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Get a Grip

by Aerosmith

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While Aerosmith were busy capitalizing on the successes spawned by its improbable, career-reviving Permanent Vacation and Pump albums, the rock world was undergoing a Nirvana-inspired seismic shift. And although the Boston boogie-rockers had long worn the "dinosaur" tag as a badge of honor, this 1993 album is evidence that they took the twin challenges posed by the upsurge of alternative and hip-hop as something more than mere inconvenience. Unfortunately, the sometimes painfully forced, something-for-everyone results only argued that musicians should stick to their guns, come hell, high water--or ominous fashion trends. Or maybe they should have heeded the old adage about too many cooks. Indeed, Aerosmith is supplemented--and sometimes seemingly supplanted--here by no less than six outside writers (including previous vets Desmond Child and Jim Vallance, as well as Hudson brother Mark and retro soul-rocker Lenny Kravitz), and the schizoid production of Vacation and Pump helmsman Bruce Fairbairn, who seems as comfortable with alt rock's less-is-more ethos as Stone Cold Steve Austin would be in a tutu. The band should've known better, too. The social consciousness of "Livin' on the Edge" seems contrived, with Steven Tyler's intermittent rapping utterly disconnected from that on his pioneering "Walk This Way," while "Eat the Rich" inexplicably promotes auto-cannibalism. It's an album that goes all over the map to get uncomfortably close to nowhere. --Jerry McCulley