughly. I looked over the other Aero compilations - and went with "Gold" fairly easily. If you want a best of package to compliment this one, go with "Greatest Hits" or "Gems" which is strictly their 70's material. The only thing I disagree with is in the cd booklet where the author writes "Some things get better with age... Aerosmith rocks harder after 30 years in the business"... well, the band certainly still rocks, but I honestly don't think they rock as HARD as they did in the 70's. As far as track selection goes - the songs taken from the above mentioned studio albums are pretty much dead on (in my opinion missing only "Flesh", "Magic Touch" and Hoodoo Voodoo - Medicine Man") ...overall great track selections (4.5 stars).

This is a repackage of "Young Lust" (which I don't think did well due to "O Yeah" being released the same year), which is good if you like the "Permanent Vacation" to "Get a Grip" era. They went back to Sony/Columbia for "Just Push Play", "9 Lives" and "Honkin On Bobo" and the song they did for "Armageddon" won't be here....

The only good thing about this are the alternates and b-sides. I think if you have "Pandora's Box" this one is a good supplement to it. But everything from mid-90s on would be left out...

"O Yeah" is still the most comprehensive and has the best of both labels.

I think Geffen (the label that sued Neil Young for not sounding like Neil Young when he was on the label) would've been better off putting out the videos on DVD and rereleasing "Big Ones" as a combo CD/DVD as well as the MTV "Unplugged" they did.

The music's still good, but the fact that it's a repackage of a CD that wasn't released that long ago takes this one down a few pegs.

I don't want to overwhelm anybody with a lot of unnecessary babbling, so please, bear with me: this is a REPACKAGING of a previous compilation called "Young Lust" released in 2001, which focused on the "Geffen Years 1985-1997", meaning by that that the compilation includes songs from "Done with Mirrors" (1985), "Permanent Vacation" (1987), "Pump" (1989), "Get a Grip" (1993), "Big Ones" (1994, Greatest Hits package) and "A little south of sanity" (1997, live album). This one has THE EXACT SAME SONGS as "Young Lust", but with a MAJOR difference (the change in the cover notwithstanding): the price. It's probably half the price of the original. And please, please, bear in mind the following: THIS IS NOT, I REPEAT, NOT A GREATEST HITS PACKAGE!!!

It is an anthology, so it features A LOT of material that NEVER made it to the radio. If you're looking for the "hits" and nothing but the hits of that era, you need to get "Big Ones". But if you're interested in digging deeper into that period of the band's career, AND THAT PERIOD EXCLUSIVELY, then go ahead and get this: my guess is that you'll be pleasantly surprised by some of the songs included here, most of which have been overlooked, such as the material from "...Mirrors" (some of my fav overall), some non-album tracks (the cover of The Doors "Love me two times", tracks only previously available on singles and/or imports, such as "Can't stop Messin'", "Head First", etc) and some live tracks (good renditions of "Dream On", "Sweet Emotion").

Bottom Line:
- if you're a die hard, 70's Aerosmith fan: sorry, this compilation is probably not going to cut it for you. Get "O Yeah Ultimate Hits!" instead.
- if you're an Aerosmith completist: by all means, get this!! You'll find all of their latter day hits, and a few nuggets as well.
- if you're a casual fan: avoid this. It is probably a little too "complete" for you, since quite a bit of the material included will not be familiar to you. Get "Big Ones" or "O Yeah Ultimate Hits" instead.

Heck I should have known better but I didn't. The two songs that I was excited to buy off of this album which were "Sweet Emotion" and "Dream On" are LIVE VERSIONS! which are NOT LABELED as such on this collection therefor misleading many a poor soul to believe they are downloading the original versions. It's my fault I should have guessed it wasn't that easy being able to purchase them both at 99 cents when on the original albums they came from they're only available as "album only" so I should have figured it wouldn't be that easy.

This is known as false advertising. You see Amazon can always turn around and claim they didn't lie or mislead anyone and in a way they would be right. You see they're guilty of "lies of omission" by not telling you upfront that the songs that I've mentioned are live and not the original studio versions that they haven't labeled thus. What's it to them you mistakenly bought the wrong songs? That's still a buck in their pockets. Just remember to be advised everything here may not be as it seems.

