AEROSMITH - Permanent Vacation

Permanent Vacation is the ninth studio album released by the Boston rockers, the first really important record launched by Aerosmith in 10 years, more precisely since Draw the Line in 1977. While Done with Mirrors was the band’s first record after Joe Perry and Brad Whitford returned to the band, but they needed two more years to find their way. We could say that one of the bigger gains for the bad was the executive producer of Geffen Records, John Kalodner, who managed to bring together with Aerosmith for this album producers that left their mark on the late 80s and early 90s, such as Bruce Fairbairn, Desmond Child, Mike Fraser or Jim Vallance.

Permanent Vacation was the natural continuation of Done with Mirrors, if we take into account that the band was still trying to find their way, we could say that Done with Mirrors needed to be released for the band’s morale. But it wasn’t Done with Mirrors to herald a return to the limelight for Aerosmith, but the re-release of Walk This Way with Run DMC. Not only does Run DMC owe a huge debt to Aerosmith for this collaboration (which turned them into the first hip hop band to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone), but also Aerosmith owes a lot to Run DMC for presenting their music to another generation, a different public that was not familiar with hard rock/blues sounds. Reunited and with fresh forces after giving up drugs, and also with good morale, seeing things getting better after almost 10 years, Aerosmith were ready to become the number 1 of hard rock in the United States of America.

Chock-full of hits like Rag Doll, Dude (Looks Like a Lady) or Angel, but also with songs proving that the band is still faithful to the 70s blues rock, such as St. John, Hangman Jury, Permanent Vacation or the cover version after The Beatles - I'm Down, supported by the rock arena vibe of titles like Heart's Done Time or Magic Touch, the album Permanent Vacation would reach the highest sales after Toys in the Attic (1975, 8 times platinum until today), becoming 5 times platinum and thus the Aerosmith’s second best-selling album in the 80s after Pump (7 times platinum).

I end by saying that Permanent Vacation is one of the most important hard rock albums released in the 80s and also one of the best Aerosmith releases ever, and it can easily be included among the band’s top 5 records.

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