Toys in the Attic [SACD]

Performer: Aerosmith
Artist: Scott Cushnie
Engineer: Jay Messina
Producer: Jack Douglas
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: Aerosmith: Steven Tyler (vocals, harmonica, keyboards, percussion); Joe Perry (acoustic guitar, slide guitar, percussion, background vocals); Tom Hamilton (guitar, bass); Brad Whitford (guitar); Joey Kramer (drums, percussion). Additional personnel: Scott Cushnie (piano); Jay Messina (bass marimba). Recorded at the Record Plant, New York, New York. This is a Super Audio CD playable only on Super Audio CD players This is a Super Audio CD playable only on Super Audio CD players. Personnel: Joe Perry (vocals, guitar, acoustic guitar, slide guitar, percussion, background vocals); Steven Tyler (vocals, harmonica, keyboards, percussion); Joey Kramer (vocals, drums, percussion); Tom Hamilton, Brad Whitford (guitar); Scott Cushnie (piano); Jay Messina (marimba, percussion). Recording information: Record Plant, NY; The Record Plant, NY. Directors: Steve Leber; David Krebs. Illustrator: Ingrid Haenke. Photographer: Jimmy Ienner, Jr. Arrangers: Jack Douglas; Aerosmith; Michael Mainieri, Jr.; Steven Tyler. A truly inventive Aerosmith album, still suffused with a gloriously raspy sense of the blues, but quietly evocative in its timbre and approach. It showed Tyler working out lyrics that were so much more than simple cars and girls fodder, 'Adam's Apple' theorizing that creation could quite possibly have occurred with an alien mothership landing on earth and setting the wheels of the human race in motion. 'Sweet Emotion' throbbed slowly into life, 'Big Ten Inch Record', a salty R&B work-out, while 'You See Me Crying' was heightened and given body by a warm orchestration. A clear steeple of great work amid a skyline of repeating successes. After nearly getting off the ground with Get Your Wings, Aerosmith finally perfected their mix of Stonesy raunch and Zeppelin-esque riffing with their third album, Toys in the Attic. The success of the album derives from a combination of an increased sense of songwriting skills and purpose. Not only does Joe Perry turn out indelible riffs like "Walk This Way," "Toys in the Attic," and "Sweet Emotion," but Steven Tyler has fully embraced sleaziness as his artistic muse. Taking his cue from the old dirty blues "Big Ten Inch Record," Tyler writes with a gleeful impishness about sex throughout Toys in the Attic, whether it's the teenage heavy petting of "Walk This Way," the promiscuous "Sweet Emotion," or the double-entendres of "Uncle Salty" and "Adam's Apple." The rest of Aerosmith, led by Perry's dirty, exaggerated riffing, provide an appropriately greasy backing. Before Toys in the Attic, no other hard rock band sounded like this. Sure, Aerosmith cribbed heavily from the records of the Rolling Stones, New York Dolls, and Led Zeppelin, but they didn't have any of the menace of their influences, nor any of their mystique. Aerosmith was a gritty, street-wise hard rock band who played their blues as blooze and were in it for a good time; Toys in the Attic crystallizes that attitude. [The SACD edition boasts multichannel stereo sound.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Q (6/91) - 4 Stars - Excellent - "...Aerosmith at their best don't just let their songs rest on a good riff, and "Toys" is full of the intricate harmonies and nifty instrumental breaks that make a hard rock record fun to listen to even with the volume down low..."

A hard-rocking, no-holds-barred American group fronted by the wiry Steven Tyler, Aerosmith plays heavy riffs with a blues underpinning. After huge hits and sold-out tours in the 1970s, the band sank into oblivion for the first half of the '80s. They returned on the crest of Run-DMC's version of "Walk This Way" in 1986, and rode back up the charts with their rehabilitated rock, cranking out slick videos to gain a new generation of fans. Having hitched their star to MTV, they took on the role of rock's elder statesmen.

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