Disappointing.

I bought this expecting a decent Greatest Hits-type collection. With Aerosmith lately cranking out at least two "Best Ofs" per year (and they started back as early as 1980 with Best of Aerosmith!) I now wish I had purchased "O Yeah! The Greatest Hits" because "Gold" (released through Geffen) is pretty much just a bunch of their recent popular stuff, with a few older songs but none of the truly great ones. The fact that "Walk This Way" is not included in its original form, but with the more popular mainstream Run-DMC remix, is suiting.



What maddens me the most is that Aerosmith (or their labels) are really milking fans now - I mean, O Yeah is released, then this, and we have yet to even see a new album in between.



I'm not saying this is a totally worthless CD; it isn't. It has some good songs. But really, it's good for fans - if I were new to Aerosmith, I don't think this collection would really grab my interest or turn me on to their music.

Hey, Wait a Minute...

Fans of Aeromsmith may notice that the track listing on this album looks conspicuously like that of a greatest hits collection, "Young Lust: The Aerosmith Anthology," released less than four years ago and now conveniently unavailable at a discounted price. Perhaps unaware that the lack of sales in the previously collection was most likely related to the release of yet another Aerosmith greatest hits album in 2002 by Columbia, Geffen Records has slapped a new cover and title on the 2001 anthology and rereleased it, presumably hoping to sucker a few fans into buying a new copy. Fortunately, it appears to be near the bottom of Amazon's CD sales rankings as of this review (I only came across it because Amazon's algorithms put it on the home page for me), and that is precisely where it should stay.



Oh, the actual musical content warrants four stars, by the way. But who really cares at this point?

You have got to be kidding me...

Gold (2005.) An Aerosmith hits compilation.



One of the greatest classic hard rock groups of all time is, without question, Aerosmith. The group's unique breed of hard rock won over many a fan in the seventies. Even as the years progressed and the band changed their sound drastically, they still managed to hold an audience. Steven Tyler and the boys are all musical geniuses - a point that has been proven numerous times over the years. One complaint many fans make, though, is that there are too many Aerosmith compilations out there. I, for one, agree. How does this one, 2005's Aerosmith Gold, measure up? Read on for my review.



For this review, I'm gonna get right into what's wrong with the compilation - IT ONLY COVERS THE ERA OF 1985-1997! This means absolutely no songs from the seventies! In other words, no Mama Kin, Dream On, Same Old Song And Dance, Toys In The Attic, Sweet Emotion, Walk This Way, Draw The Line, Back In The Saddle, Last Child, Big Ten Inch Record, or Remember (Walkin' In The Sand.) Admittingly, some of these songs appear on here, but they are inferior live versions from the nineties. I can't believe it - two discs and they wasted the opportunity to do a career-spanning package. Instead, they did an inferior repacking of Young Lust. I was a bit surprised to find that the KISS Gold hits compilation was so good, but its Aerosmith cousin was so poor a compilation. Neither one is a career-spanning compilation, but in the case of the KISS one they spanned the best years of the band, while in Aerosmith's case the ignored the golden years outright. Weird. If you're new to Aerosmith and don't want to get all of their albums, get the dual-disc Oh Yeah compilation instead. All the music on this compilation is good, but it doesn't cover enough of the band's career, and in my opinion, totally omits their finest material.



This is a fairly new compilation so it is still readily available in most places that sell CDs. Of course, so is Young Lust, and it's basically the same thing, only better, so why not just buy it or Oh Yeah instead?



I was very disappointed by this collection. It's just an inferior copy of Young Lust, which wasn't that great of a compilation to begin with. If you're new to Aerosmith and don't want to get all of their albums, take a pass on this one and get Oh Yeah instead. You won't regret it. Buying this compilation, now THAT's something you'll regret.