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Post by tomhamilton on Jul 12, 2024 20:37:17 GMT -5
The older I get, the less I care what people think, so I'll just say it - I love Just Push Play. Same here!!! Not my favorite, but I like, and still listen to it from time to time. Not their best, but there are some solid tunes in it! Jaded is a blast, Fly Away from Here sounds great, Luv Lies is a beautiful ballad, Beyond Beautiful is a great opening track, Light Inside, with some production rework could have been a great rocker, and Avant Garden is just haunting, one of their finest songs in this millenium
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Post by whatashame on Jul 13, 2024 4:11:25 GMT -5
team Just Push Play reporting for action!
I became a massive Aerosmith fan in 1993, when I was only six years old. Too young to be able to stay on top of things, but I knew when their music was playing it made me feel super good an suddenly life was that much better.
The 2nd album was 9 lives, which was just as fuckin cool, but without the internet, every new album, song, video clip, everything was like a surprize. You turn on the TV in the morning and boom, there's a new Aerosmith song and you're blown away and life is good.
But the real first album that I was able to experience with clear understanding was Just Push Play, which was 8 years down the line. It was a SPORTING EVENT for me. I remember looking at the sky at night, gazing at the stars and thinking "when will Aerosmith release a new album? They usually do it every 4 years now, so it should be soon. I better be on the look out this time". I'd be on the hunt for any piece of info, using any means I could - newspapers, gossips, TV news. For the first time ever I was able to find out that a new single [Jaded] was gonna drop the following month. I wasn't surprized anymore, I was ready. And I bought the single the day it came out. I saw the video world premiere on MTV. I fuckin voted for the songs on the charts, both local and global. I saw the MTV VMA where Aerosmith were nominated in 5 categories, and I was kickin and screamin when they didn't win any, just like watching a football game. I experienced the massive promotional action going on for the record. Even the local papers were running articles on Aerosmith. Papers that my parents read and bought. TV shows that my peers used to watch had promos on Aerosmith and they would tell me about it at school the next day. I then got ready and taped the rerun. A standard promo experienced for the first time by the eyes of a not yet jaded child seemed like a well deserved Aerosmith world takeover. What a feeling that was.
It makes it that much extra special seeing how the following album, Honkin on bobo, was as on the contrary to JPP as possible. No promo, no videos, nothing, I was all down to me to keep this album alive. It suddenly felt like being a member of the secret society, knowing about Bobo. A different kind of album, I would spin it during parties or dates and everybody said 3 things : I had no idea Aerosmith dropped a new album, I expected you to play poppy songs, this is great! I could experience both sides of the fence in short 3 years and I loved it.
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Post by martisucks on Jul 13, 2024 22:20:53 GMT -5
There's some quality stuff on JPP but about half of it isn't really my taste. In general, the album felt like Steven's vocals performed over some other band's songs. If it wasn't for Steven's distinctive voice, no one would have ever figured out that was Aerosmith. They were experimenting and I'm sure trying to stay current and to not get into a rut but I think they went a bit too far with the experimentation and the digital work. They also didn't have anyone at all to really reign them in on this one, as Steven and Joe basically produced it with Marti Frederiksen and Mark Hudson, who were frequent songwriting collaborators of Steven's and Joe's. They didn't have a real producer like a Bruce Fairbairn or a Kevin Shirley or anyone who would tell them "this isn't good enough" or "those lyrics/melody just isn't good enough". They didn't have anyone to challenge them. One of the few people left who would challenge them - John Kalodner - was removed by Steven and Joe from having involvement either during the JPP sessions or shortly after completion of the sessions because he wasn't happy with it. He was never allowed to work with Aerosmith again. I'm not sure what input they really allowed Kalodner to have on that album as Kalodner was one of the people who would tell them when a song or album wasn't good enough and he would be blunt about it. He made them re-record Get a Grip and would throw out songs that he felt weren't good enough for the albums.
An example of a track with potential to me was "Light Inside" but simple, unmemorable lyrics & chorus killed it - "the light inside is burning bright; the light inside oh yeah, alright.". Not much to it and not particularly memorable. That's a shame because there was some killer guitar work from either Joe or Brad (or both) on that song.
The other hard part with JPP was finding singles to sell the album. I think they essentially had pegged 3 songs ahead of time that would be the singles that would sell the album: Jaded, Just Push Play & Fly Away From Here. "Jaded" was a great, catchy pop-rock song, so I won't complain about it. "Fly Away From Here" was the 2nd single. That was slated to be the ballad single but, unfortunately it was the weakest ballad single that the band had ever released. That was a mistake; they needed a better ballad to serve as that 2nd single from the album. The band was also clearly counting on "Just Push Play" as a single to be a big hit and did the Dodge endorsement tie in where Dodge used it in their commercials. Unfortunately, that single did absolutely nothing and the album died with "only" 1 million albums sold as a result. By Aerosmith standards at the time, that was undoubtedly a major disappointment. I imagine they felt some real heat from Sony over the performance of JPP. Wikipedia lists "Just Push Play" as the 2nd single from the album, with an April 2021 release date and "Fly Away from Here" as the 3rd single from the album with a June 2021 release date but I remember hearing "Fly Away from Here" on the radio as a single before I ever heard "Just Push Play". So, I'm not too sure about that.
I hated the song "Just Push Play" at the time but I've warmed up to it, particularly live. Aerosmith did some killer live performances of JPP.
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