Aerosmith Album: “O, Yeah! Ultimate Aerosmith Hits”

What a waste. Columbia/Sony could've compiled 2 discs worth of all of the great songs from Aerosmith's first seven studio albums and paired them with stuff from "Nine Lives", "Just Push Play", and the "Armageddon" soundtrack (all on the Columbia/Sony label), and by putting that against Geffen's "Young Lust: The Aerosmith Anthology", you would've had four CD's worth of truly ALL the Aerosmith hits. But Columbia had to cop out and partner with Geffen, the label responsible for navigating the band's triumphant late-80's comeback, to shoehorn in the usual array of hits that had already been covered on "Big Ones" and again on "Young Lust".

So instead of the "ultimate" collection, you are left with plethora of missing tracks: "Toys In The Attic", "No More, No More", "You See Me Crying", "Train Kept A-Rollin", "Sick As A Dog", "Lightning Strikes", "Kings And Queens", "Come Together", "Remember (Walking In The Sand)", "What Kind of Love Are You On", "Hole In My Soul", "Fly Away From Here", etc.

If you want to come as close as you can to collecting all of Aerosmith's hits without having to get all of the original albums, pick up "Greatest Hits", "Gems", and "Young Lust: The Aerosmith Anthology". The latter collects pretty much everything you could ask for from their Geffen years, and the first two are decent overviews of their first six classic albums (severely edited versions of "Same Old Song And Dance", "Sweet Emotion", and "Kings And Queens" aside). Me personally - I've just got all of the studio albums.

First let's address the album's atrocious title. On top of being a mouthful, "O Yeah! Ultimate Aerosmith Hits" is one of the lamest names for a Greatest Hits collection ever. But to be fair, Aerosmith have put out so many hits collections that they're running out of good titles to use. That said, this is definitely the Aerosmith hits collection you'll want to get. "Greatest Hits" and "Big Ones" were both snapshots of a certain point in Aerosmith's career, but "O Yeah!..." encapsulates their entire career (through 2002). All their bigs are here, conveniently in chronological order, except for the Run-DMC version of "Walk This Way" which is wisely put at the end of Disc 2 (the original is on Disc 1). Listening to the songs in order, it's easy to track Aerosmith's career from rock underdogs to the comeback kids to '90s ballad kings. And since everybody has a favorite Aerosmith track, or five, you can be guaranteed that the album will have something for everybody.

On top of 28 of their hits, the albums includes two new numbers: "Girls of Summer" and "Lay It Down". The former is something of a miss: it's basically just generic top 40 summer rock. The latter is a should-have-been-a-hit ballad in the vein of "Angel".

Inevitably Aerosmith will continue to release albums, and by extension, greatest hits albums. But for right now, this is the one with all their hits, and it's worth every penny you'll spend.

When you heard about this release, you were probably thinking "another day, another Aerosmith greatest hits package." And in many ways you were correct to think that. However, let me start by saying that this is their best Greatest Hits compilation to date. Using two discs instead of just one allows for a good deal more material to be covered (this covers nearly a thirty-year timespan!) Now for the actual material. Needless to say, just about every major hit of the band's is here (Dream On, Same Old Song And Dance, Sweet Emotion, Walk This Way, Back In The Saddle, Rag Doll, Cryin', Jaded, and pretty much any other well-known song by the band.) And then we get a few tracks that aren't on any actual albums (I Don't Want To Miss A Thing from the Armageddon soundtrack, remix versions of Pink and Just Push Play, and, of course, the Run DMC version of Walk This Way.) There are two new tracks as well (Girls Of Summer, Lay It Down), and we even get an EXTREMELY early track from the band entitled Mama Kin which sounds TOTALLY different from anything else they have done over the years. For the most part Disc 1 covers the band's hard rock years (1970's-mid 1980's) and Disc 2 covers their more pop-rock oriented stuff (mid 1980's-present.) The hard rock to pop rock transformation is similar to Def Leppard in a way, but Aerosmith, unlike Def Leppard, can make pop songs that are even better than a good deal of their rock songs! Listen to Falling In Love and you'll see what I mean. The songs on this compilation are also in order of original release for the most part, something not many greatest hits albums do. Unfortunately, some cool tracks from the compilation simply entitled Aerosmith's Greatest Hits were not included here (Kings And Queens, and their cover of The Beatles' Come Together.) If you have any other Aerosmith greatest hits album (or all of their studio albums), there is really no reason to buy this. However, this is THE BEST Aerosmith Greatest Hits album to date without question, so if you get one of their hits compilations, make it this one. The price is a bit higher due to it being two disc, but the extra cash is worth it.

Admittedly, the 70s were Aerosmith's raunchy heyday. From the runway tale of "Mama Kin" to the slow and dirty funk of "Back in the Saddle," the band just exhuded an unrepentant sleazyness that made them oh-so-great. This era is represented by about 10 tracks.

And then, the compilation takes us to 1987. After the rift between Perry and Tyler has been fixed, the band re-enters the public conciousness after the collaboration with Run DMC '86. The band goes on to create alright tunes for the rest of the decade. Alas, most of these tracks are subject to the overwrought productions values of the time. Well, at least the songs still have echoes of the old Aerosmith.

Disc 2, however, sees the band's sound utterly smothered. For some unknown reason, they opt to barrage us with the schlockiest ballads this side of Manillow. The compilation leads us to believe that the 1990s were entirely dedicated to the creation of such dross. Only in the new millenium does the band hit its stride again; "Jaded," "Just Push Play" & "Girls of Summer" see some bits of the old attitude re-emerge, albeit subdued and filtered through the banal production values of '00s.

The perspective offered on these discs is terrible. The first CD should have focused on the band's 70s peak, while the second should've accomodated the inferior 80s/90s/00s efforts. If anything, it should've also given us stuff from 77-86. Do you expect us to believe that the band was inert during that decade? Please.

Overall, the casual fan who wants the biggest hits should get this. However, he/she should be warned that this collection places to much emphasis on the "cleaner" era rather than on the raunchier 1970s.

Aerosmith is becoming one of those long-term bands with as many compilations as original albums. Examine the catalogs of The Who or The Rolling Stones for examples of this phenomenon. Aerosmith's problem is the three different major recording contracts during their career. Here is yet another collection of "greatest" hits, coming less than a year after the Young Lust collection. (For a great overview of the classic years, you still can't do better than the short and snappy Aerosmith's Greatest Hits from 1980.) Since then there have been numerous collections over the years, and you can take your pick based on your particular fave tracks. So what advantage does Oh Yeah have over all those others? This release does have the great advantage of collecting tracks from both of Aerosmith's record companies (the first compilation to do so), and it sure is nice to have classics like "Dream On" and later goodies like "Love in an Elevator" in one place. Here we also get the Run-DMC version of "Walk This Way." On the other hand, this collection has a blatant ten-year gap in the middle of disc 1, as the albums Night in the Ruts, Rock in a Hard Place, and Done with Mirrors are completely disregarded. Sure those albums were sub-par but they do contain some hidden gems of interest to hardcore fans. Meanwhile, remixes of "Pink" and "Just Push Play" are highly unnecessary, especially since those tracks weren't too exciting to start with. As a general overview covering all periods of Aerosmith's career, Oh Yeah is probably the most useful collection so far. However, in terms of the best song selection and coverage, the world is still waiting for the perfect Aerosmith compilation. I'm sure there will be many more attempts in coming years.