Aerosmith / YMMV - TV Tropes

Awesome Music: Where do we start?
- Here's a few good starting points: Toys in the Attic (the album), Rocks, Permanent Vacation, and Pump. From start to finish.
- "Janie's Got a Gun" and especially the music video for it which still packs a punch even today with the combination of sobering subject matter, stark imagery and emotional resonance.
- "Dream On". A beautiful ballad and a great song to kick off their career.
Broken Base:
- Some say the band was better when they were all on drugs (liking everything up to Done with Mirrors), others say they started sucking in the '90s (liking everything up to Pump), still others say they started sucking with Just Push Play, still others like all their material. Also, with the recent fights between Steven and Joe, the fanbase seems to be siding with either Steven or Joe. Also, American Idol: excellent PR move or terrible sell-out move for Steven? You decide.
- Some people don't like that they incorporated outside songwriters (from Desmond Child to Diane Warren and everyone in-between) and accuse them of selling out.
Covered Up:
- Country Music Fan sez, "Hey, ain't 'Fever' a Garth Brooks song?" Strange case bordering on In Name Only because Brooks' version was also heavily re-written to be about the thrill of being a rodeo rider instead of being a r-rated Intercourse with You song.
- From the British music magazine Q: "People who hear the original version of 'Walk This Way' tend to think that it would sound better with a big beat behind it, and maybe some rapping."
- "Train Kept A-Rollin'" is essentially a cover of the Yardbirds' cover of a Johnny Burnette and the Rock & Roll Trio cover of a Tiny Bradshaw song. It is likely best-known version of that song.
Ending Fatigue: A few songs have a Big Rock Ending that goes on too long, such as "Amazing" (that even starts an old school radio broadcast when the solo ends!), "Out Go the Lights" and the Run-DMC version of "Walk this Way".
Epic Riff: "Walk This Way", "Dream On", "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)", "Sweet Emotion" (bass).
Fanon Discontinuity: As listed above, the fandom often squabbles on what to acknowledge in their discography. The band itself agrees Night in the Ruts and Rock In a Hard Place should be ignored.
First Installment Wins: "Dream On" was their first hit and first single ever released, and there's a sizeable amount of fans who consider it the Signature Song for Aerosmith and their best work.
Hilarious in Hindsight: "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)". Look at Steven now.
- Also hilarious in hindsight from that, is Steven did a dance similar to the dance that Psy did in his song "Gangnam Style".
Ho Yay: Joe and Steven. Good Lord, Joe and Steven. An interesting mix with their Vitriolic Best Buds dynamic.
I Am Not Shazam: Steven's name is not Aerosmith. This is only really a problem in people that aren't fans of the band or only know Steven as the judge from American Idol. It's still a pretty bad idea to call Steven "Aerosmith" around fans of the band, though.
Memetic Mutation:
- "EVERY ALBUM IS AEROSMITH", which spawned from the tumblr of the same name, which takes any album cover out there and changes the title to either Sweet Emotion or just slapping the band name and the description saying it's Sweet Emotion.
- In the early 2020s, a clip from the intro of God of War paired with the chorus to "Dream On" caught on as a gag.
Moment of Awesome:
- Steven Tyler singing God Bless America at the 2010 Red Sox opener doubles as this and Heartwarming because, for all the crap he went through in 2009, he still sings with so much power and emotion...
- "Living on the Edge" at the 1994 Castle Donnington Monsters of Rock festival. The outdoor venue is on a main flight path and the band timed the song so that a 747 flew low overhead at the exact point of the musical break in the song before continuing.
Narm Charm: Halfway through "You See Me Crying", one of their earliest Power Ballads, Steven Tyler goes into a particularly strained falsetto that ends up making him sound like Donald Duck - it should (and does) sound silly, but somehow the music is epic enough to make it work.
Nightmare Fuel: "Janie's Got a Gun." Good grief.
No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: The band's sexually charged lyrics made them a Parents Music Resource Center target, leading to the removal of the lyric sheet off Pump. An acceptance speech at the 1990 VMAs had Steven saying "Thank you Tipper (Gore) and Jesse (Helms), for making sure that as long as there are a few four-letter words on the album, it'll sell an extra million copies!"
