Like its predecessor, Pump
is a pop album. Even more of one,
actually: four hit singles this time, as opposed to Permanent Vacation’s three.
Also like its predecessor, it features a few of-the-time production
choices that have not stood up well over the years (reverb, REVERB, REVERB!)
Happily, this is where the comparison ends: Pump is focused, consistently well-written, and most importantly it
feels like a true Aerosmith album. One
crafted (cannily, it can be argued) for a different audience than the so-called “blue army” that made up the band’s core audience in the ‘70s, but a true Aerosmith
album just the same.
Apart from the simply better songs, the main difference here
is Steven Tyler. Flush with success from
his last at-bat, no longer seems to feel the need to hold his tongue or his
tonsils. His singing is absolutely
superb throughout the record – arguably, it’s his best ever – and the lyrics
once again manage to be both dirty and
clever. The example can be perfectly
underlined thusly: compare “Rag Doll”, Permanent
Vacation’s sleaziest moment, with “F.I.N.E.”, its (shall we say) spiritual
companion on Pump. It’s not even remotely a fair fight: while
the former finds Tyler mostly reduced to merely yelling “do me” a lot, the
latter unleashes a veritable torrent of fingerprinted filth that couldn’t have
possibly come from anyone else’s mind.
It would be horribly offensive, if it weren’t so dazzling and
amusing. That’s our boy.
What truly sets Pump
apart from all other latter-day Aerosmith albums is that it’s the last time the
band truly sounded hungry. They all
perform here as though their very lives and careers depend on it; as though
they are primed to prove to the world that their resurrection last time around
was no fluke. Although the four hit
singles (“Love in an Elevator”, “What it Takes”, “Janie’s Got a Gun”, “The Other
Side”) have, with the exception of the eternally underrated last of those, long
ago been played out by radio, they still don’t feel quite as stale as those
from Permanent Vacation. Where Pump
still truly has the capacity to amaze is in its lesser-known material: the
one-two punch of “Young Lust” and the aforementioned “F.I.N.E.” is one of the
great album-opening sequences of the ‘80s.
“Voodoo Medicine Man” re-introduces funk rhythms to the band’s arsenal
in a big, bad way, and “Monkey on My Back” just flat-out rocks, man. If “My Girl” and
“Don’t Get Mad, Get Even” feel ever so slightly like filler, I’m willing to cut ‘em a bit
of slack: they’re great filler, and both fit the overall flow of the album.
This time around, the summation is simple: Pump was Aerosmith’s last absolute
triumph of an album. Its quality and
concision – at just over 45 minutes, it’s got perfect timing – should have
served as a template for the rest of the band’s studio career. In fact, I’ve never quite understood why it
didn’t, but we’ll get into that next week.
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