Search - Aerosmith :: Gold

Overkill for sure, but still a good compilation covering the

R. Gorham | 06/27/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"THE BAND: Steven Tyler (vocals, piano, harmonica), Joe Perry (guitars), Brad Whitford (guitars), Tom Hamilton (bass), Joey Kramer (drums & percussion).



THE DISC: (2005) 2 discs containing 34 tracks and approximately 158 minutes of music (78:56 on disc-1, 79:48 on disc-2). Included with the discs is an 18-page booklet containing some great band photos (studio and concert pictures), a 9-page brief history of the band, song titles & credits and what songs came from which albums. Songs on "Gold" range from material written from 1985 through their live album "A Little South Of Sanity" in 1998. Label - Geffen.



ALBUM REPRESENTATION: Done With Mirrors (3), Permanent Vacation (6), Pump (6), Get A Grip (6), Big Ones (2), A Little South Of Sanity (4), B-Sides/Misc (7).



COMMENTS: Like many other reviewers here, I too have to raise the question - how many Aerosmith compilations do we really need? As of 2005, I put Steven Tyler and Joe Perry right up there with Kiss' Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley money hungry mits... simply too many (Greatest Hits, Gems, Box Of Fire, Big Ones, O Yeah!, Pandora's Box, Made In America, Young Lust... and now Gold). Though many a negative review here, I'll take the opposite route and point out the good. First and foremost is all the B-Sides and rarities all in one place... "Ain't Enough" (from "Pump" - Japan only release), the Doors' remake of "Love Me Two Times" (soundtrack of "Air America"), "Head First" ("Eat The Rich" - Germany only release), "Don't Stop" (unreleased B-Side), "Can't Stop Messin' (unreleased B-Side), "Deuces Are Wild (soundtrack of "Beavis & Butt-Head Experience"), as well as the 2 previously unreleased songs from "Big Ones" ("Walk On Water" and "Blind Man"), and acoustic/orchestra versions of "Livin' On The Edge" and "Amazing" respectively. "Gold" runs similar to "Young Lust - The Aerosmith Anthology" (2001), but I'll take this one due to these special hard-to-find tracks. Keep in mind also - this is a GEFFEN release - anything they did with Columbia is not here (which is all their classic 70's material and anything from "Nine Lives" or "Just Push Play")... for contractual reasons. I have all of Aerosmith's studio albums on disc, but never took the plunge on a compilation of theirs... simply because I loved all their albums so thoroughly. I looked over the other Aero compilations - and went with "Gold" fairly easily. If you want a best of package to compliment this one, go with "Greatest Hits" or "Gems" which is strictly their 70's material. The only thing I disagree with is in the cd booklet where the author writes "Some things get better with age... Aerosmith rocks harder after 30 years in the business"... well, the band certainly still rocks, but I honestly don't think they rock as HARD as they did in the 70's. As far as track selection goes - the songs taken from the above mentioned studio albums are pretty much dead on (in my opinion missing only "Flesh", "Magic Touch" and Hoodoo Voodoo - Medicine Man") ...overall great track selections (4.5 stars)."

Careful with this one!!!!

Erick Bertin | Santo Domingo, Heredia Costa Rica | 10/24/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I don't want to overwhelm anybody with a lot of unnecessary babbling, so please, bear with me: this is a REPACKAGING of a previous compilation called "Young Lust" released in 2001, which focused on the "Geffen Years 1985-1997", meaning by that that the compilation includes songs from "Done with Mirrors" (1985), "Permanent Vacation" (1987), "Pump" (1989), "Get a Grip" (1993), "Big Ones" (1994, Greatest Hits package) and "A little south of sanity" (1997, live album). This one has THE EXACT SAME SONGS as "Young Lust", but with a MAJOR difference (the change in the cover notwithstanding): the price. It's probably half the price of the original. And please, please, bear in mind the following: THIS IS NOT, I REPEAT, NOT A GREATEST HITS PACKAGE!!!



It is an anthology, so it features A LOT of material that NEVER made it to the radio. If you're looking for the "hits" and nothing but the hits of that era, you need to get "Big Ones". But if you're interested in digging deeper into that period of the band's career, AND THAT PERIOD EXCLUSIVELY, then go ahead and get this: my guess is that you'll be pleasantly surprised by some of the songs included here, most of which have been overlooked, such as the material from "...Mirrors" (some of my fav overall), some non-album tracks (the cover of The Doors "Love me two times", tracks only previously available on singles and/or imports, such as "Can't stop Messin'", "Head First", etc) and some live tracks (good renditions of "Dream On", "Sweet Emotion").



Bottom Line:

- if you're a die hard, 70's Aerosmith fan: sorry, this compilation is probably not going to cut it for you. Get "O Yeah Ultimate Hits!" instead.

- if you're an Aerosmith completist: by all means, get this!! You'll find all of their latter day hits, and a few nuggets as well.

- if you're a casual fan: avoid this. It is probably a little too "complete" for you, since quite a bit of the material included will not be familiar to you. Get "Big Ones" or "O Yeah Ultimate Hits" instead."

Young Lust re-released

Bangsmith | Cumberland, RI | 03/04/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Yes, folks, this is an exact re-release of Young Lust. That one was released only 5 years before this and was remastered, so the sound quality is the same. The reason that only the Geffen stuff is on here is that Young Lust was put out by Geffen. If you have that, skip this. If you don't have that, buy this! This makes a great companion to Pandora's Box, as that set is a 3-CD box covering only their original Columbia years."