Older Than They Think: Because of the band's fade during the early 80s and resurgence in the later part of the decade and the beginning of the 90s, it's not uncommon for younger people to not realize just how long the band has been around, and to only be familiar with their music from the 90s forward.
- Even for fans, many were surprised to find that the 90s recording of "Sweet Emotion" was a re-recording from Toys in the Attic.
The Problem with Licensed Games: Revolution X was a big hit on the arcade systems, but when they decided to port it to home systems, its... everything... took a massive hit.
Retroactive Recognition: Josh Holloway, who is best known these days for Lost and Colony, plays a thief who tries to steal Alicia Silverstone's purse in the "Cryin'" video.
Signature Song: Many, but "Dream On" is ultimately this, as it's easily their most popular and recognizable song overall, as well as one of the biggest classics in rock music history (several surveys place it as the single most played song in the history of the Classic Rock radio format). The closest contender is "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing", technically their biggest hit on the charts and their second most streamed song on the Internet, although it's kind of a Black Sheep Hit and wasn't even written by the band.
- By album
  - Aerosmith: "Dream On".
  - Toys in the Attic: "Walk This Way" and "Sweet Emotion".
  - Rocks: "Back in the Saddle".
  - Permanent Vacation: "Dude Looks Like a Lady", although "Angel" and "Rag Doll" are runner-up songs.
  - Pump: "Janie's Got a Gun", "Love in an Elevator" and "What it Takes".
  - Get a Grip: "Crazy" and "Cryin'", followed by "Amazing" and "Livin' on the Edge".
  - Nine Lives: "Pink" and "Hole in My Soul".
  - Just Push Play: "Jaded", with "Fly Away From Here" not too far behind.
Song Association: "Line Up" from Get a Grip is often associated with Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, where it's featured in a montage of Ace checking the AFC championship rings of Miami Dolphins players and coaches to see who among them kidnapped their team mascot Snowflake.
Stuck in Their Shadow: Aerosmith is divided by fans into the Toxic Twins (frontman Steven Tyler and lead guitarist Joe Perry) and the Less Interesting Three or LI3 (rhythm guitarist Brad Whitford, bassist Tom Hamilton and drummer Joey Kramer). One could make an argument, however, that all five are essential to the band's sound.
- The Less Interesting Three get some good representation on the classic albums. On Get Your Wings, Kramer co-wrote "Pandora's Box". On Toys in the Attic, Hamilton co-wrote "Sweet Emotion" and Whitford co-wrote "Round and Round". And on Rocks, Whitford co-wrote "Last Child" and "Nobody's Fault" and Hamilton co-wrote "Sick as a Dog". Hamilton also co-wrote "Janie's Got a Gun" from Pump.
Win Back the Crowd: One of the most famous examples in musical history. They were among the defining hard rock bands of the 1970s and had a massive influence on the then-fledgling heavy metal scene. However, the early-80s were anything but kind to the band, as nasty drug addictions and a string of mediocre albums temporarily doomed them to "has-been" status. But in 1986, the tides turned. They collaborated with Run–D.M.C. to re-record "Walk This Way" (one of the first notable fusions of rock and hip hop), and 1987's Permanent Vacation further paved the way for a comeback. It finally happened with 1989's Pump. Widely considered to be both their big comeback album and one of the greatest hard rock albums of the late '80s.
What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: In the late '90s/early 2000s, the band somehow became seen as a "family-friendly" band due to stuff like the Rock'n'Rollercoaster at the Disney Hollywood Studios theme park, their appearances on the Kids Choice Awards, and even a song on the Rugrats Go Wild soundtrack. Of course, nobody ever thought to read the lyrics of their albums, which are full of explicit sex (as well as isolated songs about violence and drug abuse). Heck, this is the group that had a song titled "Love In An Elevator"...A song that has the immortal line "Living it up when I'm going down". And it's featured in said rollercoaster (though retitled "Love in a Roller Coaster"). As well as other Intercourse with You songs, such as "Young Lust" and "F.I.N.E." If Steven and Joe had written "Bikini Bottom Boogie", the song they wrote for The Spongebob Musical, in the '70s, odds are it would have an entirely different meaning.

YMMV / Aerosmith

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