Toys In The Attic/Aladdin Sane
This week #OnTheTurntable we will feature two lps from the early 70’s that are favorites on my rock lists – one that is featured in Robert Dimery’s ‘1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die’ – Aerosmith’s 1975 release ‘Toys In The Attic’ and David Bowie’s iconic release from 1973 ‘Aladdin Sane’.
Toys In The Attic – Aerosmith
Toys in the Attic is the third studio album from Aerosmith, released this very month in 1975. The album includes some of their best known songs and is the band’s most successful in the US with eight million copies sold. Reviews were originally mixed ranging from directionless to ‘a landmark of rock.’The disparity in the opinions seems as evident as the disparity in the song quality. Side one alone features ‘Walk This Way’ and the title cut, yet also fills the side with ‘Uncle Salty’ and ‘Big Ten Inch’
Side two of Toys In The Attic starts with the first single from the lp … Sweet Emotion … a song that became their first top forty hit, peaking at number 36 on The Billboard 100 … Walk This Way would be released three months later and would eventually crack the top ten in 1977. Best Ever Albums considers the lp the 10th best of 1975 and the 162nd best of the 1970’s … The album was ranked No. 229 on Rolling Stone‘s list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and Digital Dream Door Dot Com ranks Toys in the Attic number 11 on it’s top 100 list for 1975 …
Notable Tracks – ‘Sweet Emotion’ ‘Walk This Way’ ‘Toys In The Attic’
Aladdin Sane – David Bowie
The cover on this album gets more attention than the songs themselves. After its release, it was impossible to attend a Bowie concert without seeing multiple fans painted with the red, white and blue lightning bolt on their faces. Aladdin Sane is the sixth studio album from David Bowie … It was released this very weekend in 1973 and is one of my favorites, though many critics called it a mundane Ziggy follow up. It was the first lp that he wrote and recorded from a position of stardom …. The cover featured a lightning bolt across the White Duke’s face and is regarded as one of Bowie’s most iconic images …. The name is a pun on ‘A Lad Insane’ … Side one features one of my favorite Bowie tunes …. ‘Panic in Detroit’ …
Aladdin Sane was ranked among six Bowie entries on Rolling Stone‘s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time falling in at 277 and later at 279 in the 2012 revised list … Best Ever Albums Dot Dom considers Aladdin Sane the 9th best album of 1973 and the 77th best of the 1970’s … Digital Dream Door Dot Com ranks the album number 15 in its list of the top 100 of 73. Aladdin Sane is also listed in Robert Dimery’s book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
Notable Tracks – ‘Panic In Detroit’ ‘Drive-In Saturday’ ‘The Jean Genie’ ‘Let’s Spend The Night Together’