Yes, folks, this is an exact re-release of Young Lust. That one was released only 5 years before this and was remastered, so the sound quality is the same. The reason that only the Geffen stuff is on here is that Young Lust was put out by Geffen. If you have that, skip this. If you don't have that, buy this! This makes a great companion to Pandora's Box, as that set is a 3-CD box covering only their original Columbia years.

Fans of Aeromsmith may notice that the track listing on this album looks conspicuously like that of a greatest hits collection, "Young Lust: The Aerosmith Anthology," released less than four years ago and now conveniently unavailable at a discounted price. Perhaps unaware that the lack of sales in the previously collection was most likely related to the release of yet another Aerosmith greatest hits album in 2002 by Columbia, Geffen Records has slapped a new cover and title on the 2001 anthology and rereleased it, presumably hoping to sucker a few fans into buying a new copy. Fortunately, it appears to be near the bottom of Amazon's CD sales rankings as of this review (I only came across it because Amazon's algorithms put it on the home page for me), and that is precisely where it should stay.

Oh, the actual musical content warrants four stars, by the way. But who really cares at this point?

I'm not sure why people are so down on the 2-disc Aerosmith Gold collection. Sure there are dozens of Aerosmith compilations out there, and I get that Gold is essentially a repackaging of the Young Lust: The Aerosmith Anthology collection, but nobody is being forced to buy it. People (OK, maybe it's just me) recognize the quality of these Gold collections, and it makes sense that there would be an Aerosmith Gold collection.

For my part, I'm not a big Aerosmith fan, but wanted a collection of the better-known stuff, both pre- and post-Permanent Vacation. Gold provided that quite nicely. It features 34 songs, including a few live tracks, acoustic and orchestral alternate versions, a cover of the Doors hit "Love Me Two Times" and perhaps most importantly the legendary Run DMC collaboration on "Walk This Way". The songs have been digitally remastered for superior sound, and the price was reasonable. What's to complain about?

If you're a serious Aerosmith fan, there's really no need for you to own Gold. Likewise if you have the Young Lust collection, Gold isn't offering anything new. For casual fans like me though, Gold should prove to be all the Aerosmith you need (and then some).

Is it really necissary to make another Greatest Hits by Aerosmith? I am the biggest Aerosmith fan you will ever find, I think they are the biggest and best band of all time.... but this, a fith best of package, its just not needed. It makes the band look bad. The record labels keep putting these out in hopes of milking the fans and Aerosmith has nothing to do with it. This is the same package as the Young Lust package but with a new title and cover. We all own these songs so why re-release them again and again.

For what it is worth this is good. This has all the best Aerosmith from 1985 to 1997, well for the most part at least, there are a few missteps here and there but other then that this is good. Where else can you find Aerosmith covering The Doors classic 'Love Me Two Times?' The band actually plays with the surviving members on that track, mean how cool is that?

I just wish that record companies couldnt do this and use bands material at their own dimsay. Its criminal if you ask me. I truly believe this should be against the law. But like I said for what this is its a good represntation of Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, Tom Hamilton, and Joey Kramer in the 1980's and 1990's. So if you are a fan of Aerosmith's more recent popular music then sure go ahead and buy it or just leave this to the diehards like myself.

Well, I just got this album today. Don't listen to those other reviews that say this album sucks. One really DUMB actually said that there was no walk this way and dream on. ALL OF THEM ARE ON THERE. Yes, some of the older 70's songs are missing, but that doesn't mean this is a bad album. Come on people, you got 24 songs on two CD's. You get love in an elevator, walk this way, dude (looks like a lady), dream on, livin' on the edge and many more. If you dont believe me, LOOK AT THE ITEM DESCRIPTION!!!! This is the one album that you will buy that you will never regret.

My husband and I really like Steven Tyler on American Idol, and wanted to remember his old songs. We'll listen on our way to Reno, and sing!